Biting off More Bitterness Than You Can Chew

When you tell someone that they are arrogant, self-absorbed, and - wait for it - "emotionally stunted" you are bound to hurt their feelings. That was sort of the point. Berlin had hurt me. He didn't love me. He wasn't even sorry to leave me behind. I wanted him to be sorry - somehow.

But these lovelorn tongue-lashings rarely get the desired response. That first email - the one that represented my move from depression to anger in the grief cycle was only four days after Berlin left. After I sent it I was thinking. Ha! Only four days and I'm already pissed off. I should be over him by next week. If only it were so simple.

When he didn't respond I was even more angry, and hurt. I kept checking his facebook page to see if he was communicating with anyone else. Nothing. I wondered if he even had internet. That would be so typical of him. That woman he was with was useless. She had been living there for months, and from his description of her (what little I got) she was the sort who couldn't do a thing for herself.

He bought a car when she moved here from Germany so that she wouldn't have to drive his old Mercedes in the winter. It was a used car - but sensible and safe. The old Subaru Outback that I met him in that first night was the car he bought with the money he got when he sold his house in the artsy east-side suburb of our fair city and moved to the "up-and-coming" neighborhood where he now lived. I found this out one day when I was helping him pack up and move his things and he told me someone was coming over to look at his car.

"But what are you going to without a car until you leave?" I asked.
"Oh, not the subaru. My other car."
"Other car?"
"I'll show you."

And sure enough, parked outside in his driveway was a cute little red Mercedes. One of those old ones, with a slightly fading paint job. Well-used, weather-worn, and quite cool. It was just his style. I liked it.

"You wanna buy it?"
"Um. No. I already have a car, remember?"

Actually I would have loved to buy it. It was just the sort of car I would have loved to buy - and it would have been practical too -- at least from an economical standpoint. I had a new car. I leased it the year before when it got too cold to ride my vespa scooter - which is the only transportaion I had since I moved here the prior spring. I rode that vespa back and forth to work - and through sort of a rough neighborhood I might add - from June until it actually began to snow in November. And when I couldn't take the cold I finally decided it was time to get a car - and that's when I got the Subaru.

From a financial standpoint it would have been better to buy a used car, but I didn't have a lot of money, and I didn't have a lot of time. I was working 12+ hour days on a regular basis, and every day it was getting colder. I needed to make a decision fast. I was also a little bit nervous about doing used car shopping by myself. I don't know why. It's not rocket science. But I was new in town. I didn't have a mechanic I trusted. I was terrified I'd buy a lemon and be out my hard-earned cash, and my husband had been zero help. He didn't really want me to buy my own car. He thought we could continue to share our one car, as we had done since we bought it in 2001. But I needed my freedom. I needed to have my own transportation. I needed to be able to put a suitcase in the trunk and drive away any time I pleased. He said money was the the reason he wanted me to wait, but I think he always knew that a car would give me the freedom to leave him, as I eventually did.

But that's not the only reason I was hesitant about this purchase. When it comes to making big decisions my husband freezes up - and over the years we had been together, the effects of his stagnation had begun to rub off on me. I had gotten to the point that I was afraid to do big things alone. I second-guessed my decisions. Decisions, that looking back, I would have easily made alone before I met him.

So when it came to getting myself a car, I knew I had to do it on my own, and it was a liberating step I was taking in doing it. I knew it, even then. All the more reason I had to get this right. If I did fuck it it up, get screwed with some junker, the man I was married to was never going to let me hear the end of it. Going into a dealership and getting financing was simply easier. I knew what I was getting, and I knew the car would be dependable.

So I got the subaru - with the four wheel drive so that in our notorious Midwestern winters I would drive safely in the snow - and I'll tell ya - I wasn't the least bit disappointed. That thing drives like magic in the snow. Money well spent. That's for damn sure.

"I don't think it would be very good in the winter time either." I told him.
"Does it drive well in the snow?"
"No - it's terrible in the snow."


But then I was curious. Berlin was very practical. By his own description he was even cheap. One night when I wanted to buy a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream at CVS, he tried to convince me to get the cheaper kind.

"But we could get more of the same thing for less money if we buy that one," he said pointing to some off-brand vanilla."

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow, incredulous at the sacrelidge.

"First of all, we don't need more than a pint. We can't eat more. And second of all, ice cream is an indulgence. Like chocolate. You don't buy waxy, bad-tasting chocolate because it's cheap. It defeats the purpose of indulging in something delicious and unnecessary. For the same reason, you don't buy sub-standard ice-cream. You buy the good stuff. You suck it up and pay the $4 a pint because it tastes better. "

I could tell he disapproved of my frivolity, but he didn't say anything when I took the Haagen Dazs out of the freezer case. God, he really was cheap. My husband might be an idiot, but he valued good ice cream. He always bought me Haagen Dazs, and never once complained about the cost. When we got to the counter, Berlin let me pay.

