Driving down Meadow lane, eerily quiet, the love was noticeably absent. Nick was dropping me off at the helipad where I was meeting my ex-boyfriend Will (of all people) who was taking me back to the city. In the car ride over - I could've died of heartache and grief. There was tension and sadness. so much sadness. Our relationship was coming to a close and we both knew it. The trust was lost between us. He had sworn up and down, he had sworn on his mother's grave, he had sworn on our future children that he wasn't seeing her anymore. But a woman's intuition is nothing to take lightly. I felt it in my bones, I knew in my gut he was lying. I wished so badly I was wrong. I turned a blind eye, i lived in denial for a few months, I didn't want to know the truth. Looking back now at last Fall, during my period of forced ignorance - I realize I was drinking heavily. Unconsciously I was trying to silence my inner voice - I didn't want to hear my conscience. So I drank, i shopped, i starved myself - I leaned back on all those neurotic coping mechanisms that handicapped me years ago...
But today there was no way to escape the reality. Nick had been unfaithful, over and over again. He had lied to me, over and over again. There was no turning back. This other woman was nothing like me - which crushed me more than anything. Did he ever even love me? Were the last 6 years all a lie? He told me she didn't mean anything. He promised he was done with her. But then I inadvertently found emails between them - as recently as last night. Last night when Nick and I were fighting. Last night when Nick and I were laying in the same bed, going to bed angry - something we promised each other we would never do. Last night he was emailing her that he missed her. Finding those emails was like getting the wind knocked out of me - i couldn't get any air in, it's like i forgot how to breathe. the shock was devastating, the emotion in those emails was palpable. He was making promises to her that I was still waiting for - that I had been patiently (and at times impatiently) waiting for... Nothing can describe what that betrayal feels like. He had proposed to me two nights ago. and yesterday a conversation about our wedding date and our future kids led to an explosive argument that had me wondering if he even meant to propose to me - the whole thing felt impulsive - like he hadn't put much thought into it but was tired of hearing people ask when we would take the next step. Looking back I think it was half-hearted.
Suddenly I remember one of Pema Chödrön's quotes from When Things Fall Apart:
Most of us do not take these difficult situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape — all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.
Nothing about this situation feels educational. It simply triggers every insecurity, every fear, every abandonment I have suppressed for the last 3 decades. No I haven't worked on myself. No I haven't done therapy to process my father cheating on my mother for 20+ years; no i have not worked on the rage and anger I have at my father for letting me think infidelity is acceptable. Two years ago when he was dying - and the only women there to take care of him were my mother and me - he begged us for forgiveness. With tears running down his sunken eyes, down his pale skin - he told us the pain he caused us was unforgivable but begged us to consider it....It was catharsis for my mother - and for that I am eternally grateful. However, it was also right after I had forgiven Nick for the second time for being unfaithful. When Nick told me he had (again) been with another woman - I had reflected on my parents' marriage and reconsidered my anger towards him - I thought: "if my dad could do that to my mom... and she never left...then maybe I should be okay with this..." Against my better judgment I used my father as a standard for what I would be willing to accept. I told myself it was okay and i went back to him. i let my guard down and without realizing it - I had fallen in love with Nick.
Now Nick was driving me to my ex. My ex boyfriend is so much more than that. He is my rock. He is there in these excruciating moments when nothing makes sense. Over the last 10 years Will and I have been in-and-out of each other's lives. Even after the ugliest of fights he always calls the next day to check in on me. Will is married now. and I cannot stomach that truth. I messed up, I let the best guy get away. and I feel like I will never be able to forgive myself for that. When I decided to end things it was out of respect for Will that I did so - I was spiraling in my addictions and I needed help. He was applying to grad schools at the time and getting ready for his summer internship in the UK. I was "applying" to rehabs and choosing between the different recovery houses i would "summer" at after graduating from rehab. The whole thing was embarrassing. I wasn't going to hold him back - I loved him. I still love him. When I got home from rehab that summer - Will called me every single day, sent me hand-written letters with uplifting quotes and promises of loving me forever, no matter what. But at the end of that summer, when he returned home to Long Island - when we went to dinner together, something felt different. We were worlds apart in our next steps. I saw some photos from his time abroad and I saw the joy in his eyes, I saw the other women in the internship - they all looked so carefree, so youthful, so unburdened. I felt like the heaviest baggage at baggage claim. I had put some (much-needed) weight on in rehab but it hadn't yet settled in my new body so I had that strange look of a skinny young person with love-handles and chubby pockets of fat all around. Will deserved a woman with fewer scars, with a history that didn't weigh their future down...so despite what my heart was screaming - I politely and amicably ended things with Will. He went on to meet his wife in grad school, and I went on to relapse a couple more times while finishing a few bullshit internships. Then I met Nick...at a rooftop bar in the city. during one of my relapses. We attended Will's wedding 3 years ago. The night before Will and Amanda's wedding - I found out Nick had cheated on me. the wedding is a blur in my mind - i sat there in tears realizing the mistake i had made. I nearly jumped in the middle of their vows - asking Will to reconsider. The whole night Will and I exchanged knowing looks - was he feeling it too? was he thinking he had made a mistake? He was too much of a gentleman to actually say - or perhaps he really loved her.
To be continued...
xoxo
Ely's GuestWriter
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