Tag: Unrequited Love

Receipts

Here are my receipts. Go ahead, ask John for his.

In the interest of recognizing there are two sides to every story, you have mine in the many public posts over the past month (and years) here. These text receipts from Weds. Oct. 27 – Fri. Oct. 29 show his side of the story, in his very own words. The questions that I screamed into the void after yet another interminable night of no sleep, the morning of Sun. Oct. 31, are included too. I don’t know if he ever saw those, though I suspect he did. I suspect a lot of things because, after all, I knew this man for years. There’s only so much you can fake. And although I do believe I’m blocked now (he certainly is), I don’t for a second think I was then.

I’d love answers to all of those questions. I mean, on Sunday the 31st, he didn’t yet know I had already sent all of the screenshots below to her, as receipts. Or the unfathomable extent of the things I found on MY computer because he stupidly left them there.

I know that he knows all of that now though because I also printed and physically mailed all of these text screenshots to him the next day for good measure. To *their* home – just in case he found it convenient for his narrative to delete them from his phone (he prided himself on saving all of our texts from the very beginning – that used to be cute) or in case she didn’t receive the email at work, and/or he wasn’t really in Philly and she’d be curious enough to open a clearly personal envelope addressed to him from a chick in DC. I printed and included the blog post from that day — a written record of 11 hours of catharsis — longer now, of course, as more memories have come back. Before John read that post in the mail, I don’t even know if he realized how I came to have a copy of his wedding contract. I didn’t say, just included it as a screenshot via text when he kept lying to me the morning after I already discovered the truth.

I told him only in the Oct 31st post that I emailed the screenshots of our texts to her so he had to have read it. I implored him to be brave and do the right thing. To tell her.

It’s notable that he did try to call me two days after I mailed it, while I was walking home from work that Wednesday, but I missed the call and didn’t even notice it until days later. I had to Google the number. Apparently it was a work number, but not the one I had. He didn’t leave a message. I’ve wondered a few times what he could have possibly intended to say over the phone.

His only response came the Friday after, via text of course, exactly a week after he discovered that I knew. That’s included at the bottom of this CVS-length receipt below. The only thing not included here is my incredulous response which was simply, “Thanks so much for your concern. You have no right to ask that of me, let alone beg.”

Then I blocked and deleted him from my life. Granted, I still know his number in my brain. I wish I didn’t. And I am ashamed to admit that on several drunken nights when I’m trying to be numb and not think at all, my brain has remembered and probably texted, and promptly deleted, various things. Who knows what. I cringe to think about it. Still, I have nothing to hide. I’ve written everything in my heart and soul out here for anyone to read. Here are my receipts.

Go ahead. Ask John for his.

Karma has entered the chat. I hope he’s ready…

(Note: I know some of these are pasted out of order. The originals are gone & I don’t know how to edit the photos as is. Just consider the mystery maze symbolic of this whole fucking mess)

You may ask what I want after all of this. I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Every night while I watch the shadows cross the ceiling. Here’s a list:

– I want to go back to July 21, 2018 and shut you down.

– I want to go back to August 21, 2018 and let you go.

– I want to know the answers to all of those questions from October 31, 2021.

– I want to add two questions to that list, for Crystal: Did you know about me? Why did you go through with marrying his lying ass anyway?

– I want to know what he meant in that last message by “multiple messages and detailed accounts” — I sent her one message, with the screenshots. I mailed him the printout of the Oct. 31 blogpost and the screenshots he already has/had on his own phone. There is no multiple, no massive plurality. It makes me think he has no idea what I sent her but assumed it was the same as what I sent him (the blog post) and he’s covering his ass. Maybe she still doesn’t know? I can’t abide that. I won’t.

– I want him to hurt too.

– I want to know if she knew. I’m still not sure. But if she did, I want everyone in her life to know how objectively stupid she is. And also how much support she’s going to need when he does it to her again.

– I want to get all of this shit out of my head, out of my heart, out of my life.

– I want to stop having to write here because I have no other constructive way to get out the poison he intentionally left inside me.

– I want to sleep and eat again, with any semblance of normalcy. Though the 12 lbs I’ve lost so far is a tarnished silver lining.

– I want to stop having to pay a fortune to talk to a stranger about all of this shit because I don’t want to burden the people I love. A sweet and unconscionably young therapist who isn’t terribly helpful; instead, she serves as a human version of this blog where I still vomit words and feelings, but she actually responds. However, she also tells me things like “obviously there was something about you that he wanted to keep. That was worth the effort of the lie. For so long. Something he didn’t get in his relationship.” Seriously? I want a different echo chamber. That is not helpful.