The point here is that Berlin was not the sort of guy to keep two cars around when only one was sufficient, and I was suddenly perplexed. We hadfilled the back of the Outback with a load of Berlin's books and taken them to the half-price bookstore to sell - another testament to his cheapness, he probably got about as much money for those books as it cost to driver there and back on $4 a gallon gas - and on the way back I got to thinking about the car situation agian. I wrinkled up my forehead, as I do when I am pondering something that doesn't add up.

"Why do you have two cars anyway?" I wondered out loud.

And that's when he inadvertently told me a crucial detail about his relationship with HER.

"When I sold the east-side house, I had a little extra money, and I decided to buy myself a present. I bought this car ."

He meant the subaru.

"Besides, Marion was coming, and I couldn't very well let her drive the Mercedes in the winter."

The fact that he was just trying to sell me that car - a car I would undoubtedly drive in the *winter* was not lost on me. It was also not lost on me that he bought that car, not so much for him - but for HER. What was this? This was not just a casual relationship. This was more like a marriage. That's something my husband would insist on doing for ME. Wasn't I the married one? I let this sink in a little and I began to think about other things he had mentioned. Like the fact that she was too busy to help him make any of the arrangements to pick up the items he was having shipped to Germany. The fact that she didn't have any furniture and he was bringing all of his. I got the feling that she was the sort of women who needed a man to take care of her - or at least she let men take care of her - and he was happy to fill that role.

Looking back now, I can see how someone as independent as I am might have been emasculating. I already had a caretaker and I walked away. I didn't want anyone to do things for me - I was having the time of my life doing them myself.

So it was no surprise to me then that he had no internet, or phone. That would have been exactly the sort of thing she would have left him to take care of, and as a consequence he was not reading my angry email.

When I text messaged him that night about Obama's speech he told me he had no means of communication.

"So I think you owe me some sort of a response, don't you?" I had asked.
"Yes. I've been thinking a lot about my response," He messaged back. I just didn't think texting was appropriate. "
"Understood. And FYI, there is a rather acerbic email waiting in your inbox when you get o it. Let's just say I woke up pissed off." and then added, "And YES. Texting would be inappropriate. So let's leave it there and you can ruminate until you have learned the words "internet cafe" in German. Oh wait! They're the same.

I hit send on my iphone and I wondered if he would hear the sarcasm in my words as he read them on his screen. Of course I couldn't let it go at that. No, No. Writer that I am, I wanted to scream and shout and tell him how much I hated him. I wanted to pound my fists on his chest. So I did what I did what I do best. I wrote another email.

Berlin-

Well I am waiting for the final votes to be tallied up on the congressional races, and in the meantime I have nothing to do but "ruminate." And no one to distract me. So I am sitting here thinking I should apologize for being such a nasty bitch, but then I want to immediately kick myself for being so damned nice to people who only think of themselves, and who mistake my "generosity" for my lying down and being a doormat.

And then it hits me. It seems to me, that this is the sort of man I am attracted to - the selfish kind. Not obnoxiously self-centered and arrogant. No - that would be too easy to spot. To easy too react to and avoid. Nope. I go for the deep, thoughtful, mysterious sort who is also self-pitying, self-absorbed, and oblivious to the feelings and thoughts of the rest of his universe - which by the way revolves entirely around his problems. Seeing yourself in this picture yet?

I mean, why should I have ever have expected my husband to worry about me, he hated his job - he didn't like where we lived, he had to take the dogs for walks and unload the dishwasher, and run his life. He had problems bigger than mine, right? How could I possibly have expected him to really and truly understand how much pain I was in? Why would you have stopped to wonder how it feels to swallow your pride and put your heart on your sleeve ... quite foolishly ...only to be completely and totally ignored - I mean, after all - you had a lot on your mind, what with moving and starting a new life and all. I could hardly have expected you to wonder how all of that was making ME feel. That would have been unreasonable. No?

If there is one thing that has suddenly come into very clear focus, it is that I apparently gravitate toward men who are well-meaning but emotionally ill-equipped to manage anything but their own inner world. Maybe I just like the angst-ridden, melancholy sort and the self absorbed part just comes with the territory. I don't know.

What I do know is that I should quit it. I should find an emotionally stable and happy man (and I am sorry to say, you are neither) who has actually sorted through his own baggage and still has room in the closet for a little of mine. Enough room that we can tuck it away, shut the door and not think about it - possibly ever again. Do such people exist? Despite all that I have been through I actually think I really have dealt with things. I have dragged the good bad and ugly out into the light, dissected it, inspected it, folded it neatly and put it away. Is this a gender-specific ability?

Ironically, the x-husband is moving to the west-side of town - 3 blocks from me. Lately, we have been spending time together- walking the dogs -I made him dinner one night - and while we are not getting back together, he actually is starting to sort through his shit. It's like he suddenly is beginning to "get it", and he actually is trying to become a happier person, look inwards at his own issues and then see how they have damaged our relationship. And in the process he has become incredibly tender toward me, and I can feel his loss - our loss - and in some weird cosmic fuck-up, we are becoming closer friends - and much more genuinely emotionally connected than ever.

