just need to talk this out...so sad
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| Mon, 05-05-2008 - 9:42am |
Hey everyone...I'm really having a difficult time right now. Mostly, I'm lonely, but in that loneliness I'm realizing that there is a profound sadness that runs deeper than loneliness.
Here's my story...
I was married for 6 years. I left him in Augut 2006 for several reasons, the least of which was that I was too young when I got married and didn't choose the right person. Great guy but we're headed down two very different paths. I had a friend while I was making this decision to leave. He was a confidante, a trusted source of reflection for myself. As I left my marriage, he quickly (instantly) became more. We fell hard. We basically collided and in so many ways he was my shelter from all the pain of watching my marriage fall apart. But he was also in the way. In the way of me making my own way through the pain and loss and in my way of discovering who I was without the definition of my marriage in my life. We had a very intense, VERY intense, relationship over the last year and a half. We're passionate as it gets but also fight like crazy when the dust gets kicked up around the fact that I haven't been alone in the ways I needed when I first left exH. We've been in the ending phase of our break-up for months now. We moved in together in January and that's when I realize this needed to end. Doesn't it always happen that way?
So now he's out finally and in his very blurred idea of boundaries, has returned his key (only after walking into my dark bedroom at midnight last week, and not understanding why that would scare me and then make me angry). I told him that this is over and that he needs to leave me alone until I contact him again. We still have to wrap up the exit of our apartment at the end of this month. He left with his tail between his legs. I felt so sorry for him. He was his most pathetic in that moment and it just broke my heart.
And then there is this other guy whom I have been spending some nice time with, just as friends. I was very clear about my boundaries and he knows exactly where I'm at in this break-up. We've just been grabbing a beer here and there, sharing our stories and getting to know one another. I know him because he was a teacher of mine last year at massage school. So it's an easy connection because of shared interests. I'll be honest and admit that his harmless flirtation and attention to me has felt really good in all of this heartache.
So last Friday I went over to his house and we made dinner and listened to music. He kissed me and I was ok with that on some level. Then it went further (no sex, though) and at one point we both stopped and he quietly and sweetly suggested we take a moment let our emotions catch up and see where we're at with all of this. He's really mature like that - and has a lot of integrity - realizing that we were overstepping my boundaries. I finally left and felt a little humiliated. I guess I am the one who initiated the more than kissing part. But he certainly took it and continued. I apologized for being too forward and he told me to stop apologizing and that it was very mutual.
So I spent Saturday feeling rejected, angry at myself, so so sad, lonely, irritated and kind of angry at the whole friggin mess of my life. Yesterday we went for a hike and I told him that I just feel weird because I was enjoying our friendship and innocent flirting but that I went too far for my comfort level on Friday. He agreed and said that he's also trying to figure out where he's at in his life. We're both in these major transitions. He was so great. But I still felt like total crap. This is so not about the missteps of Friday night. This is so much more about feeling vulnerable in this break-up, the unresolved issues of my past, the lack of self-awareness without a man's attention and the fact that I showed him my body and my sexuality when I wasn't ready for it. And now we're supposed to be friends?
We agreed to have some margheritas tonight at a local mexican bar to celebrate Cinqo de Mayo. But I woke up this morning and emailed him at work and said that I'm not in a good place with this. I need some time to integrate this new idea of friendship with him after Friday night and feeling just lousy in general. Basically, the tension of playful flirting can't happen now because we've overstepped that line, so we're going to try to be friends without that natural feeling of attraction? I dunno, just not ready to go practice this watered-down version with him so quickly.
Everyone around me is saying that I need to take a break from men in my life for a little while...heal from these other losses and try to spend some quality time with myself, getting to know who I am without that reflection of a man. I agree. It just gets so loney and I realize how hooked I am on male attention. I've always had someone, ever since I was 14. That's nuts. That's more than half my life that I've been in a relationship!
So does this all seem normal? Is it stupid that I should feel so much after my Friday night mistake? I see how it just taps into the deeper things in me, but I'm really lost in all of this. Maybe there isn't room for a friendship with this person right now. Maybe I don't owe that to him just because he can apparently handle it so well.
Just needing to write this out, I guess. Thanks for listening...

Just seems like it's time you got to know yourself instead of all these men.
I never in my life thought I would identify with someone as much as I do with you.
Except - I was "married" for 20 years....had a male friend which helped give me the extra courage to leave (all about men-all my life).