This post will make more sense if you read the previous two blog entries for some backstory.
When I decided to tell this story, I made a promise to myself that I would be as truthful as possible. Obviously, I'm going to keep names to myself. Anything I omit is for a reason. I don't care about protecting myself. I'm a woman. Judgement lives on my doorstep already. Gratefully, I really aged into my father when it comes to how much I care about what people think of me. With that said, I will never type out the very vile and crude things X said about the other woman in this mess. I don't need to put more vitriol into the world. Second, I had a chance to protect her once, and I absolutely did not. Nobody deserves the things he said. I know that now. For what it's worth, I'm aware that I'm not going to come across well in this post, but since I can't undo the past, I might as well be honest about it.
I’m primarily a girls’ girl. I never considered going out with a friend’s ex or crush. It was just not worth the potential cost of a friendship. Problematically, I didn’t like X’s girlfriend, but it wasn’t for the obvious reason. While sitting next to her in the backseat of X’s car on our way to visit friends a few hours away, she made a very homophobic comment. I’m like 90% certain that I came out of the womb ready to fight social injustices. Truly, my first and only physical altercation was when I punched a boy in the nose for saying people who drank diet soda were gay when I was in the first grade. I don't know if I even knew what "gay" meant at that age, but I understood that it was being used as an insult. I wasn't okay with it then, and I'm certainly not okay with it now. I know her comment elicited a snarky response from me, but I didn't have a lot to work with in that car ride. X, who was driving, is spineless. His roommate was very into the whole "marriage is meant for a man and woman" thing. Given that he is divorced already, I'm going to go ahead and say that maybe he should have fleshed out his thoughts on marriage a little more. Finally, I had the girl sitting next to me who made the initial comment. I don’t understand people who hate entire groups of people. I don’t want to understand it. With that said, I can hold a grudge, and that one comment destroyed any loyalty I might have felt toward her. She may very well have changed since then. Did I know he was dating her at times he flirted with me? Yes. Did I care? Not so much. I know the other woman is typically thought of as trashy while the man gets a "boys will be boy" pass, but I've always found this line of reasoning dumb. I wasn't the one who lied and cheated. I'm not responsible for his actions. When past boyfriends got overly flirty with another woman in front of me, I didn't pull the other girl away to scream at her. I either flat out dumped the guy or asked if he wanted to be single because I could easily make that happen for him. Truly, the reason I ended up in the car ride from hell was because my then boyfriend posted, "you can still look at the menu when you're on a diet." I got angry. We broke up for a little bit, and when we got back together, he had learned a valuable lesson about where I drew the line. In fairness, I don't actually have anything bad to say about that ex. He wasn't malicious. Just young and dumb. Highly relatable.
In the two to three years following undergrad, X and the other girl fell into a pattern of breaking up and making up. Without fail, the second they broke up, I got a message from X asking if I wanted to come over that night. I never said yes because I’m worth more than a rebound. By the time I would actually consider dating X, he would be back with her. I don’t know her thought process, but I know his and it’s not pretty. He broke up with her because he wanted to see if he could do better, and he went back because I didn't immediately run to him. X is the Oprah of red flags. Everyone gets the gift of at least one.
One poorly planned text to X after being over served one night ignited a not so fun or proud chapter in my life. I fully accept responsibility for sending the text and opening Pandora’s Box. Most of the guys I dated and/or truly respected in college moved for a job or some type of higher education: med school, grad school, law school. I knew I couldn't handle a long distance relationship at 21 years old. I could barely remember my car keys and wallet at that age. I don't regret my choice to not be in a long distance relationship because I was too immature for it. I do regret that I lowered my standards for dating considerably. I sent X a text because I was bored and not thinking clearly. If I had to write a book about all of the bad decisions I have made, I would title it, "You See, I Was Bored." X and I met up for dinner shortly after I sent the text. We were on the topic of dating and I revealed what I couldn’t at 18: I had feelings for him. I truly expected him to just laugh and for it to be a joke given that I quite obviously had feelings for him when I was younger and those feelings weren't reciprocated. I knew he flirted with me and made passes at me over the years, but I didn't take them seriously because I had every reason to assume he just wanted to hook up with me. He seemed shocked by my confession and admitted he had feelings for me. We spent two hours walking, talking, holding hands, subtly bumping into each other, and not so subtly kissing. I’m not proud of it.
It would be fair to ask why I did it after years of red flags. I don't have a spectacular answer. I'm sure my ego played a part in the equation as he was the only guy who ever rejected me and I didn't love it. At the time, I don't think I realized just how much the 18 year old version of me still existed and how much I still wanted his approval. Time had softened my memories enough that I forgot how badly he treated me. Time also made me nostalgic for the best of us. There were good moments sprinkled in our history. We used to sit by the pool at his parents' house and talk for hours with empty threats of tossing the other person into the pool. He later told me his mom watched us once and told him we looked perfect together after I left, and her comment made him tear up that night. When he wasn't paying attention in the car in the summer months, I would put on his seat warmer and wait to see how long it took him to realize that I did it because I knew it annoyed him. At one point, I tried to teach him how to golf and spent most of the time doubled over laughing because I have never met someone with such terrible hand eye coordination, and I taught most of my friends how to golf over the years. Somehow, he was the worst at it, and it brought me joy. He started kicking my butt during a game of pool once, and because I'm a competitive brat, I leaned over the pool table in a compromising position. He was distracted enough that he sent a ball flying off the table, and his scratch opened the door for my win and subsequent gloating. He saw my nephew, who was probably only two at the time, run to me when we showed up at an amusement park and commented on how sweet it was to watch. I watched as he nervously kept an arm and eye out when we walked after I had been drinking. I'm a happy drunk, not an uncoordinated one, but I appreciated that he worried about me tripping. As much as I want to say that everything between us was bad, I can't because we had our moments over the years. The unfortunate part is that I will never know how sincere he was in any of those moments given how much he lied. Did he actually care about the possibility of me tripping or was it just an excuse to touch me? I won't ever know, but his track record would suggest the latter is a more accurate interpretation of events.
