It's Over, But It's Not Over

You know how sometimes something is over, but you just can't let go of it? That's where I am now. The whole stupid idea of having a relationship with J is over, but I can't quite let go of it yet. My whole marriage to W is over, but I can't quite let go yet.

I've been looking at ads for condos for sale. For a while, W and I had talked about buying a condo, renting it out and having it paid for by the time I'm ready to retire (given that he's almost 30 years older than me we figured that by the time I retire it'll be just me). Now, I'm thinking that I could buy a condo, move into it while W and I decide what we're going to do. If we reconcile, then we can go ahead and rent it out as originally planned. If we split permanently, then I've got somewhere permanent to live. Hopefully, I'll soon make the decision to call the realtor and get started on the search for real.

On the J front, I haven't heard from him -- no response to my last email so in typical bull-in-the-china-closet fashion I've fired off two more to him.

I sent this one in the middle of the night last night (stupid insomnia):

J,

I wish I could get back my earlier reply to this message. I'm afraid I may have made things sound worse than they are. W is not awful. He just doesn't trust me right now, and who can blame him? Obviously, if he had any idea that I had called you first on Friday, and why, he would be even less likely to trust me. So anyway, he pretty much keeps an eye on me at home, watching over my shoulder when I'm on the computer and listening in when I'm on the phone, but he isn't doing anything awful to me, isn't hitting me or yelling at me or anything. I just get tired of him spying on me all the time. I just wanted to make that clear in case I gave the impression in my first reply that he is somehow being mean to me or something. He's not. While he may be able to keep an eye on me at home, he can't when I'm at work plus since I can't sleep I'm often up in the middle of the night like now so I still have some amount of freedom. I'm sure if I behave myself for a while things will all settle back down. Had I followed through with my plan last weekend to just take off for a couple of days, I'm sure I would have caused waaaaay more problems for myself than I would have ever solved so thank goodness I came to my senses. So I guess I've matured a little bit in the last 20 years. Interesting though that my first thought when I'm uncomfortable somewhere is just to run away. Not the best life strategy, as evidenced by the regrets I've had over the first time I did it. Sorry, I didn't mean this to go on and on like this. Just don't want you worrying about me (not that you would anyway, but a girl can always hope).

Love,
Trueself

Okay, so that was bad enough.

After thinking too many sleep deprived thoughts I fired off another email to J this morning:
Damn you.

Damn you for coming back into my life.
Damn you for not loving me the same way I love you.
Damn you for messing with my head for the past month.
Damn you for being the one person that could back into my life and completely fuck with my head and turn my life upside down.
Damn you for breaking my heart just like I knew you would.
Damn you for not wanting to make love to me as much as I wanted you to.
Damn you for showing me how wonderful you are and what I’ve missed out on.
Damn you for making me see what a mess my current marriage is and making it impossible for me to stay in it.
Damn you, damn you, damn you.

Does this give you the satisfaction you wanted, the knowledge that you have completely and totally broken my heart? Will you laugh with your friends over this, talking about how stupid and ridiculous I am? I should have known it was too good to be true, that you might love me the way I love you, that you might be as eager to be with me as I was to be with you. You asked a while back how you could break my heart. Well, you’ve done it. For probably 15 years I’ve waited and hoped and dreamed of the day when you might want me back. Then you emailed me last month. You lead me on. You continued to act as though maybe you were interested but always holding back just a little. You let me pour out my soul to you while guarding yours. You gave me hope. I tried to get you to just tell me that nothing could happen between us. You wouldn’t. You let me have my fantasies. You let my imagination run wild, and now I am paying the price for it. How much longer would you allow me to have these fantasies before finally telling me that there is no hope for us to be together? How much longer would it be before I would hear from you that you and Terri are getting back together? Was I so cruel to you back then that this is your way of getting me back by leading me on making me believe in something that can never be? I knew, deep down, years ago that you would never love me as much as I love you. I think that is the biggest reason I ran off, so that I never had to have my heart broken by you. Yet all I did was delay it. But it’s over now. You can’t hurt me anymore because I’m hurt as bad as anybody can be. I am destroyed.

And now my life is a shambles. Although I haven’t told W yet, as soon as I can find a place to live, I am leaving him. There is no going back for us. It is over. I know I don’t love W the way I did when we were first together and haven’t for a long time. It just took something big to shake me out of my complacency. Damn you for being that catalyst. Damn him for trying so hard now to make up for all the years of coldness towards me. Too little, too late. Is that how you feel about me and my love for you? Is it too little, too late? Has it been fun watching me disintegrate before your eyes? Has it given you the satisfaction of having your revenge on me? Has it made you feel better? I sure as hell hope so because there ought to be something worthwhile come out of all of this.

It actually felt good writing this, kind of cathartic, although I will admit to still holding on to the tiniest hope that it will make J feel bad and somehow send him running back to me. Ha! That sounds as ridiculous to me as I'm sure it does to anybody else that might read this. Oh God. Why can't I make J love me?