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Date Machine: What if?

Posted by airheadgenius

 

This morning at my kid's school I ran into a man I haven't seen in at least a decade. It was a total surprise and strangely emotional.
He is the best friend of an ex of mine and now, by weird coincidence, his son is in the kindergarten class across the hall from my youngest son.

I have had two really major love relationships in my life. My kids dad and this guy.

It was an incredible love affair, but an emotionally devastating relationship and I am very much better off out of it, yet I think about him all the time. Yep, as often as that.

And so to have a tangible reminder of him this morning was unsettling to say the least.

He has a wife and child and now lives in Paris, I learned.

My immediate thought was that he must be doing great. A fashion design job in Paris? A wife and child! And it made me feel an inch tall. For no good reason, because it's not as if I am a crashing failure, but it did all the same.

I called my friend who helped me through that break up. He was actually the reason I managed to finally get out of it because "you don't need to be treated this way". At the time, I needed someone else to point that out to me.

The man had a rare, but no less significant for that, tendency to be violent. In real life, and in contrast to my blogging persona, I am a bleeding heart. I forgave him back then because he'd been an abused child and had more than his own share of pain. My friend said "call the fucking police".

I finally asked him to move out.

Today, as I spoke with my friend about the feelings that were stirred up I mentioned that he was doing well. Much better than he was back then with me. His response "We don't know that he isn't still fucked up. Being married and having children is hardly a reason to think someone is stable. I mean, look at you! You should hear the way I talk about you behind your back".

Ha ha. This is why I am friends with this guy.

He went on to say "I am so proud of you. Look at all the things you've achieved! You have two beautiful kids, a gorgeous house, a career. Yes you can choose to think that you're single and he isn't, but so what? Why are you even going there?"

Why am I going there?

Everyone has "that one" right? The one that just won't die in the imagination. In some cases the hurt is big and sometimes small or sometimes it's just an intangible wistfulness for how life might've been, if only things had been different.

And that man is mine.
My "what if?"

 

 

Jake Gyllenhaal

 

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Posted Nov 06 2008, 02:13 PM
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Comments

spjv840 said:

Oh geez. Totally and completely feel you on this one. My "one" was kind of the same - horribly bad for me, got me into all kinds garbage and just generally better being away from....but god, still think of him all the time.

Why do we go there, though? It's just torture for ourselves. Gah!

Also...mmmm Jake Gyllenhall...I watched Brokeback Mountain for the first time last week. Have a hard time looking at him in the eye now..HEH.

November 6, 2008 3:48 PM

zeitgeisty said:

it's interesting... you specify why he was bad for you and emotionally devastating, but you don't explain why he was 'the love of your life'... I tend to hear similar stuff from a lot of women.. they recall why these men they still think about all the time were bastards, but they don't spit out what about them was so compelling they still carry a torch all these years later...

I've talked about this before... Most people in general have 'that one' they still hold in their hearts, so whoever comes later will just be 2nd or third consolation prize...

November 6, 2008 4:00 PM

spjv840 said:

"so whoever comes later will just be 2nd or third consolation prize..."

Not necessarily. Generalizations are lame.

November 6, 2008 4:33 PM

loobetchka said:

GROOOWWWRR!

November 6, 2008 4:48 PM

recycledbrooklyn said:

Ha!  I've got a handful of what if's that I think about from time to time and two that I think about nearly daily.  The first is a woman from years ago that I loved dearly but we always came up with excuses for why we should remain just friends.  We half joked that after we had burned through everybody else in the tri-state area we would move in with each other and grow old.  That was 20 years ago.  

Then there is another from a few years back that I won't get into because it's a long, complex story of mad love and desire and screwed up circumstances.  I've thought about her daily since we split up... not in a sad sense.  About once a month she spends about an hour reading catching up on my blog so I know that she thinks about me too.  We don't speak though.  She's met someone and gotten married and I'm doing my own thing.  There are days though when I'm half asleep on the train and I'll catch a whiff of the same perfume she wore and it gives me a jolt... half panic.

It's not regret, nor sadness... merely what ifs... she was a life changing experience for me and changed the way I look at myself and the world.  It's probably best left at that.  

November 6, 2008 7:23 PM

dvaleriey said:

The "bad man" initially gives you the feeling that anything is possible.  There is an element of rule breaking, excess, and intoxicating intimacy that is unparalleled if unindulged.  I have made the mistake of going all the way with the bad man and learned that the fear, weakness, and sociopathic numbness that propels this individual is more repelling than the most innocuous nice guy.  The only way he maintains his power is leaving before he is tested.  Enjoy the memory, but rejoice in the loss. His secret is that he has no secret.  

November 6, 2008 8:55 PM

airheadgenius said:

spjv and zeit - see, the thing about this man was that he treated me wonderfully well. He was adoring and respectful and interested and charming. He loved me to the point of obsession, which became part of the problem. He wasn't a "bad man" in any way. He was damaged from having had some awful experiences as a child and teenager and sometimes those experiences were overwhelming. He started therapy when we split up and I sincerely hope he stuck with it.

I didn't deserve to be treated badly any more than he did, but I had the option of getting out.

I don't find "bad guys" compelling in any way.

November 6, 2008 9:25 PM

airheadgenius said:

loo - ?

recycled - I guess the reason I can't completely get past mine is because I always wonder what could've happened, say, if he had got into therapy quicker. We were friends for years before we got together too. Tell you what, you've got to give up that statcounter habit you've got though!

dval - See, this man was 95% fabulous. It's just that the 5% was just not something that could be negotiated.

November 6, 2008 9:31 PM

E-Claire said:

This line of thinking can sometimes seem all a bit fate and karma-y but really i think its a choice to see things this way.

If he was the man you needed him to be, a man that would still be valuable in you and your children's lives, everything that COULD have been done to make it work, WOULD have been done.

So either, he didn't do everything he could have, and therefore isn't worth your time and lamentation, OR he DID do everything, and it just didn't work out and it just wasn't right. In either situation, there is really no response, just a solid platform from which to move on.

How Zen..

November 6, 2008 11:07 PM

recycledbrooklyn said:

GIVE UP STATCOUNTER????  NEVER!!!!!

It's probably the least harmful of my addictions.  

November 7, 2008 6:22 AM

dvaleriey said:

All bad men are 95% fabulous, if they were mostly rotten we could size them up quickly and avoid the heartache.  My worst lout was a manly PhD candidate with plenty of talent, charisma, and intelligence (ooops...and a 5% nasty lil' secret coke habit).  I suppose rehab/therapy works for some.  For this fellow, he just learned how to master the art of rehab/therapy and became even more adept at deception.  Look to your Daily Knob as a celebrity example of Mr. Right.  Ms. Witherspoon leaves her druggie cheatin' husband, comports herself as a single mom with dignity, and lands Jake G. who isn't a fixer-upper or tortured soul.

November 7, 2008 1:17 PM

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