It almost makes me laugh, the absurdity of all of it. I mean, two months ago, I never thought he and I would get to that far. I thought you and I, on the other hand, would have been much closer. In fact, I expected ...I suppose I assumed we were making that emotional connection. And I assumed when the time came to say goodbye we would somehow be on the same page. Some sort of soft and bitter-sweet ending to a tender and fulfilling would-be romance. Now, I'm not even sure we were reading the same book. Life is funny. I am really quite deliriously out of touch.

So here I go, spewing my venom at you for breaking my heart, and blaming myself for not being stronger, more self-protective, more proactive and less oblivious to the red-flags of emotional unavailability. What can I say. It's 3 in the morning, I'm bleary-eyed and exhausted, and I have nothing better to do. And I'm letting it out as therapy. So that maybe I won't be so damned stupid next time and I will see the shit coming (and duck) before it hits the fan.

Perhaps you find it annoying -- all these tightly-coiled springs of my feelings unexpectedly snapping free in your face. I used to be so sweet, no? But that's what you get for getting involved with a writer. I may keep doing this for months. Or until I find that elusive emotionally together man with self-contained, pre-sorted and properly stored baggage, who permanently releives me of my pent-up frustrations. Hmmph. That might be a long time, if I extrapolate from the current data set.

Let's see how long it takes you to read this - and in the meantime I will attempt to mirror your apathy. It is an important skill I should have learned long ago, but I'm going to forgive myself. I am pretty damn amazing. If being cruel and heartless and detached are qualities I haven't yet mastered, I should be given a break. Seriously.

But apparantly I am quite good at being a nasty bitch when I want to be. So I'm just gonna go with it.

Carry on!

Writefromtheheart

Well I guess my snarky remark about the internet cafe did the trick. He did in fact hear the sarcasm dripping off that text. Two days later I was at work, trying to finish a story when suddenly an email pops into my inbox - from - guess who.

"Wow, you are a fucking saint aren't you?"

I could feel all the blood drain out of my face. The adrenaline was coursing through every vein in my body. I was trembling. I immediately shot an equally hostile email back.

Apparently. Is that all ? Jesus. I have no right to be upset? I have no right to say anything? What the fuck!!! You're the saint. I forgot. I am just an IDIOT. A STUPID, STUPID, STUPID girl. And I am so mad at you I am SHAKING. I wish I could say I didn't give a fuck what you think, or how you feel. It would make it a lot easier to tell you to go to hell."

Minutes later he replied.

No no, that is not all. You are not a stupid girl. It is just that you wanted more from me than I was prepared to give. I would remind you how we met. I never promised you any kind of love here.

I am incredibly sorry first, that you had to go through the ectopic pregnancy, and alone at that, second, that you had developed such strong feelings for me. They were not what I wanted to happen and were not really reciprocated fully on my end.

I am sorry that I let it go so far and hoped that we could be sort of casually having an affair that we both knew was self-limiting by circumstance. When it became stronger than that, I should have realized, did realize two nights before I left and didn't, no doubt because of my stunted self-centerdness, really know what I should do. How I could make good on feelings that I couldn't quite reciprocate. And that, from a practical standpoint, given my impending departure. Frankly, I was having some difficulty adjusting tho the idea that I was going to be here and dealing with Marion in person after so many months apart and staying with you in your new apartment in that domesticated arrangement was really bothering me. I am sorry that you now think so poorly of me. I am a shit for meeting you online and then not ducking out when I thought it was getting more serious for you.

Berlin

Yes. He was definitely a shit. But his apology softened me.

Berlin-
I shouldn't have asked you to stay with me. I knew all along ... you gave me all the signals of a guy backing off and I just kept pushing. I guess its because from the start I always felt that I had just sort of been an addendum to YOUR life - and I guess as I got to know you better I wanted you to be part of mine. It was my way of asking you to be part of mine -- and you didn't want that. It was clear. I guess I just really wished you could have said that. I really wish I just wasn't some girl you had meaningless sex with. Someone you wish you could just forget. I know how we met. But I AM stupid. I think that those things can somehow be something other than they are. I think the truth is I was never really looking for anything casual. I always wanted something real - and something serious, and I am stupid because I am foolish enough to think that something casual *might* accidentally grow into something more serious - for thinking it might grow into love. And in the beginning I really didn't know enough about your relationship with Marion to realize how off the market you really were. I didn't know in the beginning you were going there to LIVE with her - that she had basically lived with you - that you had bought a car for HER. You may as well have been a married man - and that was a road I never would have gone down if I had known. I put the pieces together too late. And you could have been more upfront.
I knew it was self-limiting by circumstance. But circumstances change. You gave me reason to think that things might not work out between you two – and all along I was left wondering how, if you took Marion out of the equation, you felt about ME. And way back then – lying in your bed when I was asking you those questions – THAT is what I was driving at. I was not asking whether you and I had some sort of immediate future. I was not asking you to stay with me. What I was asking was if you were developing feelings for me that carried any weight – feelings that merited being pursued if your circumstanced did change. If you got to Berlin and discovered you had made a terrible mistake. DO YOU SEE? I was trying to tell you then that I was beginning to feel something and I wanted you to cut me loose if you didn’t feel the same way – if you never would feel the same way no matter how bad things got with Marion.