The day he admitted to being in love with me, he promised to break up with his girlfriend immediately. As you can probably guess, that didn't happen. He found reasons to put it off for a bit. They had RSVPed to go to a wedding together, his friends would hate him for breaking up with her, etc. Over the next three or four months, he cheated on her with me. He continually promised he was going to end it, and I believed him because I wanted to believe him. For every time he put off breaking up with her, he showered me with praise and assurances of his love. At one point, he told me his love for me was the kind of stuff people wrote songs about because his feelings were that strong. Whenever someone cheats, assuredly, the cheater is lying to two people: their significant other and the person with whom they are having an affair. I would not have done it if there weren’t promises made. It didn't make me feel better about the situation or my role in it. If anything, it only made me feel like an idiot.
Oddly, I think I stood up for his girlfriend, whom I didn't enjoy, in that time period more than he did. I was the one who pushed the brakes hard on the amount of times we hung out while he had a girlfriend. I was the one who continually said no to his requests to go out for drinks because I knew how that could end. I was the one who begged him to just choose and come clean with the other one. I was the one who made it clear he was not getting past PG-13 with me while maintaining a relationship with someone else. If I was just looking to make out with someone, I would have aimed a lot higher. Ultimately, I was the one who gave an ultimatum. This mess would likely still exist if I didn’t hit my breaking point.
For some time, I thought I didn’t have a choice. I thought I needed him to decide while I waited, but I was mistaken. There is always a choice. I eventually told him that he had one week to make up his mind. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t, I would just walk away. He said I was being unfair. He said that I turned him into a bad person. He blamed me for his lies. He decided it was me who made him selfish. He claimed I always knew how he felt about me and I was ruining his life by wanting an answer. He blamed his poor behavior on me. Here's the thing. It's very hard to see you're in a volatile and emotionally abusive relationship while you are in it, and I absolutely internalized his words. It wasn't until far after everything ended that I realized he did an extraordinary job gas-lighting me. Emotional abuse simply wasn't discussed as much at that point in time. I wouldn't have had the words to describe even if I wanted to talk about it then.
A few days later, he emailed me to tell me he couldn’t break her heart. I would argue that he did that every time he crossed a line with me and who knows whom else. Privately, I cried because I let him use me again. Publicly, I pulled it together because I don't like to be seen as breakable. I still don't like to be seen as weak. I didn’t respond to the email and went on my well traveled path of pretending to be okay. If you go by social media, I was having the time of my life. I was not, but I also knew I would be okay. I had kept enough barriers up to protect myself. I didn't stop dating after our initial dinner and subsequent time spent together. Given that he had a girlfriend, I decided I could go on dates with whomever I wanted. I didn't tell him I went on dates during that time period given that I didn't owe him anything. After I got his curt email, I didn't sit at home and mope. I went to dinner with friends. I spent the day with one of X's closest friends from high school. I knew seeing pictures of me with his friend would get under X's very thin skin, and I've already admitted to being petty. I watched and laughed as my dad ran through the backyard with sparklers to make my nephew laugh. Was I okay at that precise moment? No. I had just been emotionally waterboarded for several months. Scars formed over what he did to me at 18, and he carelessly reopened them.
Five days later after he sent the email, he arrived at my parents’ house unannounced. Per his words, he had hoped I would still be asleep when he got there so he could watch me sleep. Luckily for him, I was awake. I think he thought there would be a warm welcome from my parents. I don’t entirely know how he expected that given the amount of times he made me cry. X has a younger sister, and I very much doubt his parents would be thrilled to see a guy who made her cry. In general, he always lacked self-awareness. I’m my parents’ youngest child and their only daughter. My dad didn’t like any guy interested in me on principle alone. Of the guys I dated, my dad always disliked X the most because my dad thought he was an unctuous kiss ass. When X showed up at my house that day, both of my parents had a lot of unkind things to say to him which still seems very understandable to me. I quickly yanked X to go on a walk to get him out of the line of fire and to keep my dad from hitting the height of his temper. I knew X couldn't handle an angry me, and I'm a more sedate version of my father in that area. At the end of the day, I was going to date whomever I wanted regardless of people’s opinions, including my parents.
On the walk, he said all the right things. He chose wrong. He was miserable without me. He loved me. He broke up with his girlfriend. He wanted us to be together. By that point, he had worn me down and I agreed. He said the things that 18 year old me desperately wanted to hear, which made me feel like I was 18 again. I grew up watching movies by John Hughes. Several of his movies involved the grand gesture of the guy showing up at the girl's house just when it looks like all was lost. As it turns out, I'm a bit of a sap. At the time, his showing up meant everything. Now, I think that grand gestures are mainly a ploy for forgiveness. At best, they're showy. At worst, they're manipulative. I will give X credit. It did work.
In the photo above, I am surrounded by friends. I believe it was taken over a holiday when I was about 23 years old. While my dating life was in disarray at various points in my life, I never really had to worry about my friendships. Maintaining those came easily to me, and I've done a pretty solid job of surrounding myself with a group of impressive friends who bring out the best in me. Unfortunately, I did not have that same kind of natural insight into dating quite as young.
To be continued....