Moving on in peace.
For those new to the story: Ten years ago now, I had an intense four-month emotional affair with a married man who was sure he wanted to leave his marriage. He made all the right noises … moving out, consulting a divorce lawyer, starting therapy … until the adult children threatened never to speak to him again if he left and the wife insisted on marriage counseling.
In said marriage counseling, she “acted like she really didn’t want to be there” (his words), didn’t really apply herself, and blamed all the problems in the marriage on him.
The instant she blamed all the problems in the marriage on him, he had a major guilt attack and dumped me. Two-and-a-half years later, he sort of half-assed tried to weasel back, asking to stay in touch platonically. I nixed that, partially since we both admitted we still loved each other and because I, as a student astrologer, had peeked ahead in transits and saw a very destructive affair with a bad outcome I decided it would be best to steer around.
I saw I had an excellent chance of hearing from him again either way I went, so I took the high ground.
Well, I did, in fact, hear from him again. The dude hung around on my website, reading everything I wrote for some seven years. Back in the days when website traffic trackers were much better than the current, enshittified GA4, I could track visits within a distance of three miles.
When those three miles were within three miles of his house, and this particular visitor read and reread anything I addressed to him, and when I finally asked him to just stop visiting since he was never going to speak and he stayed up all night reading blogs, I caught that, too.
When he kept coming back week after week and scanning headlines and not reading blogs, my therapist and I had a good laugh.
This summer it all came to a head. It appeared I would have to change jobs, and the new job would place me in his neighborhood, right down the street from his house, at a place where he probably did business, and I blogged about that.
At last, Another Country Heard From. During which this person told me he was only lurking out of guilt, and that I had completely misunderstood the entire last seven years.
Wow. What a shock. I mean, one has to be feeling pretty guilty to be that dedicated in hanging about, yes? If all you’re hanging about for is to see if the person will move on and you’re truly hoping they’ll just meet someone else … you could just say that when asked, and disabuse their minds of the notion that you are hanging about for some other reason, right?
Or, more merciful yet, just don’t hang about at all.
What I understand about this now is that I am the kind of person who will never, ever, ever desert someone I think needs me.
And, I have to say, that behavior looked needy. (It’s a wonder that thought never occurred to him once in seven years.)
If he still loved me and needed me, I was there, and I wanted him to know that.
In return, I received the equivalent of, No, sorry, you completely misunderstood. I fell out of love with you years ago and just didn’t tell you. Then I hung around with dedication because I wanted to read that you’d found someone else and you were happy. You sap.
I replied that his online behavior could legitimately have been interpreted more than one way, and haven’t heard from this person since.
What an experience this has been. I mean, when you’re told that, there seems to be no way to make repairs, and a person who says that and means it probably finds you silly and embarrassing. Which is why they display behavior that says, I never want to see you or hear from you again.
What can you say to that other than, Okay?
This happened at the end of July (on my fucking birthday, natch.) I continued to see suspicious blog hits through August and the first part of September and possibly through to October.
I have to admit, I was quite upset at first. I had guessed the marriage was probably still sour (It is. One thing I’m good at is knowing what to ask when.) and with that kind of view pattern, I had still had hope that one day the guy would finally decide he’d had enough.
I guess that hope is over with, bringing eleven years of the awfulness I have had in adjusting to being widowed and growing old to a close.
I did experiment with one more missive. I ended up with an email with the subject line: ?
I didn’t really want to end up in permanent no contact, but when a person doesn’t reply to me, that says, “I never want to speak to you again. Go away and leave me alone.” That’s what it looks like to me over here, and I always do what you tell me to do, so I just let you go and didn’t reply.
At the same time, I also found myself the recipient of some rather contentious language that, upon reflection, appeared disingenuous to me. If two people actually discuss things, potential misunderstandings can be cleared. But when people don’t talk, all we can do is guess, and nothing ever gets cleared up. As you well know already from past experience.
I’m sorry it ended up this way.
My door is always open.
But, I don’t think I’m going to send it.
It’s been a long eleven years since my husband passed away. I have gone from middle aged to old. I have suffered injuries that make it difficult for me to exercise, been clinically depressed, gained fifty pounds, understood I will never have a writing career and given up on that, and resigned myself to being single from now on. At least my career prospects got better and I am not struggling on the edge of poverty anymore. (At least, as long as I can still work and Donald Trump doesn’t crash the stock market and cause another recession.)
I started out life a stupid little kid, blinded by extreme optimism, convinced all I had to do was wish and work and I could do anything!
It’s been a long, hard slog to give that up and understand that I am limited to what I have now and that as I age, I will eventually lose even that.
But, you know? I’ve finally adjusted to reality, and not the over-the-top daydreams a young college student constructed because the reality of an abusive childhood was too painful and adult life looked daunting.
When you make your peace with what is, you don’t need to hold on to the dream you made up about someone you met almost twenty-five years ago.
I could feel miserable and ashamed that someone I thought still had feelings for me actually got over them years ago and I just didn’t know it. (And, truth be told, I was for a bit.)
But, you know? I see that I am a very dedicated person, a person who will not leave someone behind if there’s a bond there and it looks like they need me. But now I see that that wasn’t true. I was mistaken. So, okay. This person doesn’t love me anymore and doesn’t want me, and I mistakenly thought they did.
My bad. I can just roll up the red carpet and take it in. No harm, no foul.
And if the person was lying about this? Well, this is a person who apparently has a lot of trouble acknowledging true feelings, and who can’t come forward with the truth.
If you were to have a real relationship with someone, those things would seem to be required. If you can’t acknowledge your feelings, and you can’t come forward with the truth … well, to my knowledge, there’s a lot of that in the current marriage, and that’s a big part of the reason it’s just roommates now.
Do I need that? No.
And chasing someone who’s having a lot of trouble changing, and feathering a nest that will look attractive to them in the hope of making it easier for them to change (and therefore give you something you want) is a knee-jerk response a lot of mistresses make when a male makes the inevitable affair noises about leaving his marriage, and I’m coming round to the opinion that it is, exactly and precisely, the wrong move.
Onward!