You never really responded fully. You wanted to keep it going, and so you sort of skirted my questions – and you shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have let you either. I should have really pushed you harder – and I should have made you say what I didn’t want to hear. What I think you are telling me now: that even if there was no Maria, there would not have been an us. Am I right? That I am a sweet girl, and that we had fun, but that I was not the one for you. No magic.

I just need to hear you say that. It seems stupid to you, I am sure. I shouldn’t have been such a coward and been so afraid to just stand up and walk away. I should have just had some integrity and walked away!!! I didn’t because I knew you wouldn’t have come after me. You never did. Not that day when I left in a huff, not when I didn’t call for days, or when you went away to Boston, or now, when you are finally in Berlin. You have no interest in pursuing me, in any way. But I need you to say the words. Just say it, so I can put this behind me. Please.

I'm sorry for saying hurtful things. You hurt me a lot. Even if it was unintentional.

Writefromtheheart

The Letter

Dear Berlin;
I'm not sure you are much of a writer, but I suppose I have always felt that when you embark on a big change in your life it helps to write things down. Whether it's to remember the details of all the things you will take for granted down the road, or just to look back on how much of it you had wrong...

The truth is I've never been much of a journal writer myself. I tend to censure my thoughts, just in case someone else might read them one day. As emotional as I am, it's actually really difficult for me to sit down and be brutally honest about my feelings. Perhaps you're better at that than I am. I doubt it though. From what I can tell, we could both use some practice in that department.

So I don't know what you'll do with this book. I suspect it might fill some shelf in your new Berlin apartment and collect dust, lost in a jumble of papers and photographs and symbols of people and things that mean much more to you than I did. But nevertheless, I harbor a small hope you will write in it all the impressions and memories of your new life, and maybe one day when it's filled, send it back to me, so I'll know what became of you. Not just the boring stuff everybody else already knows –whether you got into medical school, or got married – but what became of your heart and the journey it traveled to get there.

I like to fancy myself a rather sensible person. Grounded. Realistic. Level-headed. But the truth is, at my core, I'm a romantic, and not the least bit sensible at all. I love too easily and hang on too long. I readily expose all my emotional vulnerability, and carelessly and recklessly offer up the most valuable parts of myself without demanding much of anything in return. On the surface it's foolish, and often extraordinarily painful. I don't know why I do it, except that I think to share who and what you are with someone else – to divulge that little bit of your inner sanctum, to risk your heart and its rejection at the deepest level, is really all we have to offer in this life. Because when everything else falls away, if you never let anyone really know you, if you never feel and touch the deepest vein of another person's core, then when you leave this life there is nothing left behind. No mark that you have left on those around you. So when I discover someone I think is worth knowing, I always let them in. I close my eyes and take the leap of faith. I certainly did it with you.

Exactly what I expected that night when I met you for the first time, I'm not entirely sure. I guess I figured you might be someone worth passing a little time with, a distraction from what is certainly one of the more difficult periods of my life. I didn't think I'd meet some one quite so extraordinary. I didn't think I'd meet this guy who comes from the same Italian town as my family. Someone who shares my love of both science and politics, can build coral reefs in a fish tank, knows what sheep sorrel is (and can find it!!) and thinks dogs are worth every hair they shed all over your house. A man who can cook, who enjoys restoring old and broken down furniture and homes, who doesn't think cilantro tastes like soap, and thinks a bottle of red wine and me naked make for a particularly pleasant evening. A guy who thinks the spectacle of feeding carp loaves of bread is hilariously fun, and would take a woman he just met there on a date. You are smart, and thoughtful, and sensitive. If only you weren't in love with someone else.

I knew I was in for a heartache the moment I found out about her. There I was on that bar stool, thinking to myself, "This guy is really cool." Then out of blue, there it was... the real reason you were off to Berlin. "I'm chasing a woman." My heart sank. That was the one thing I didn't want. The one thing I had explicitly requested. "No happily married men. You can be exiting a relationship, but honestly it has to be pretty much over." Chasing someone across the Atlantic Ocean does not exactly constitute closure! And then in nearly the same breath, you said "but I don't think she really wants me to come." There was a flicker in my brain. A moment when I considered letting the evening end with a few drinks and a nice conversation. Followed by a moment when I thought, "Maybe she really doesn't want him to come. Maybe it is over. It would be a shame if I didn't find out." And then you kissed me, and the risk seemed like the only possible decision to make.

