September 26, 2024
Today one of my sisters in the mistress and ex-mistress support group, who works in a food pantry, posted this story:
Basically, what she is saying is that many of the homeless people she knows are turning down low-income housing because they have a much-loved dog they would have to give up in order to move out of their car and into a real home. As a person who does not have pets, she doesn’t really understand this and speculates upon the reason a person would choose to live in their vehicle in order to keep a pet.
She does a pretty good job, but she doesn’t quite understand one thing.
Every morning, for instance, I get out of the shower and then lean back over the tub so that my waist-length hair can drip into the tub while I wrap it up in a towel. And my cat jumps onto the edge of the tub, puts his front paws on my neck and shoulder, and nose-bumps me asking for a kiss.
Now, if I were homeless, how could I throw this cat out the back door and never see him again? How would he feel? How would I feel knowing I had done that to him?
There are those who excoriate the married person for cheating on their spouse, as in an emotional sense, they are doing the very same thing. These people discount the fact that, in the case of the dead marriage, where the eventually-cheated-on spouse cut the cheater off years ago from any hugs, any kisses, any and all sex, and any and all emotional sharing—and then refused to work on the problem—the eventually-cheated-on spouse has essentially done the same thing for years.
It all appears to be okay, however, since that person didn’t bring in a third party and didn’t lie about anything.
I guess those are the only two things that are supposed to hurt: Bringing in a third party, and lying about it.
As long as you don’t do those two things, in the minds of most people apparently you are home free.
And if you do do those things, even if you find yourself too afraid to divorce because the kids will never speak to you again, say, or your whole family says they will hate you forever or finances will make you homeless or the church says you will go to hell, YOU are the bad one, even though your spouse has effectively trapped you in a lonely, loveless, sexless marriage forever and ever.
(People are just supposed to suck that up, I guess.)
I, however, digress.
The person in question has decided not to cheat or divorce. He’s accepted the wife and family’s terms. He’s just going to soldier on alone in a loveless and sexless marriage forever and ever (Hello, low self-esteem!), and that will be it.
Okay.
I, however, know what to ask (and I know to ask it quick, because if I ever hear from this person at all I know it won’t last any longer than, well, a fart.)
Lines like, I’m just sanguine about it. I know it isn’t going to change, and I’m just a caretaker for my family, however, speak volumes. As did, yes, the sheer volume of catching-up email we went through in something like only three days.
Here we are, shooting the breeze, and my thought is, You’re supposed to have a wife to shoot all this breeze with. That’s part of her job.
It's pretty bad to see all this backlogged breeze-shooting aimed at me. Still. After almost ten years have gone by with a year of that in marriage counseling someone didn’t care to put her back into.
Why would I want to talk to this person? This person is just a dead end. I have new relationship transits coming up next year. I used to think they were this person, but … clearly not.
He'd said it himself more than once. He’s made his bed, and he chooses to lie in it. Okay.
Why bother to type this person any fucking thing? How about just going out and scouting around, and if the universe sends me a real relationship, then I’ll see it and can accept it?
Well, that sounds like a good idea at this point. Nothing is nothing and that’s a fact.
But it doesn’t preclude me from leaving a last note that I remember this person, and I’ll never stop caring.
It’s just too sad. It’s like throwing my cat out the door. I understand this person. I don’t hate him, and I’m not angry. I get it.
I would never throw my cat out the door. I don’t throw this person out the door, either. There’s always good will, even though we’ll never see each other again, I am giving up on him, and if another offer comes along I will take it.
Other people may depend on this person, other people may freeze this person out, other people may meander along in their own, emotionally cutoff world and believe what they are doing is fair, right, and their due. Other people may have emotionally thrown this person out the door, even though they depend on his financial and emotional support and they think they are showing love.
(Please note: If the other person can never be themselves, then you’re not. I left my family for that very reason, and that situation was bad enough that I have never looked back and regretted.)
And I understand. I understand the choice to stay. I understand that means we just won’t have any kind of contact at all, hence to need to turn to other topics and leave no more messages here. (No, you can’t outsource the companionate function the wife is supposed to provide, to me. If you have to outsource any function in a marriage, that sidestep is not going to work. If you have to outsource, you need to divorce, period, and if you choose not to, oh, well. I guess you’ve got to lump it, and that’s what you’ve chosen to do.)
Trust me, some seven years of real-world research have shown, Outsourcing does not work.
So, I can’t be the outsource. It always causes problems. Sorry.
But that’s not the same as throwing you out the door. I would never do that. That’s something I could never bring myself to do.
So, there’s goodwill here. I get it.
I feel sorry for you, but I get it.
It’s okay.
Hang in there.
I may move on, and this connection may be lost in the sands of time, but I never threw you out the door.
I never will.