Complexity abounds

If you are B, please stop reading. Now. I mean it. Do not bookmark this site again. Do not read any further. This is my place to vent, and it is invalidated when you read it to “keep up” with me. It crosses the line from showing interest to prying. I will talk to you about it when I’m ready. I mean it. Just stop.

And hopefully he will respect that.

I’ve been holding back so much out of fear that he’ll find his way back here and hold the things I say against me. And I have so much to say.

It has been 5 months since I found out about her. 5 months since I laid out, as clearly and fairly as I possibly could, what I needed from him to convince myself I wasn’t an idiot for staying. The things he could say or do that would help me trust him again, that would show he didn’t intend to go back to the same behavior. Things that would be my personal motivation to stop being the snooping, obsessive, email-reading, jealous shrew I had become. They were not simple things, but not impossible. Things like confronting our mutual friends who encouraged him to lie to me. Talking to her, telling her to move on with her life and quit calling, emailing, and generally pining away as though she was still 16. I wrote these things down so that they could not be forgotten or misremembered. I gave them to him in a letter (which has been in my drawer for the past 4 months because he didn’t even notice when he lost it).

He initially told me he would do all this and more. That he loved me more that he had ever loved anyone and was terrified by the thought of losing me. That he was sorry, so terribly sorry, for his asinine behavior. Did I believe him? Hell no. I’ve had way too much of that shit in my life at this point. Telling me what I want to hear is chaep and easy. I waited for him to do it.

And waited.

And waited. Five months now.

We’ve talked about this plenty during all that waiting. He says that it’s hard, that I'm asking him to humiliate himself to do these things, and he’ll do them, but I had to give him time. (For the record, I’m asking for humility, not humiliation. A subtle distinction that I’m slowly realizing he is unable to make. I find this deeply unsettling.) And so, in an attempt to be fair (and to keep myself sane) I set a time limit: 6 months. If you can’t get up the nerve to make a phone call given 6 months of prep time, odds are you aren’t ever going to make it.

The clock runs out October 13th. And I’m scared to death.

It’s readily apparent that he’s not going to do the things I asked for; this part no longer worries me. It simply is what it is, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The problem is entirely about me not wanting to hold to my own rules. It starts with how things have been between us this summer. He has been incredible. Not perfect by any means, but for the most part he’s been attentive, communicative, and kind, a complete 180 from how things were before I found out about her. But in the last month or so he’s become progressively more withdrawn and sullen. There are viable reasons for this, and… Well, hell. The bottom line is, I don’t know what to think. He’s reminded me of what I love about him this summer, and I’ve pulled my heart back out of it’s protective shell a bit. Furthermore, we just signed a 12-month lease. The m-word hangs heavy on the horizon, and there is some talk of buying a new car. Mostly, though, I don’t know how to be the bad guy. Whether or not he’s trustworthy or has kept his word (or, really, if any of this has been more than lip service) is immaterial. It would tear him to pieces if I left. Break his heart, and I’m not sure, given his history, that he would get through it. I still love him, furious and untrusting though I may be, and the thought of hurting him that way is… just… Wow. I don’t know if I could do it.

But for me? I think it might be better in the long run.

What the hell am I going to do? If this deadline comes and goes and I do nothing, I’m pretty much rolling out a welcome mat over my face that reads “please walk all over me.” Showing him that I don’t mean what I say, and that he can treat me however he wants as long as he apologizes afterward. I’ve played that game more than enough and I know exactly where it gets you. And I have such trouble with finding a justifiable middle ground here. Walking away is for my own good and self-respect. Staying and trying to make him change him would be pointless, not to mention petty and juvenile. But am I ready to leave? Now? Leave behind this new life I’ve been building, pay the releasing fee and try to get a new apartment while searching for a new job? Bad plan. Wake up cold and alone every morning? Hard, but I think I could do it. Break his heart? No. Just… no.

And the worst part? A little part of me is waiting for it anyway, looking forward to being single, free to pursue my own interests without any guilt of leaving him behind. Eager to find someone who thinks I’m fascinating and beautiful, or even get that wonderful fluttery feeling in my stomach when I meet someone new and not feel like a disloyal whore. And as ashamed as I am to admit it, thinking about my ex. No chance of anything new there, but thinking about him all the same. Is it just me, or does this sound like the beginning of the end?