I know I should have never asked you what I meant to you. I should have been content to let things remain casual. I should have repressed all those romantic and unrealistic ideas that there was some sort of instant connection between us that could supersede the years of what you felt for her – this woman who gave you cause to leave a relationship of eight years, a woman who you hang onto despite the fact she won't commit, who you would allow to flirt with other men right under your nose, a woman who despite everything, you would travel halfway across the world, quit your job, and change your life for. I don't know what I was thinking – or hoping. Asking those questions shattered the illusion we had built. Burst the protective bubble that provided our escape from reality. I regretted the words the moment I said them.
And still I had to ask – I had to say what was in my heart, because the worst thing in the world I can think of is not telling someone that you care about them and missing a chance. I suppose it's also that I have never been much good at detachment. My emotional faucets run hot or cold. On or off. Love or ambivalence, and not much in between. So even though I instinctively knew the answer to the question before it was asked, I had to spit out the words that were stuck in my throat. The words that seemed to stick between us.

Not that it helped. There is still so much that's unspoken. So much that I have been carrying around that I couldn't tell you. So much I probably never will. Even now, in a letter you are reading on a plane, knowing that I may never hear from you again, there I things I wonder if I should tell you. Things like how jealous I was every time you talked to her. Like how I wished I was the one you were missing while you were away from me, or the one you would want to call to recount the ups and downs of your day. How crazy it made me to find myself in the position of the other woman (I mean, really, the irony!). And how in the span of the two weeks while you were gone, I discovered I was pregnant, and while still reeling from the emotion of that discovery learned the life inside me would never be (it turned out to be ectopic). How it felt to be treated - alone and scared- and struggle through the anguish and grief of losing a child – that wasn't yet a child – but somehow I loved as if it already were. It's not something you could probably understand. It surprised even me, but in the ultrasound, I found myself waiting to hear the heartbeat with so much anticipation. Even knowing it was all the wrong timing, and totally unplanned, that if I decided to have it you may have resented me forever – still knowing all of that – I couldn't stop wanting that baby. I couldn't stop wanting to protect that life. And then there was no heartbeat. Just a great aching sadness, and a burden of loss I would carry alone. There are a lot of things I suppose I will carry alone.

So when you would ask me what I was thinking – it was all of these things and more. Thinking I was a fool. Thinking I was with you but really alone. Thinking that there was such a tremendous opportunity here, that was being squandered, because your mind, your heart and your energy were engaged somewhere else – invested in someone else. Wondering what might have been if we had met under different circumstances – and if that were even possible. Knowing it's pointless to wonder.
In the moments when we could forget all that, it all seemed so light and easy. Without all the heavy stuff, I would catch a glimpse of something that felt so completely natural and wonderful. And then she would be back. Texting. Calling. Always there, reminding me what I wasn't – a meaningful part of who you are. A real, acknowledged, part of your life.

I can't say I didn't figure it out early on. The truth is I knew I had made a mistake in Pennsylvania that afternoon on the park bench when she called you. The look that crossed your face when you told me who it was, the sort of pained expression of wanting to pick up the phone but knowing it was so obviously inappropriate. That look told me everything I needed to know. You needed to talk to her. You wanted to talk to her. I was suddenly an obstacle. You walked away from me to take the call, and that was the metaphor for everything I knew that would happen next. I knew then that this was just a last roll in the hay for you. An emotional escape from the gravity of what you were about to do. A last fling before the wedding, so to speak. But I needed someone, and even if only temporarily, it seemed so did you. So I put it out of my mind and hoped it would be worth it in the end.
I know that sounds a little bitter, and a little like I think you didn't have any real feelings for me. I don't actually think that. I think that you do care, very genuinely in fact. If I didn't think that I wouldn't have stayed, but I was always a little too aware that I wasn't the one you really craved. A little too cognizant of the fact that you had too much unfinished business to accept what I was willing to offer. I deluded myself about your intentions just long enough to get sucked in, and then it was too late. So even though I cherish what we did have, sometimes I'm a little angry with myself for selling out in that way. It makes me feel a little cheap –the idea that I am little more than a passing fancy, a notch in the bedpost, and a way to help you find your way back to someone else. It stings. I admit it. It hurts to be the one who hides the hole but never quite fills the void. And I was always conscious of that void.

It doesn't help I suppose that you have caught me at a moment in time where I am rather vulnerable. My emotional neediness is off the scale. I feel clingy, depressed, self-conscious and more alone than ever. I have projected a lot of that neediness onto you – rather unfairly under the circumstances – and I imagine it is both unattractive and a deterrent to establishing any real connection we might have had. I am weaker than usual and there are a lot of moments lately where I second-guess my value as a love interest and life partner—but that's what years of being with someone who won't love you the way you need will do. It will break you apart inside and make you lose sense of yourself. It will make you forget what it feels like to be cherished and adored, until you reach out for it in desperation in all the wrong places.

