Crybaby
Saying things have been rough the past two weeks would be... generous. Last Friday my mom sent me another of many supportive, inspirational texts saying that I was her hero for making it through the week, still standing. Then it occurred to me that I was technically receiving praise for not offing myself. Such is my life right now. Womp womp.
To recap: My (now ex) boyfriend recently left me for another woman. That he met on chat roulette. She's a model In medical school. And she lives in fucking Peru. I'm still struggling to accept this new version of my life. Just Thanksgiving we were showing his sister pictures from our day in Brooklyn, looking at engagement rings. I can still hear him telling me that he felt we were "spiritually wedded". Four days before he sent me a text(??!) saying that we needed to talk, we were laying on his couch and he told me that he was my family.
So much for family.
I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'm much better off without someone who could betray me the way he did. Sitting at the table after dinner one night we contemplated the potential risks of our polyamory experiment & reassured each other that our love was strong enough to handle it. He professed to me his unwavering commitment, telling me how important loyalty was to him and how looking at it objectively it just wouldn't make sense to leave our extraordinary relationship for something new & unknown even if he did one day have strong feelings for someone else. And yet, here we are. He says he never thought this would happen but that doesn't change anything. I can understand that ultimately, maybe he & the replacement girlfriend are more well-suited. If that's the case, fucking mazel tov and maybe one day I'll stop entertaining myself with grotesque revenge fantasies involving force-feeding him crushed glass. However, there are two things that infuriate me about this whole shitfest: the way he handled our breakup and the fact that I should've seen this coming. I wanted so much to trust him that I ignored my gut. But in the end, the cowardly, selfish way he dealt with ending our relationship forced me to confront what I'd been hiding from all along. As I told him, the way you break up with someone should reflect the respect and care you feel for that person. So judging by the way he did the deed, he didn't respect me or care for me much at all, I guess I can count myself lucky that we didn't actually get engaged.
Today I saw him on the bus coming home from work. I'm never on the bus so early but between rescheduling a work thing, leaving the work thing early and then subway delays, I just happened to be there right on time. I was in a pretty sour mood at that point. At work, Robyn's "Call your Girlfriend" came on and was uncomfortably apropos. Then there was a girl with the same stupid name as the replacement girlfriend. And on the much delayed, crowded subway ride I was standing across from a girl who looked a bit like the replacement girlfriend. Ok, maybe the resemblance was only slight but to be honest, it doesn't take that much to put me over the edge these days. I'm like a walking, open wound. I know I'd never act on these impulses but I was literally standing there imagining myself kicking her in the face. And I know it sounds horrible but sometimes now when I see a pretty, young latin woman, I have a visceral reaction like a wave of nausea combined with a punch in the gut. I'm sure it will fade but I hate how I'm reacting to this whole stupid thing.
So anyway, I get on the bus and there he is. Upon seeing him, my stomach does a flip and something like a dry-heave sound escapes my lips. I hurry to my usual seat near the back, hoping he hasn't seen me. But then I think "fuck it" and head back to where he's sitting. I'm not really sure what to say and I hope he doesn't notice that my hands are shaking slightly, Recently, we spoke on the phone and I told him how I'd given his toilet a good scrub with his toothbrush and how I've been struggling with anger. He said he'd buy me a punching bag and boxing gloves and that he'd install the bag himself. So I decided to go on the offensive, asking him if I would actually be getting my punching bag or if that was just another something he said that he had no intention of following through on,
About 5 minutes later he was crying on the bus.
And you know what? It made me feel good. I don't know what kind of fucked up person I'm becoming when schadenfreude is now my main source of joy or when I find myself laughing out loud at my mental gore porn revenge fantasy. But I'm ok with this.
We sat together the whole trip, about an hour. He cried quietly for most of it. But at certain points we actually smiled at each other. After I told him about the crushed glass thing, we even laughed as he told me I needed to stop. I pulled out a book and read when I didn't know what to say and needed to focus on something else. I could feel him watching me and eventually I asked him what he was thinking. He said that if he told me I might be hurt or mad. At this point, I figure whats the difference so I take a few guesses. "You're thinking you're glad its over" "You're thinking she's prettier than me" "You're thinking I'm a crazy bitch". No, no & no. He said that he was thinking I was pretty and that he'd like to kiss me. He expressed this sentiment once or twice more over the course of the bus ride.
Near the end of the ride, seeing him tear up again, I said that I didn't know whether I should feel good that he was hurting or bad that he's hurting but still thinks its worth it. He said I should talk to my therapist about that. It stung a little. I don't think he meant anything by it but I felt like I was being put in my place. At the end of the day, he's the one in a happy, new relationship and I'm the one embarking on a new adventure in therapyland. He's the winner & I'm the loser. There's no way to recover what we had. The damage is irreparable. But if I'm brutally honest with myself, I still wish he'd said that it wasn't worth it.
I'm hopeful though. I'd like to say that its because I know i'm growing from this and that I'll be happier without him or something mature like that. While I know rationally that those things are true, I feel hopeful thinking that he's missing me & teetering on the edge of regret. I'm curious to know what would happen if I hadn't told him that I'd bite his tongue off if he tried to kiss me. I imagine an insidious plot to befriend him with the ultimate goal of making him want to cheat on the replacement girlfriend. The fact that I'd be playing with fire goes without saying. But I can't help thinking how satisfying it would be to hurt him & make him deeply regret what he's done. I get the distinct impression that it wouldn't be that hard or take very long. I just know that if it didn't work out the way I hope, I'd be the one getting hurt in the end.
