The ex called last night. I was completely asleep and groggy from a Tylenol PM I had taken to help with a headache and took me a second to get out of the slumber to actually face the shock of the phone call.
He called with the excuse of an airline ticket that he bought for me and now wants to use for himself, since we are broken up. Really, he called to talk about the fact that he was hurt at my silence. See, he emailed me on Monday about how on Saturday, his birthday, he had missed me so. Yet he ended the email with a “I really hope you are happy in your life and wish you the best, because you deserve it”. That to me sounded like a “see ya” line, that made no sense with the ” I miss you” part of the email, but was a way to say, “I told you what I feel, but I don’t want anything to come out of it”. So I didn’t write back.
Turns out he wanted a reply and was hurt.
Since we were on the topic of “us” he confessed the two weeks apart have been hell and he has realized we are meant to be together. All I could think was: A day late and a dollar short. Why does it take a breakup, that to me was final, for him to shape up? Why is it that when he realizes I mean business when I say it’s over he thinks about it and realizes he loves me? He kept on saying he has never felt about anyone like he feels for me. That when someone dumps him he goes “oh well” and moves on, but that now he misses me, wants me with him and loves me. He states he has never been “in love” and doesn’t know how that feels, which is why he never could say he loved me. Now he feels he is finding out the hard way how it is that that feels. That perhaps though he couldn’t name it, he now is realizing he has been in love for a long time.
I honestly did not know what to tell him and in the end, I did my best to be honest without saying more hurtful things to him. It’s hard for me to believe in this epiphany of his. Two weeks is not long enough. I wonder if it’s not just habit and the fact that he is afraid of next week’s trip and the impending meeting with his nemesis, the Entrepreneur, whom he knows loves me.
But I listened to him and I told him the truth about what I feel: I am confused, tired, angry and scared. Angry it took him so long to shape up and it took losing me for that to happen. Tired of trying to make things work and of giving and giving and feeling unloved and unneeded. Confused because I no longer know if I love him or is just habit. Scared because this relationship had survived a lot and I thought it was due to the fact that we were in love. Now I wonder if we aren’t just completely dysfunctional and co-dependent and I would be better off without him. Scared that it’s actually the real thing, that he is my “one” and I might lose him because I didn’t hold on long enough. Yet I know that I did put my best effort. That for the year that his life was in turmoil I put my head down and listened and was the great girlfriend who didn’t ask but gave because he needed me. Now I’m tired because I could no longer give, give and give and be on second or even third place in his life. I know I was right to break up with him, I know I gave it my all.
Bottom line, however, I know it should be easier and I know what I need now. I need my space, my time to figure things out and I need to know that all this love is real and not just a desperate attack after only two weeks of breakup. If this is really “the real deal” for him, that he truly loves me, then he needs to put his money where his mouth is and give me the space I need and show me that the feelings are solid and I can trust him again. He needs to work on his side of things, I will work on mine. I get to be selfish now, because I feel that that’s the only way I will be able to be a good partner, a good lover.