– I want to go to bed at night without praying that I just don’t wake up at all; I don’t want to have to feel all over again every few hours. It’s too painful. When will that stop??

– I want to move the fuck forward and forget this ever happened to me.

It’s distressingly clear though that returns and exchanges will not be honored with these receipts. No one cares that the item never matched the description and was defective from day dot. There is no customer service to call. No manager to speak with.

It’s my burden to bear, my heartache to sort through, my trust to rebuild, my mind that races. I hate that I’m stuck in a loop of revenge and retribution right now but I also cannot stand for injustice. Who would I be if I didn’t fight for the little guy, the good guy, the one for whom no one else will?

I am losing sight of who the good guy is.

For whom the bell tolls

I know this references death and the interconnectedness of humanity. I cannot help but think though that wedding bells, at least the ones today, also mark the death of a collective us.

I have to assume the wedding is still on, that at 4pm today, he will marry her. That she will still choose to marry him. That they will say those vows I found on my computer — vowing to be “generous with my time” which is the antithesis of him, but also not even a whiff of a vow to be faithful, though I, and really anyone who deigns to get married, must assume is implied. And yet, already violated.

Really wish I didn’t care. That just hours shy of a month to the day since I discovered that ceremony script, and the guest list, and the venue contract, and the pictures — all confirming a dark, duplicitous, unbelievable side of the “good” man I loved — that I would have somehow been able to compartmentalize by now.

But I cannot stop thinking about it today. Every moment of it. I’m with my family and trying so hard to keep everything tucked beneath the surface. I hope they don’t wish I hadn’t come here. I really have tried to keep my melancholy and the manifestations as impatience, crankiness, and general malaise at bay. Actively gritting my teeth, baring a smile, and partaking in conversation, food, and drink. I’ve consumed more calories in three days than I have in three weeks for the sake of appearances, for normalcy, for not further worrying my village.

Being with my family is the highlight of my meager existence and the lack of it is generally the biggest source of ache. But these days have been a bit difficult, as much as I do not want to waste them or take them for granted.

This time is too precious.

This day though is too hard.

I’d rather be dead, or at least drunk, but instead, I’ll try being distracted. I’ll run errands and get out of the house just so I can stop fixing my face, cry in the car, punch at the air, think out loud in solitude, even if just for a brief reprieve.

I don’t know if the bells will be ringing. But I assume they will. Cowardice is too strong. And when they do, I am positive I will be able to hear them in my soul.

Mood music: For Whom the Bell Tolls – Metallica

Edit: It happened. Side note: Can we agree on how truly and remarkably hideous this is? (figurine? cake topper?) Wow.

Tangled knots

“Every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied.” But ain’t that the truth? A friend told me this tonight. Lyrics from one of their favorite singer songwriters, Josh Ritter.

In the Uber home, it made me think about mix tapes and mix cd’s and my favorite movie, “High Fidelity.”

In the opening credits, John Cusack says:

“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”

I spent most of my early adult life reveling in sad songs; songs about heartbreak and loneliness and longing. There’s obviously a pathological and deeply intrinsic reason why John Prine, Ani DiFranco, Chamberlain, Chris Stapleton, David Gray, Jason Isbell, Ryan Adams, Bon Iver, Band of Horses, The Shins and the like are my go-to, play on repeat, “top five” kind of must haves on a mix tape. Sure there are one hit wonders like Flick’s “Maybe, Someday” and Drive By Truckers’ “God Damned Lonely Love” and Damien Rice’s “Cannonball” too but, mostly, I go to all those artists and songs when I need to feel. When I need to bleed emotion. And when I don’t, I avoid them like the fucking plague. Like tapping into them, even for a moment, will invoke the spirits of melancholia. All of those songs and bands were discovered through mix cds that someone made for me, by the way. Very High Fidelity. And, yes, I could definitely arrange all of my albums autobiographically and blow Dick’s mind too.

So I listen to podcasts now most of the time instead … to occupy my brain and allow it to gnaw on something else, anything else.

For most of college and beyond, my best friends were this group of four guys, all of them in bands. I loved who I was in that circle. We became friends because one of them was borderline obsessed with me sophomore year, and I was too inexperienced to feel anything but creeped out. But we all just magnetized each other after the initial weirdness and that was that. I didn’t really fit, they were way too cool and too popular. The vicarious popularity fit me like an oversized wool sweater — scratchy but I could hide inside it. It felt like I was living someone else’s life and it was way too big for me. I never really “fit” anywhere but, for whatever reason or circumstance, we were an inseparable package deal.