To recap: My (now ex) boyfriend recently left me for another woman. That he met on chat roulette. She's a model In medical school. And she lives in fucking Peru. I'm still struggling to accept this new version of my life. Just Thanksgiving we were showing his sister pictures from our day in Brooklyn, looking at engagement rings. I can still hear him telling me that he felt we were "spiritually wedded". Four days before he sent me a text(??!) saying that we needed to talk, we were laying on his couch and he told me that he was my family.
So much for family.
I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I'm much better off without someone who could betray me the way he did. Sitting at the table after dinner one night we contemplated the potential risks of our polyamory experiment & reassured each other that our love was strong enough to handle it. He professed to me his unwavering commitment, telling me how important loyalty was to him and how looking at it objectively it just wouldn't make sense to leave our extraordinary relationship for something new & unknown even if he did one day have strong feelings for someone else. And yet, here we are. He says he never thought this would happen but that doesn't change anything. I can understand that ultimately, maybe he & the replacement girlfriend are more well-suited. If that's the case, fucking mazel tov and maybe one day I'll stop entertaining myself with grotesque revenge fantasies involving force-feeding him crushed glass. However, there are two things that infuriate me about this whole shitfest: the way he handled our breakup and the fact that I should've seen this coming. I wanted so much to trust him that I ignored my gut. But in the end, the cowardly, selfish way he dealt with ending our relationship forced me to confront what I'd been hiding from all along. As I told him, the way you break up with someone should reflect the respect and care you feel for that person. So judging by the way he did the deed, he didn't respect me or care for me much at all, I guess I can count myself lucky that we didn't actually get engaged.
Today I saw him on the bus coming home from work. I'm never on the bus so early but between rescheduling a work thing, leaving the work thing early and then subway delays, I just happened to be there right on time. I was in a pretty sour mood at that point. At work, Robyn's "Call your Girlfriend" came on and was uncomfortably apropos. Then there was a girl with the same stupid name as the replacement girlfriend. And on the much delayed, crowded subway ride I was standing across from a girl who looked a bit like the replacement girlfriend. Ok, maybe the resemblance was only slight but to be honest, it doesn't take that much to put me over the edge these days. I'm like a walking, open wound. I know I'd never act on these impulses but I was literally standing there imagining myself kicking her in the face. And I know it sounds horrible but sometimes now when I see a pretty, young latin woman, I have a visceral reaction like a wave of nausea combined with a punch in the gut. I'm sure it will fade but I hate how I'm reacting to this whole stupid thing.
So anyway, I get on the bus and there he is. Upon seeing him, my stomach does a flip and something like a dry-heave sound escapes my lips. I hurry to my usual seat near the back, hoping he hasn't seen me. But then I think "fuck it" and head back to where he's sitting. I'm not really sure what to say and I hope he doesn't notice that my hands are shaking slightly, Recently, we spoke on the phone and I told him how I'd given his toilet a good scrub with his toothbrush and how I've been struggling with anger. He said he'd buy me a punching bag and boxing gloves and that he'd install the bag himself. So I decided to go on the offensive, asking him if I would actually be getting my punching bag or if that was just another something he said that he had no intention of following through on,
About 5 minutes later he was crying on the bus.
And you know what? It made me feel good. I don't know what kind of fucked up person I'm becoming when schadenfreude is now my main source of joy or when I find myself laughing out loud at my mental gore porn revenge fantasy. But I'm ok with this.
We sat together the whole trip, about an hour. He cried quietly for most of it. But at certain points we actually smiled at each other. After I told him about the crushed glass thing, we even laughed as he told me I needed to stop. I pulled out a book and read when I didn't know what to say and needed to focus on something else. I could feel him watching me and eventually I asked him what he was thinking. He said that if he told me I might be hurt or mad. At this point, I figure whats the difference so I take a few guesses. "You're thinking you're glad its over" "You're thinking she's prettier than me" "You're thinking I'm a crazy bitch". No, no & no. He said that he was thinking I was pretty and that he'd like to kiss me. He expressed this sentiment once or twice more over the course of the bus ride.
Near the end of the ride, seeing him tear up again, I said that I didn't know whether I should feel good that he was hurting or bad that he's hurting but still thinks its worth it. He said I should talk to my therapist about that. It stung a little. I don't think he meant anything by it but I felt like I was being put in my place. At the end of the day, he's the one in a happy, new relationship and I'm the one embarking on a new adventure in therapyland. He's the winner & I'm the loser. There's no way to recover what we had. The damage is irreparable. But if I'm brutally honest with myself, I still wish he'd said that it wasn't worth it.
I'm hopeful though. I'd like to say that its because I know i'm growing from this and that I'll be happier without him or something mature like that. While I know rationally that those things are true, I feel hopeful thinking that he's missing me & teetering on the edge of regret. I'm curious to know what would happen if I hadn't told him that I'd bite his tongue off if he tried to kiss me. I imagine an insidious plot to befriend him with the ultimate goal of making him want to cheat on the replacement girlfriend. The fact that I'd be playing with fire goes without saying. But I can't help thinking how satisfying it would be to hurt him & make him deeply regret what he's done. I get the distinct impression that it wouldn't be that hard or take very long. I just know that if it didn't work out the way I hope, I'd be the one getting hurt in the end.