And yet, in spite of everything, I don't necessarily think that searching for affection and love in your arms was entirely the wrong place to be looking. There is a genuine, unappreciated tenderness in you. A part of you that seems guarded and a little lost. But still searching ... for something or someone, in many ways, not so differently from my own quest. I watched you nurse that kitten and saw a man with a beautiful and natural desire to nurture and love. It was such a simple moment, and yet it touched me deeply, and when Oliver was whisked away by his would-be middle-aged female protectors, I was sorry not so much for losing him but that that would be the last time I would get to see your paternal sweetness.

And even if it was all wrong between us, even if you never thought me more than a pleasant way to pass the time, it felt nice for a while, and I do think my life is richer for having held you in it, albeit at arms length. It did help propel me forward—initiating the necessary steps to control my own destiny and happiness, and I will always owe you a little bit for that. There is a nice expression in German for someone you hold dear. Ich habe dich Lieb. It doesn't exactly mean I love you, and yet it conveys much more than fondness or affection.

I know that you are moving on, and that you are making a home and a life in a new place, with a woman you love, or at least one you haven't quite gotten out of your system. I know that my affection for you is not reciprocated, and that this probably all seems immature and ridiculous, and that I am probably just a foolish grown-up girl with a broken heart, clinging to the smallest and flimsiest threads of generosity she has been offered. But be that as it may, I do love you. For whatever it's worth. I fell for you, and there is no real point in pretending anymore. I don't have to keep up the brave face.

So I hope you remember me fondly, and don't remain a permanent stranger. And for your sake, I hope she does love you, and loves you in the way you deserve, because I would hate to see you find your own heart in the sort of pieces mine is.

That's not to say I am broken beyond repair. I don't want you to go away thinking you have left this fragile, damaged thing behind – a victim of your irresistible charms. No. I will recover. I still have hope that I will find someone someday who will be all that I seek and more. Maybe even someone who will find me compelling enough to chase me to another continent. Someone who finds me as charming, and smart, and sweet, and creative, and amazing, and as hard to live without as I find you. But until that time, I'll miss you very deeply, and I'll think of you often.

Ich hab' dich lieb. Lieber als du denkst. Ich habe dich lieb – so lieb. Auch wenn du nicht an mich hängst. Ich wünsche dir einen Leben voll am Liebe und Freude, genau so wenn's nicht von mir kommt.

Vergiss mich nicht. Vielleicht eines Tages sehen wir uns mal wieder. Das hätte ich gern.
Küssen-
immer und ewig-
WFTH

Confessions

So I told my husband about Berlin. Not the details. Just that there had been a man I had had a relationship with, and it ended. He asked me what happened and I told him.

"He was in love with someone else."
"So why was he seeing you then?" He asked.
I shrugged. Good question.

He knew all along that there was someone else.
"You didn't come home for days at a time. What was I supposed to think?"
"I know."
" I didn't ask you because I didn't think it mattered. If I had had the opportunity, I would have done the same thing."

He really seemed to take it all in stride.

Ultimately the reason I told him was because I didn't want to make the same mistake twice. I don't want to be with anyone who thinks I'm less than spectacular. I want to go to bed every night with a man who can't imagine life without me. With a man who singles me out in a crowded room. I want to be the person he can't get off his mind. The one he wants to have babies with and protect and comfort. And as much as my husband loves me, and I do think he loves me, I'm not sure he loves me like THAT. So I had to tell him. I had to explain that if he couldn't love me in the way I needed - wholly, completely, recklessly - then I needed to move on. I couldn't settle for less.

He didn't seem to understand.
"Do you really need someone to be falling all over you all the time?" he asked me.
I sighed.
"Of course not. I just don't want someone who thinks I'm sweet and nice, but loves me in the same way they love their dog. I want to be more than a pleasant companion. I want a soul mate. I want to be the love of somebody's life."
Why doesn't he understand this???

"I think we're doing the right thing ."
"You do?" I asked
"I'm not a happy person. On a good day - like Sunday - I can be with you and relax. Enjoy your company. But that's not what I'm like every day."
I nodded.
"I don't think I can give you what you're looking for. At least not now. I have to think of myself."

I was suddenly balling uncontrollably again. It was true. He didn't love me either. Was I so impossible to love? How did I manage to get myself married to a man who didn't think I was worth fighting for? How could he just let me go so easily? And Berlin? He just walked away too. Never looked back. Never missed me. Was this the best I could do? Was this all I was worth to the people I'd given everything to? How had I managed to sink so low? How could my love mean so little?

My obvious and abrupt anguish sparked an argument. We were suddenly rehashing all the problems that led us to this point. The money, his smoking, the lack of communication. He said making decisions with me was always a burden. I balked.