We all had other friends, some tangential, some mutual, some exclusive. But at the core, it was just us. We left college together. Moved to Pittsburgh just blocks from each other; the four of them all together in one house, me in my own space but at their house more often than my own. It was the BEST of times. Later, I lived with two of them, one and then the other after the first got engaged, and our houses were always the spot for the whole crew. I reluctantly fell in love with another one of those boys of mine, the one who started it all with his bizarre interest in me seven years earlier; he broke me. The rest didn’t pick a side, even when he got engaged to her five months later. Eventually, they all paired off and got married and life just … changed.

I moved to DC in 2006 for a job after grad school and things have just never been the same. I went to all of their weddings. Several baby showers. Increasingly infrequent catch ups when I was back in town, though I always had to go to them; they never came to me. I still love them, deeply. But I only know them now through pictures of their kids that their wives post on Instagram and their annual holiday photo cards. It is weird to watch my boys age, one year at a time. And the rest of them still have him, and her, and their two kids. It’s as if I never existed in their circle now or, more accurately, as if it’s a relief for everyone that I exist four hours away. And I have for the past 16 years.

The five of us used to mean everything to each other. Now, if I reach out for a happy birthday message or some other random text, they respond as if it is genuinely so good to hear from me. And it nearly breaks my heart, it feels so good. But neither of us keeps it going and not one of them ever initiates. They never did. Still, if you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have never ever dreamed that we’d grow apart. Never.

I feel as though my life has gone through three phases of my friend circle pairing off, getting married, starting families. With very few exceptions, I am the only single one left, and have been in each group. The boys. The SoMD friends. The DC friends. Three phases across twenty years. Every time, although I am in the same places and spaces, meeting the same pool of potential matches, they pair up. They move on. I remain. I don’t have a circle in this phase. Now it’s a mosaic with bits and pieces that remain from the old circles and new, none of which really fit together and I don’t have the desire or the natural ability to be the glue for everyone anymore. I think that time in my life has passed.

Every person I have ever dated, with exactly two exceptions, got married right after me. Most have children. That was always the holy grail for me; being a mom. At 42, it feels like John stole the last embers of that dream from me. The last three years? Gone. I just can’t help feeling like I got left behind in every phase of my life. And now, unlike all the other times, the thing I wanted most in life has just … evaporated. It doesn’t mean that I don’t still ache for it and, foolishly or not, still hold out hope for it. It feels too heavy and final to let go completely.

I strongly doubt any of my friends, in any circle or phase, would see it that way. They’d say I didn’t settle. Or that they admire my independence. Or that I’ve always been so comfortable on my own. But none of these things are actually true – I haven’t had the opportunity to settle, I’m independent only by default, and I have grown accustomed being alone but I would give my soul to have a companion in this life. I feel like I’ve done all the right things, put myself out there, pushed myself even when it wasn’t comfortable, intentionally sought out places to belong … for what?

I’ve been on the online dating sites for two decades, off and on. Many of the same guys from more than three years ago, before John, are still there — with the same pictures. And it’s still the same story now at 42 as it has been all along, even back when I was younger and objectively more attractive … the guys I’m interested in do not respond or aren’t even active, but the guys I would not talk to in a thousand years in real life will message me. It is demoralizing! I don’t want to make anyone else feel bad — they’re expressing interest in me the same way I’m expressing interest in men who apparently think they deserve better. What a crapshoot.

I’ve been paying $100 an hour to talk to a therapist so I can move past John and “betrayal PTSD” as quickly as possible. It’s going great, as you can tell. I admitted to her that if had I seen John on a dating app three years ago, I’d have swiped left. He wasn’t my type. He’s grown even less so over the past few weeks, for obvious reasons. I grew to love all the things about him that apparently were never real. Except DP and one other, I’ve never been initially attracted to anyone I’ve ever dated. But I also can’t make myself swipe right on someone whose picture does nothing for me.

So what’s the bloody answer? Even when I go on a date with one of these guys I deigned to give a chance, like I did this week, I’m still tangled up in the knots that he tied. That they all tied.

Mood music: Maybe Someday – Flick

Seconds turn into weeks

The longer the separation, the harder it is to heal the hurt. Time passes while you’re thinking and all that time is really just wasted, isn’t it?

While my thoughts turn into doubling down on insecurity and doubt, what are you thinking about?

Do you realize that while you’re thinking about yourself, and presumably about her, that you’re responsible for what I cannot avoid thinking about?

