Loving Someone, Part 4

Heaven forbid you SEE this heart break.

I sat in stunned silence for a few minutes before I messaged my “f*ck men” divorced lady group chat to let them know that that thing we all thought was not going to happen actually did.

And I processed it much like I can recall processing previous heartbreaks, starting with telling myself that this is so ::eyeroll:: typical, downplaying any hint of pain and reaching for annoyance and indifference instead.

It wasn’t long, though, until anger showed up, and it was demanding. Because, I mean, really, WHAT THE FUCK. How did any of this make any sense?? He was going to get back together with the woman he talked about like a bothersome splinter he had to live with for the rest of his kids’ childhoods??

That said, I’m not completely heartless. I could understand… trying things again with the mother of your children. And I certainly don’t want a man to stay with me when he’d rather be with someone else, or there’s someone else who would have the upper hand anytime they wanted back in.

As broken as my heart was, I was immediately sure I did not want this to play out with them trying & failing, and then Jay coming back to me for another chance. I consciously stopped myself from saying “I guess let me know if it doesn’t work out,” before I hung up with him.

For better or worse, this pisces heart is all the way in until it’s betrayed. Then it’s all the way the fuck out.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

What was absolutely enraging, though, was the haphazard handling of my heart, and the gaslighting (intentional or not) of what I felt we were. Did I not deserve more than this? I went from planning out when I would tell him I loved him as he drove me home from introducing me to his family, to being treated like I was a spring break hookup in less than a week.

I put a lot of energy into intentionally checking myself and my emotions throughout our relationship. Even if I couldn’t always control my anxiety and lies my brain told me, I could control how much of that I revealed to him. But, after nearly a week of holding my VERY ACCURATE IN IT’S ASSUMPTIONS nervous system back, the gloves came off.

Less than an hour after hanging up, I began to text him. And I started with:

I fell in love with you. I wanted to tell you that last week. I’m not saying that for any reason other than I need to get it out of me so I can move on.

He didn’t respond. Of course. I never expected he would. So then I did the thing that all the dating advice people will tell you not to do- I sent paragraphs, walls, entire blocks of text. The experts say to just walk away, that none of this is going to matter, that it’s not going to change their mind, and that you’ll ultimately be the one who regrets sending it.

But you know what? No. I didn’t and still don’t regret a single text I sent that day. Even if it was only for me. I deserved to have the opportunity to say what was on my heart then. Some highlights:

So glad you took me to meet your family. Real glad I could be there to fuck you while you were thinking about this…

REAL glad I was always so supportive of you spending time with her & the kids because I thought that was y’all trying to co parent…

So glad I could support you through that rough patch. Get you off every week while you had to figure shit out…

I’m done finding compassion for you and being the bigger person. My God. All I ever did was try to figure you out. Try to show up for you….

You could have told me this TO MY FACE this weekend. I have lost so much time this week genuinely worried ABOUT YOU. Literally hours of work I’m behind. All because you couldn’t say this in person?? Just leave me in limbo in the dark for a week?!

I guess bravo for finally finding 5 whole minutes to call me.

Heaven forbid you SEE this heart break.

And don’t you dare think that I’m some unhinged psycho now for firing off all these things that I should have had the opportunity to say to your face. You don’t date someone for 9 months and introduce them to your friends & family & then just drop it all so you can think about a proposal from the ex you officially divorced and bitched about having to pay off to me all summer, and then assume I am the crazy one…

I got one of the few replies back from him after that that said:

I don’t think that you are crazy or unhinged. You are hurt and have every right to be. I never wanted to hurt you. As always, you can say all that you need to say and speak your truth. I am truly sorry. This is not how I wanted things to be.

I sent my last text to Jay 3 days after our last phone call, my head pounding from crying so hard most of that day, my best friend on the way over to help me, my bottle of klonopin empty from taking one every 12 hours for the last 72 hours. My ex was also on his way over with our insurance info, and with Unisom so I could get some sleep, but the he would only agree to leave me a few at a time.

While you’re enjoying week one of your new old life, I’m being evaluated for a psych admission. So I guess good job making the smart choice. You dodged a bullet. I debated sending this, but the un well me feels you need to know how deeply this (specifically the way it was handled) impacted me. Hopefully I’ll come to a place that I regret telling you this. Hopefully I get to a place where I regret all of this. Hopefully you two are truly happy together forever and this was all for a good reason- your girls

To which his final response was:

Whether you believe it or not, it does pain me to hear this. I truly am sorry for your pain and wish nothing but the absolute best for you. While I’m sure that nothing I say right now holds any weight, I never meant to hurt you. There is no way to convey that through text, but I do think about you and the pain you are experiencing.

I sent him his Christmas gifts because I could not return a single one and they were all of no value to me, but God I was so proud of how valuable I hoped they would be to him.

He had a business idea, brand name and everything, and I always told him he needed to buy the dot com before someone else did. So I put together a media kit for this new biz, complete with commissioned logo and custom branding. I reserved the social handles and domains. Even included a legal document releasing me of any rights as a freelancer.

He was in love with his dog, and her quirky ears made the perfect silhouette for a custom keychain by Auburn Jewelry.

Finally, shortly after his dad died, I saw an ad for a retro photo wheel viewer that you could customize with your own pictures. Seeing that I had hundreds of his family pictures saved to my Canva account after creating the slideshow for his dad’s funeral, this was a super easy gift to make, and I had just received it the week before.

(By the way, I still have the majority of those pictures in my account because it’s so time consuming deleting them. My sweet friend Jessi offered to log in and remove them for me, and I’m going to take her up on it.)

He emailed me etickets to a local elephant preserve- the one he talked about going to together as we drove back from his hometown that night, but I couldn’t ever get myself to go and donated them to a charity auction.

And after that, we never communicated again & haven’t seen each other. (We live about 1.5 hours away from each other thank goodness.)

What seems obvious now, but was not then was that I was going to have to process a loss, like someone died. I don’t want that to sound insensitive to people processing actual death. I recognize that’s not the same. But, this man I loved completely dropped out of my life and ceased to exist abruptly. So while he didn’t physically die, he was dead to me, and that’s what my heart and brain were left to deal with.

I learned a lot about grief over the last year.

If your gut reaction to any of this is to cringe or play devils advocate, that’s valid. Again, this isn’t a how-to. This is just an honest account of what I don’t think we see acknowledged enough- the ugly, messy fallout of unhealed people not knowing how to honor hearts they care about or how to sit in discomfort. And that applies to both sides here.

I don’t want you to think this story continues on as my personal sad love song. I’m glad I waited a year to write about this in depth because it took me nearly that long to get to a place of accountability for myself and compassion for others involved.

Two things can be true:

1. He could have handled my heart with more care.

2. I could have put in the work to be well enough to protect and care for my own heart.

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Jay’s story ends here. Next up, my personal accountability and healing story, to be continued.