"It was such a great feeling to buy this TV," He pointed to the new LCD TV he bought after I left and took the TV (that I bought) with me. "Because I didn't have to consult anyone. I didn't have to ask permission or discuss the best brand, I just got what I wanted."
"The house, the car, my clothes - everything I did I had to take you into consideration."

I could understand the pleasure of not having to answer to anyone but yourself, but his words were like a knife in my chest. Why wasn't I helpful in these decisions? Why didn't he see me as an asset? I pointed out that couples had to make decisions on big purchases together. Why did he think he should be allowed to make those decisions by himself? But what's more, why didn't he want me by his side to help, to be a team?

I came there thinking that by telling him about Berlin, I would feel better. I thought that I would be stronger and more able to move on if I knew that all this talk of rebuilding was coming from a reflex to take care of me - not from a place of real, and deep love. Not because he couldn't live without me. But instead I felt worse than ever. I was just a pleasant way to pass the time. I was dispensable. Not just for the man I had had an affair with, but for the man I had married and given the last 14 years to.

Airports, Bread-Eating Carp, and Soon-To-Be X's

On Thursday I went over to what used to be my house in tears. I decided I had to come clean about this relationship with Berlin. For months I had kept everything to myself, figuring that he didn't actually have to know I was seeing other people. There was no need to hurt him, after all. But now it seemed that I needed him to know. I needed to know how he really felt about me, and if it made any sense at all for me to think we might have a shot at reconciliation.

The weekend before we spent all day Sunday together. We took the dogs to the beach, and then went to Brunch at my favorite place - a cute little hippy-style cafe called Lucky's that uses produce they grow in their own Garden and has picnic tables outside where you can eat with your dogs. Plus they have the yummiest food ever.

I'd been feeling conflicted about the divorce. About being alone. About wether or not I'll ever find anyone to be happy with again. I want to have babies. I want a man to watch me sleeping and touch my hair. I want to be the woman who lights up the room for one man when I walk in. Is this too much too ask?

That Sunday I was feeling confused. How Could I be enjoying myself so much with this man I am divorcing? WHY are we breaking up our family? Can't we find a way to keep these good times? I started to cry (and I cry regularly, probably every day for at least an hour) and I looked at my husband and said,

"I don't know what we're doing. What are we doing?"
"I'm not ready to give up on you yet," he told me, wrapping his arms around me and giving me a deep hug.

Later on, I began wondering just what that meant. Did he want to stay together? Was he hoping that after some time apart we could rebuild? Did I want that? Did he? Or were really really both just lonely, and scared?

The conflict I felt can easily be traced back a series of hurtful emails that I ecahnged with Berlin. They began when I text messaged him last Tuesday after Barack Obama won the presidential election.

I hadn't heard from him since he left for Germany, and was beginning to think I never would. But Berlin was an Obama fanatic, and after listening to his acceptance speech I was so moved, that I couldn't help but send him a text message to ask if he had had the chance to watch it.

I took this opportunity to also ask him, rather bitterly, why he hadn't responded to the letter I gave him to read on the plane. The letter in which I poured out my heart and my spelled out my love. The letter where I told him I had discovered that I was pregnant with his child - and had decided to keep it - only to find out it was an ectopic pregnancy that had to be terminated. It was the sort of letter that is not meant to be forgotten, but requires a thoughtful response. I had heard nothing and I was stinging from the scorn.

And it was adding insult to injury at that. He had had nothing to say to me at the airport when we said goodbye. I got up at four in the morning to pick up his stuff, drive him to the airport, wait an hour while drop of his dog at the cargo center, and then take him to his flight. And this after a night with almost no sleep the day before because of work. In response to my generosity he sort of casually slapped me on the knee and said "thanks so much for all your help."

I wanted to cry, but I just couldn't. I was in too much shock. Thanks? Was I like his buddy now? I'm just a good friend doing him a big favor driving him to the airport? Was he serious?

In quiet disbeleif I dropped him off at the terminal and he went to check in while parked the car. A few minutes later we sat in this little starbucks in front of the ticket counter and said our goodbyes. Mostly we just made some goofy chitchat. I couldn't help noticing how releived he looked to be about to get on that plane. How happy he looked to be leaving. It was breaking my heart. Still I thought he must be just putting up a brave face on my account. And so I made a feeble attempt to share my emotion.

"I'm really going to miss you" I said, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand.
"Good." he replied, smiling slightly. He didn't squeeze back.
"Good?"
He must have caught the look of disbeleif on my face, because he instantly began backpedaling.
"Well... uh.. I mean, not too much I hope."