Why did you have to do it to me? Couldn’t you have chosen anyone else? What about me is such an easy target for narcissists masquerading as nice guys?

Are you wishing you’d met me first?

Are you thinking about me at all?

Still?

It’s been two weeks since I discovered that I was the other woman. And two weeks from today you’ll be married to her, probably? I couldn’t if I were her. She must be frantically trying to process that you’ve been sleeping with someone else for more than three years while also deluding herself into believing she’ll have time to process it and work on trusting you after you vow to be faithful to only her … during a wedding she’s been planning for years, and probably dreaming about her entire life. You’ve taken away all the possibility that her wedding day will be magical; it will forever have an undertone of ugly – whether it happens with you in two weeks, someone else after she moves on from your trifling ass, or never because you’ve robbed her of feeling secure and however many years of her life … it’s possible she’ll never be able to move on.

I keep thinking about your ceremony, what it will be like when you look at each other. What you’ll both actually be thinking when you’re performing for your guests. I wonder what song your first dance will be to — and whether there will be smiles passed between you that hide the doubt. Or if one or both of you will have tears in your eyes — for reasons only the two of you and I will know.

I could be there to witness it. After all, you left all the vital details for me. But I don’t know if I could stomach watching those pregnant seconds tick by. I would probably laugh; contemptuously and incredulously of course.

Those seconds will turn into years. That will become your marriage. Always wondering if trust exists. If belief in you exists. And no matter how fading a memory you may come to have of me, of us, all of those seconds that pass will have just a touch of ugly that you can never undo.

You have only yourself to blame. And yet both she and I also have to deal with the insidious ugliness you created. For better or worse, she has you and you have her. I have my thoughts.

Mood music: Restlessness – Bastien Laval

The quiet is too loud.

It is seeping in everywhere and I hate the noise, the chaos, the lack of control. Too much time to think. Too many thoughts invading all the spaces where I want to be present.

I can’t do anything but feel. And write about it. There’s no one to talk to. No one who really understands. Sure, my village checks in and asks how I am, and what do I say to that? What else are they supposed to say? “Sorry you got fucked, in more ways than one?” I appreciate it; I just don’t have the capacity to manage their feelings too. I’m having enough of a time deciphering mine, let alone managing them.

I am sad. I miss my friend. I miss the hope and the possibility and the contentment. And the fucking bliss of ignorance. The comfort of trust. The illusion I didn’t know I was living in.

I am angry. I am angry that I fought my baggage to believe in you. And you weren’t ever worthy of believing in. I’m angry that you did this, you consciously did this, from the jump. You talked to me in that bar. You kept it going the morning after. And the weeks after. And then the years after. You forced my hand. I never had a choice. I didn’t have all of the information and I didn’t get to decide if I could handle the fallout. You knew it would come; you created it. You have to own it.

You haven’t and you won’t. I’m left to pick up the pieces. Alone. Again.

One week. Haven’t even attempted to make sure I am okay. That is the hardest pill to swallow; proof that I never mattered.

Not one answer to a single question. Not one attempt to communicate, to help me understand. I’m just going to keep screaming into the void. What else can I do? It’s my fucking prerogative.

You are the offender. It is your responsibility to course correct.

Your premise is false. A one night stand cannot last three plus years. But let’s accept your bullshit premise … it still doesn’t track. You’re delusional. If you really felt it was just a hookup that lasted too long, how do you justify alllllll of the things we talked about, all of the time we spent not fucking, the things we did for and with each other that had nothing at all to do with sex?

Maybe you liked who you were with me. Maybe you liked how you felt about yourself when you were with me. Obviously you liked how you felt inside me, but maybe even more so how we thought about the world, or the things we talked about in those lazy hours after the sex, or what I brought to your world view. It doesn’t really matter which of those is true or if it’s all of them or something else … the point is that it was more than sex.

No matter what you delude yourself into thinking I was to you, there remains one immutable fact. I was not your fiancé. You had someone else that you were BETRAYING from the moment you talked to me in that bar. Yes, you willfully betrayed my trust and I will go to my grave knowing that you knew exactly how I felt and it wasn’t just “a one night stand that lasted years.” But regardless of the semantics of what you did to me, what did you do to her? What the fuck did you do to her and why the fuck did you do it?

I am sad for me. I am enraged for her. You don’t deserve either of us. You never did.

“Too bad you had to have a better half
She’s not really my type
But I think you two are forever
And I hate to say it, but you’re perfect together

So fuck you
And your untouchable face
Fuck you
For existing in the first place”

Mood music: Untouchable Face – Ani DiFranco