#508 Taking a Break

Well, Roman and I are "taking a break". Of course, we know what that really means.

This came out of a phone conversation last night. He brought it up, but I wasn't at all surprised. I had pushed a lot of buttons Monday and Tuesday that I knew I shouldn't have, and for the first time ever I craved cigarettes while I was with him. That means that whatever morphine-related chemical he had been generating in my brain wasn't getting generated any more. I still have very warm and soft feelings for him (especially when I see his smile), but I'm tired of the anger and frustration, the half-truths, the crumbs of time. I'm tired of feeling like a mistress to a married man. I'm tired of feeling second-best. I had told him on Monday that I wasn't looking for anything more for us, even if it didn't work out with the other woman, because I would always feel like second best with him.

I still love him, but it's a standing-away kind of love. I wish him love and happiness in his future, but I don't think he's ever going to find what he wants, needs, and deserves. He knows there's something important missing in his relationship with the other woman, but I guess he thinks it can still happen. After 3 years? He dreams. And one day he will wake up and realize that, and it will be too late to get out of it. I think he's the kind of guy who can't leave one woman until he has another all lined up, and this means he goes from hasty choice to hasty choice, and suffers all over again. But he has to make his own choices, and live with them. I can accept that. That is his fate. Only he can change it.

What amazes me is that I am so calm about it. I haven't cried, and I haven't wanted to. Not ten minutes after he and I ended our call, Jay's eldest sister called, and I told her the whole story. I've always been able to talk with her. It was a very fortunate call. It allowed me to decompress. I even slept well last night.

I admit I am still very angry with him for the way he "rushed" me through late July, August, September, and October. The romance and affection were extreme. A whirlwind. I was very susceptible because there had been no one since Jay, and because I already knew him and knew that I liked him and admired his mind.

He even went through that phase of new love, where you convince yourself and your partner that "this is fate, it was always meant to be", when he told me over and over how he remembered me from a chance meeting in the early 80s, had often thought of me, and then had transferred into my department in the early 90s because he saw my name on the organization chart, and had wanted to get to know me better, but was disappointed when I was so involved with Jay then. Crap like that can turn a gal's head. And bend her heart near to breaking. And the kicker is that the whole time he was romancing me, he was still working on the other woman. THAT's the stinking part.

A friend who knows her, and knew about her and him, told me in mid-October all about her and what was going on, mid-October when I was falling very hard for him, but I thought then that it was old news. That it was pretty much off. It wasn't until he confessed to me in November that I realized that it really truly was still going on and that he had purposely misled me.

So, yeah, I'm angry. Not at his wanting to "take a break", I am ready for that too, I sent him an email Tuesday evening, the night before his call, that pretty much said the same thing, in gentler terms. That I wanted to get back to friendship. I wanted to see him more but on less intimate terms. My version of "taking a break". Cool off.

I am angry at his ever toying with me in the first place. He wasn't serious. He didn't give me a chance, and I doubt that he ever meant to. He wasn't fair and honest. And after I found out what was going on with her, I was a little crazed, which destroyed any chance I may have had with him anyway. I just couldn't believe anyone could do that to me. Not someone whom up to that point I had respected.

I would like to keep the friendship. I still care for him. He can't help it if he's a klutz about his life. I will still see him around occasionally, even if unplanned. Worse, I am registered in a class in February that I do want to take that he's teaching. At some point I'll stop reacting to his smile, and then I'd like to be able to call on him when I need his expertise, and I'd like to be available to him if he ever needs me.

But I will no longer be available to provide the missing pieces in his relationship. It's not good for me or him.

I'm not completely over him, of course. That will take a while. If he came to me and said that the other woman is finally out of his life, and he'd like to try again, then maybe, maybe. Maybe with extreme caution. He's so intelligent, and so damn affectionate, and so very very good in the sack. He's not callous. He's just an emotional mess. He has a good and loving soul somewhere down deep inside there, under all the hurt and pain.

Getting beyond thinking like that is going to take a while.