At this time last week I was at BN2’s, hurt, angry – and probably spoiling for a fight. We’d had a fight the night before, and nearly had one the previous day, and certainly had one the day before that, and as I left his place for Pilates Saturday morning I knew we’d probably have one that night, depending on whether I chose to go out that evening (I had an out of town friend visiting) or accede to his request (demand?) that she come over for dinner instead. (It was a weekend where he was looking after his daughter.)
All day I’d been anxious, not having heard from him despite my specific request that he check his messages about midafternoon (he was out with someone – yes, a woman -- in whose presence he rarely, if ever, responded to my texts).
How is it possible this was only a week ago?
It’s not easy extracting someone from your life. Everything reminds me of him. The shop windows are full of cute summer dresses I no longer need for our trip to Venice. I make my morning porridge with my measuring cup and remember how I’d make it using a teacup to measure at his place. I read the papers and find information I might have emailed him because I thought it might help him with his business. I wear my flat black knee high boots – the first knee high boots I ever bought – which I bought two years ago in Venice, notice for the trillionth time how wrecked they are, and think about how I’d hoped to replace them in Venice. Even my lip gloss reminds me of him. I bought it while getting my makeup done at Benefit for a ball we attended in May, and he liked it. I’m not very good about wearing makeup, but whenever I wore it – even as recently as a couple of weeks ago – he’d comment that he liked it. I’d laugh, glad that he still liked it.
Yesterday he sent 18 pink roses, with a note saying he was sorry for driving me away. This morning he left me a four-minute voicemail, and then an email asking me to respond letting him know I’d received the voicemail and the “time-sensitive delivery” (the flowers).
He knew better than to berate me for not responding to the list of questions he’d emailed me about why I left, although he came close to it, saying I’d had time to send the odd email and text. I felt like telling him I’d have had a lot more time to respond to it if he and his mother hadn’t called me and texted me so much.
I’ve drafted a note to send him – I hope to send it tomorrow. Yes, I am sending it partially under duress. But I’m also sending it for myself, because I want him to know how I felt. I don’t want to be nasty, or to air every last grievance. I don't expect him to apologize. (Actually, I expect he'll be angry no matter what I write, and pick it apart. But I don't have to respond to any further emails after this one.) I just want to be able to move on.
This is what I’ve written so far:
Dear BN2:
I find this note enormously difficult to write.
All week I have been starting messages to you, and not finishing them. I asked for time and space to think, and to grieve, and you didn’t respect my wishes. If you had – and if you had in the past – things might be different.
I may never be able to give you an explanation that satisfies you, but: I left because I was very unhappy and had been for a long time. I tried to fix things in every way I could but instead we seemed to fight more, and your criticism came almost daily. Since September, whenever I tried to tell you how I felt, you told me it wasn’t my turn to be the aggrieved party, and more recently, you mocked me and belittled me. Every day I felt hurt, anxious, sad and alone. Feeling physically afraid of you last Saturday night made me unable to stay any longer.
I want to spend my life with someone who loves me the way I am – and is proud and happy to be with me. You were not honest and open with [female "friend," and yes, the quotation marks are deliberate] – and with other women – about our relationship, and that both angered me and hurt me deeply. Your choice not to tell the whole truth to others was also one of the things that made me question what future we could have, and whether the things we each wanted and needed could ever be reconciled.
I'm not sure I dare ask for thoughts, but...?
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Reading this and his reaction to the breakup makes me somehow think if the roles were reversed and you were the one behaving like him and he was behaving like you people would think you, the female BN2, were out of your mind, crazy stalkerish, mad woman. As yet as a man it's like, oh he must really like you. It's so odd the difference. I kind of feel like BN2 is trying anything, anything to keep you on the line so to speak. I kind of feel like you shouldn't give him a letter but tell him it's time for him and for you to move on. Just simple and done. Otherwise you're really feeding into him and giving him a reason to continue on with all of this. I think at some point, either now or in the future, you'll find yourself having to close the book on him forever. It may be easier on you to just do that now. I do support you and feel for you during this time.
ReplyDeleteYep - just read JN's comment above and definitely think it's time for a relationship knife to come out. Cut the strings and say goodbye. Do you REALLY owe him an explanation or is that your survivor's guilt getting to you?
ReplyDeleteYou sound like you're getting your head back though, slowly but surely.
Good luck.
Lesley x
I agree with the ladies above. This guy is toxic, and has messed with your head to the point you feel you owe him something. You don't.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you got involved with this guy. There is someone MUCH better out there for you.
Beth, I agree that it can be extremely difficult to extract someone from your life, but I think you are handling this very well.
ReplyDeleteHe is being ... well, himself and in spite of being tired and sad and hungry and etc, you are actually standing pretty strongly by yourself.
One idea I had was to maybe start weaning BN2 from his contact with you -- and weaning yourself from it as well. Start with just four hours during which you will not read or reply to any texts or emails nor listen to any voicemails from him. If flowers come to your door during those four hours, just leave them on the doorstep until the fifth hour.
The next day, choose a five hour block of time to maintain communication silence and the day after that, make it a six hour block of time. Eventually, you will have entire days during which you don't read any of his texts and don't reply to any of his emails.
Something like that might help him ease into this separation and help him get used to not having 24/7 access to you. Little by little, he will learn to be without you -- and you will get the time and space you need to think and grieve and rebuild your life -- and rebuild yourself.