I’m pretty sure I just broke up with B__. It wasn’t my goal exactly, though in the back of my mind, I’d considered that it might be preferable to making a Very Big Mistake™. The timing couldn’t have been worse; she told me she loved me tonight. Your groans and forehead-smacks are so loud, I can hear them from here.
We’ve been dating for just under two months. About two weeks ago, she said something that sure sounded to me like, “I love you.” I’ve certainly been walking around since then wondering what the hell is the matter with me that I couldn’t return it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and that train of thought brought me to tonight’s events.
I wasn’t really sure what I wanted — I’m still not. So, naturally, that’s the first thing she asked and didn’t really appreciate me not having a good answer — let alone no answer at all. Probably fair.
Part of me just needed her to know that I’ve become freaked out by the imbalance of what we feel for each other. She’s been inhabiting “in-love” territory, and while I care about her very much, it’s not the same. I’ve been swallowing my hang-ups hoping they were some kind of new relationship jitters or guilt about still being married. Either, neither or both might still be true, but the point is it didn’t go away like I’d hoped. Not quickly enough to avoid saying something, so I said something.
It upset her (of course) and she said it was coming out of left field (true). Why had I done all those intimate things with her? Why had I pretended everything was fine? Why had I put a profile on a dating site in the first place if I wasn’t ready for a relationship?
I didn’t give very good answers for those either.
I have some guesses, but I hope I’m wrong. As far as my hopes go, I hope we sort it all out, fall in love, and live happier ever after, but I’m a bit jaded on that narrative. First and foremost, I needed desperately to get laid. There, I said it. Go fuck yourself if you can’t handle it. Me? I got really bored of fucking myself.
It was never the plan to have an only-for-the-sex relationship. Au Contrare. I’ve never had one, per se, and I doubt I’d enjoy it very long. But I did allow myself the luxury of the standard guy-thing. Too easily connected in the bedroom, ignoring (for the moment at least) the conspicuously lopsided emotional connection. Again, I don’t know if it’s specific to B__ or would have happened with anyone.
Part of what I found so intolerable about my marriage was feeling as though the time I had to spend as I chose got smaller and smaller until it disappeared altogether. The need for more money meant that time spent on work started to crowd out even other truly important things. I came to resent not being “free” and saw it as a major benefit of divorce. Now here I’ve gone and put myself into another relationship and it’s already swallowing free time as fast as I let it. Astute readers will note the lack of regular updates recently. Just a for-instance.
But wait. There’s more. I know at least a slice of this angst comes straight from the fear that if I find someone else too quickly, I’ll leave myself no opportunity to play the field. I don’t mean that in a sexual way, I mean it in a maybe-I-could-find-someone-better way, and believe me, the guilt is fairly equivalent.
Speaking of guilt, could it be that some part of my subconscious needs to find someone to punish — to break someone’s heart in cosmic revenge for my own heartbreak? God, I hope not.
B__ is really very fantastic. She deserves to be loved without reservations, and I’m apparently packing them by the truckload. I walked out her door and down the walk and mumbled something to myself about that being one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. The relationship itself or ending it, I’m not yet sure.