Do I consider us friends? Yes, great friends. We know things about each other that few if any others know. We respect and support each other, even if it is now in very limited ways.
Do I consider us more than friends? Yes. He calls me most days. He tells me about his days and, if there is anything to tell, listens to what I tell him about mine. I leave stuff out now because he's a fixer and he cannot fix what he has no time for. I'm a listener and supporter and comforter, so he tells me virtually everything, including letting loose a few things about his wife or marriage that are hurting him.
Do I expect the situation to ever change again? I don't know. I hope so; I think the pain in his marriage would cause another person to leave. Sometimes one can be too committed. It's possible that I am being biased, but honestly I am probably too self-aware and too committed to truth and to other people's happiness or at least having what they want, even if it means I don't get what I need or want. I am fair with him, overly so if you ask my friends who know. Few do.
One of my friends thinks that being in love with a married man is my way of avoiding commitment. When I ask this friend what he considers all my previous relationships where I desperately wanted commitments, his opinion is that my disastrously poor choices and catastrophically bad relationships stem from the same fear to commit. It's an issue of contention between us, of course.
I have told a very few people about this relationship because I know most will judge me for it. It's about lying and cheating and it's wrong, right? Maybe ... not. I think that life is complicated and flexible. I have cheated. I have been cheated upon. I think that we all try to get what we need and I think that sometimes our partner can't, or even won't, give us what we need. And I think that sometimes a partner won't let us give them what they need and want. Thus the one who cheated most egregiously on me, was, to take his word, "not physical." Sometimes a partner wants out but doesn't want to be "the bad guy." This is why I've had to be the bad guy in numerous relationships because apparently I've got more balls than quite a few of the guys I've been involved with.
This is the man for me: he is virtually everything I want in a partner. He even matches virtually every one of the qualities I wrote in a list some time ago. All the important ones, at any rate.Once a cheater, always a cheater? Not necessarily. Once you have what you want and need, most of us never look elsewhere again. There are as many reasons to look outside a relationship as there are people. I doubt that most people will do so, simply because they obey all the rules and there's nothing wrong with that at all. I admire that.
I'm lonely and have never had a longer-term relationship than three years. I don't know if there is something wrong with me, or with my taste, or with the Universe, but I have never gotten all of it: want, need, someone who wants to be with me forever.
I'm not looking, partly because i love this man and it would hardly be fair to date someone else when my heart is elsewhere. I'm used to being alone, as much as I hate it. I am built, from the very atoms of my being, for a relational life, for having a man to share my life with, for having children to love and mentor and support. The Universe laughs. My therapist understands why I feel the Universe hates me.
I love a man, but he's not mine. I hate it, but I'm okay with it. I just wish my mom could have met him.
Two things...
ReplyDelete1- you need to google around and read what Dan Savage says about monogamy, it's valuable, and pertinent.
B) how do you know your mom has NOT met him? SOME people believe that our Loved Ones CAN see those we care about, even from Someplace Else.
Julie
I have a friend who has been waiting for her lover to leave his wife (he just needs to do x and he can leave; he just needs to do y now and he can leave) for a DECADE. To want my friend to love him yet not be willing to sacrifice anything to be with her is cowardly, but also disrespectful to her worth. You are worth commitment and honesty and loyalty. He cannot possibly be worth your time if he doesn't see that.
ReplyDelete@Julie: I knew you were going to say my mom probably has met him, or something like that! LOL!
ReplyDelete@Fokker: you are right; people who expect their lover to hang on "just a little bit longer" are selfish, and people who expect their lover to leave their spouse is probably deluding themselves. He has never led me on. He has never said he'd leave her; he has said he won't. And I believe that more or less. Also, we aren't lovers anymore; he couldn't handle the double life so he is just with his wife, as much as anything. We behave as friends, whatever we each may feel or think. I only thought he would leave her when we first met and he was "mostly" separated (they didn't talk, they lived at opposite ends of their house). But she then chose to talk to him about making it work and he is committed. Even tho' it's really not going to well anymore. But it's his choice and I respect it. We see each other once in a while for lunch or to go take photos, and we talk and occasionally email. That's it. It's just my love and wanting that haven't changed. I don't talk about it anymore because it doesn't do either of us any good. so it's different. So promises, no more lovering, no expectations. But it's still been the all-time best relationship I've ever had with a man before.
I don't see this as a morality issue, I think it's what The Fokker says. So I won't say much more only... please, for us, just guard your heart a tiny wee bit. Just spray a little bit of Scotch Guard around it. If his wife isn't into having an open marriage, and if they never divorce, I'd rather not see you as The Other Woman. NOT for morality reasons, but because you are a Superstar and shouldn't have to play understudy to another woman. ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut please don't take that as a judgment, or a reason not to talk about this again. Once you fall in love with someone, well... that's it. It's damned hard to know what the sensible decisions are after that. I know that myself.
lol I guess we were writing at the same time! I think what *alarmed* me was the bit about him still pouring out all his feelings to you, instead of to--maybe--a marriage counselor? Because it seems kinda unfair to you, to be giving you all these feelings about his marriage floundering, when he should be able to guess you might still have feelings for him.
ReplyDeleteBut if I was in your position, I would WANT him to still be confiding in me, because it would mean we still had this emotional closeness that he doesn't have with his wife, which means there's still a bit of a tender relationship/affair there. <-- And that's the thing that I think he shouldn't be, sorta kinda, doing to you. If that makes any sense.
Ho hum, I'll stop now.
Hmm. Y'know, we aren't still having an affair. We are just friends. I wasn't clear: he doesn't talk much about his wife or his marriage. But she has an issue that sometimes slips out in what he says, when he's frustrated beyond himself. Mostly we talk about work or something new we've done. Or his doggie, who seems to be on the road the the Rainbow Bridge, I'm afraid, which makes both of us very sad. But we are not acting as lovers in any way. Not even a kiss. Just the occasional one-armed "friend" hug. Don't worry. I love where I love, but he is neither encouraging me nor discouraging me. He believes in letting a person feel and think what they want. I'm okay; I'm not playing the part of The Other Woman. But thank you all for your concern.
ReplyDelete:-) Never mind then! I am foolz!
ReplyDelete