To say I was crushed was an understatement. I had a knot in the pit of my stomache and a lump in my throat, but my eyes were unexpectedly dry. I reached inside my purse for the tissue wrapped package I had brought with me. Inside were two gifts that had cost me more than I could afford, but represented something that I thought would remind him of me. The first was an ipod nano, that I had preloaded with a soundtrack I had made for him, along with a card I had made myself. The front of the card had a picture of a carp with a big round open mouth. It was an inside joke of sorts. On what would turn out to be our first and last excursion, he took me to this park in Pennsylvania with a lake that is teeming with funny looking carp. People go there to feed them bread, literally tossing hamburger buns (purchased for a dollar per package from the concession stand) onto a carpet of carp. There are so many fish that they literally flop over one another to get to the bread, and ducks have been known to walk on the backs of the fish to steal a snack themselves. It was, as he put it, quite "a spectacle." I thought it was the coolest date I have ever been on.

On the inside I pasted a photograph that touched me deeply - it was a man standing on the sidewalk looking down at the words carved into it: Nothing is written in stone.

The second package was the long letter I had been composing for weeks, and a beautiful leatherbound journal. I handed him the pacjages and gave him instructions. The first I said he could open after I left -- the letter and the journal I asked him to open after he was on the plane to Berlin. I gave him a hug. His grip was limp. It wasn't the hug of a man who was saying goodbye to a woman he loved. Not even to someone he cared about deeply. He didn't look me in the eye or attempt to kiss me.

"Have a good trip," I said. "I hope you will be happy."
And with that I turned and walked away, glancing back only once to see him watching me leave. The look on his face made me think he was taking in the fact that this was likely the last time he would see me, and that maybe he could have said a little more. But he didn't come after me, or say anything else. I was bitterly disappointed, and by the time I reached the car I was balling uncontrollably. I knew this had meant nothing to him. I was nothing to him. And now he would read that letter and feel nothing. I was awash in my own grief and humiliation.

A few days later my grief had moved into the anger phase and I fired off this email.

Berlin-

Why I am bothering with you at this point I don’t know. I suppose it’s because after everything, I deserved at least some response from you, and I am not going to let you disappear without knowing it. I mean seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you dead inside, or were you really just using me for all you could get? Was I just a more comfortable bed, a good fuck, a back rub and a ride to the goddamn airport? I mean, you couldn’t even muster a single tender word to say goodbye. Just, a “hey thanks, for helping me out, you’re a real trooper,” and a slap on the knee? Your best response to “I’m really going to miss you,” was “Good?” The ipod I got you was “generous?” No. It was not out of generosity that I did any of those things. Are you seriously this dense, or are you so spineless that you just can’t fucking say the words you thought I didn’t want to hear. After 41 years, are you actually this emotionally stunted?

I wrote you the most personal letter possible. I deserve something back. I deserve the truth. Not what you think I want to hear, and not whatever bullshit you tell yourself, but I deserve some insight into the inner depths of who you are. I can not believe you are really this shallow. If you are then I really DID waste my time, and my heart. Because frankly, sharing yourself with someone who doesn’t even appreciate you a little bit is not worth it. It is just fucking embarrassing. If you are truly this shallow then you deserve someone who breaks her belly chains with someone else. You deserve someone who lies to you and builds a wall between you. You deserve to be unhappy.

I don’t think you know how to be happy anyway. I don’t think you know what you want, and you refuse to do the hard emotional work to figure it out. You refuse to be honest with others and yourself. You sabotage all the relationships you have with people that are good to you and chase the ones that tear you down. You burn your clothes and your things not because you’re starting over fresh – not as a healthy process of self-renewal - but because they are a symbol of the hopes and dreams of a person you no longer are, because you want to tear yourself down, and be destructive, and feel nothing, no attachment to anyone. I see someone who doesn’t know who he is. Someone who is still reeling from guilt and deep emotional despair. Someone who doesn’t know how to stand up and live and share his life with others. Someone who wants to pretend to be 38 and single, and live in some sort of fantasy, instead of facing up to reality. For God’s sake, figure it out already.

And you know what? I can accept that I am not the one you love – this isn’t the sort of thing we chose. I can accept that I‘m not the one who lights up the room for you when I walk in. But I do not accept being ignored. I do not accept you walking away without some word of explanation about how you felt about me and what this was. And I want something deeper than “I am sweet to you”. I am much more than sweet to you – and if that’s the best you can do than you really are extraordinary – an extraordinary idiot. Extraordinarily immature. An extraordinarily spineless excuse for a human being living in an emotional vacuum.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. You went away for two weeks to Boston and never called me once. You probably never thought of me once either. Out of sight, out of mind. Now it’s just that much easier. You got what you wanted, and I couldn’t have made it any simpler. My God, you really made a fool of me, didn’t you? I suppose that’s something you can be proud of now. Congratulations.

And don’t tell me it’s only been 4 days. That you’ve been too busy to compose any sort of response. That you don’t have internet. You never went 24 hours without talking to HER. You can’t go 24 hours without checking the New York Times poll. I am AT LEAST that important. You have had time, and if you can’t figure out a way to fit me into your busy schedule of nothing to do but learn German and chipping concrete off the goddamn floor, then fuck you. FUCK YOU.

Fuck you anyway. I deserve better than this. And you deserve what you get.

Writefromtheheart