The evening of revelations and at last - closure

For so long I have been trying to have closure on my previous relationship. A very hard thing to achieve when you have no actual break-up conversation, when you have never even discussed the reasons and the "what happened" or even so much as an actual "break-up" conversation - and when you are left with nothing but unanswered questions, hunches, feelings, intuition and thinking you know what happened because of certain factors, behaviours and event but actually not really knowing if any of these conclusions were correct.

For the longest time I assumed that I would actually never know what happened. I had accepted that I would be forever in the lost wilderness of loss without explanation. This was not a state I enjoyed and whilst I had given up thinking about it, I had drawn my own conclusions and was prepared to live with that.

Then, one recent and fateful evening the ex came calling for the usual - sex with no strings. Fine, no drama. Without prompting, without questioning and with nothing being discussed there was a revelation that took my breath away, and hit me like a truck, kicked my stomach in and ripped my heart out all at the same time. I had actually been right all the time. My instincts were correct and I was speechless.

He told me that the girl who he had become friends with during the time just prior to our trouble and who he had become closer to during the time when things were hard between us and I was away from the house, when we were going to "have some space" while trying to work things out, had become his girlfriend in November of last year.

When I found her business car in his wallet when getting some shopping money out (prior to my leaving) I suspected something. I had asked him about it and he reacted in the way I wish he wouldn't, he was secretive and dismissive, but it left a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I hated and was the feeling I had been waiting for - I knew the day would come when he would do this.

Four days after I left the house we called "home" to return to my house and pack up the last of my things and prepare the my sold house to be handed over to the new owner, there was a party at the pub next door to where we lived for one of the "locals". The ex and I discussed it and it was decided that at this time it would be best if I did not attend. Fine, no problems.

The next morning I sent him a text saying that we needed to discuss some of my moving arrangements. He did not answer. I sent him a few more before I called him a few times and he did not pick up the phone. I was concerned but tried to tell myself that I needed now, more than ever before to be able to trust him.

I logged onto Facebook during one of my breaks while packing and was presented with a number of photos of the previous evening with him and what turned out to be the same girl whose business card was being kept in his wallet. I felt sick and vomited into the garden. My worst fear had been realised.

I had sold my home. I had shed my possessions and had packed up my life to be with someone who had become easily distracted by the attraction of someone new. Someone he didn't have any problems or issues or history with. Someone who was simple and fun, exciting and new. Everything that I wish would never happened suddenly became real. It was at this point that I should have walked away. I will be forever regretting that I didn't just cut my losses, and just walk away from him and the whole fraught situation.

When I finally spoke to him later that day he told me that she had gone to the party with him. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend and he found that he could blow off some steam and have some fun with her, she had become extremely drunk and she had stayed over. She had slept in "our" bed, and he had slept on the couch. I accepted this from him and expressed to him that whilst this was a really bad judgement call on his behalf to do this and to also allow her to stay over and not just put her in a taxi home, I was prepared to believe him and let it pass, but it must not happen again.

But it was at this point that the seed of doubt was planted and everything that followed was based on the fact that this relationship had formed between them.

We agreed that this would not happen again and discussed my moving arrangements. He said he was not ready to have me home just yet and I accepted that at this point, I was probably needing some more time as well, especially given what had just transpired. At this point I literally had nowhere to go. I organised my dogs to be taken care of by my father and I went to stay with my sister, although it was clearly understood by all that this would be only for a few days.

The ex was under a massive amount of work pressure and was travelling for work all the time and away for long stretches. I went to stay at the house when he was away and hoped that when he got back that he would at some point want to talk and to make some decisions, after all I had nowhere to live and was running out of time.

My situation at work deteriorated and I was unable to concentrate for fear of what I was going to do, where I was going to live and the complete and total devastation that I was 32 years old and homeless and I so desperately wanted to go back home and be safe with him again, to have my life back, but every time he was home again from a work trip he didn't want to see me or talk to me. I knew he was out with this girl, her name is "Claire", and I knew that when he was with her, things were fun and new and he didn't have to face any hard decisions or any of the responsibility that I was dealing with.

We didn't see each other for long stretches of time. He never called, we texted and emailed and he kept promising that "soon" I would be able to go back home again. I was moving all the time. I moved 8 times and felt like my life was in ruins and kept trying to do everything he said I needed to do in order to come home - but when I did what he said he would still not see me and still he said it would all be ok "soon" but that he needed more time.

I really knew things were over when I had to start making longer term financial and work decisions and needed to start to find somewhere more permanent to live. He kept saying "soon" but meanwhile the work trips had stopped and the weekends were forever filled with me crying and him out having a great time, much of it I later found out was with "Claire".

I can completely understand why he felt like he didn't want to deal with the situation and with me at the time. I was angry, I was upset and distressed, but he never understood that this was because we didn't talk and I never knew what was going on, but the seed of doubt in my mind was forever growing, knowing that she was there, even if it was only as a "friend", she would not be hanging out with him and doing what she was doing if it were not for the fact that she was waiting for the right opportunity and moment to strike - this is what predatory and opportunistic women like her do.

It was so much easier for him to go out and get drunk and flirt and have a great time than it was to face any of the reality I was left to deal with. But this is what he does. He uses any means to escape any kind of emotional difficulty and challenging relationship conditions, and all the while we were growing further and further apart and I just wanted to grab him and slap him and say 'we are not in our early 20's anymore, this is life, deal with it and start to remember that we had something I thought was special, and you told me that you wanted to be with me and you seemed happy, so lets get this sorted and get on with our lives, it just doesn't have to be this hard, we could sort it out with a simple conversation!!!!'.

But we never got the opportunity to do that. I ended up going to Europe for a trip and it was agreed that we would meet and discuss where we stood when I got back. He was also due to be away during some of this time for work and told me he was getting back on a particular date, then he changed the date and I later found out that he had changed this date to go to an event with "Claire". More lies and more suspicion, and more putting me off because I was not quite as important as "her" or the social life. I felt betrayed and was wanting to know what was going on between them.

We met. It was horrible. I wanted honesty about the relationship he had formed with her and it became clear quite quickly that this was an area of extreme sensitivity. He would not answer any questions other than to tell me that yes, the "friendship" still existed and that yes, she had been staying over on occasion - this despite our agreement that this was inappropriate. He became angry when questioned and he left. A short time after this (as I was later to find out) he started a relationship with her.

During the 7 months that they were together I knew he was with her. I could tell from the way he was with me whenever we had to speak about something. He kept telling me that I was delusional to think that anything was going on but I reckon I could just about pinpoint the moment that she finally got him into the sack. He changed, he was different with me from that point on and for quite some time he didn't want to sleep with me.

He had to return some things of mine that I needed and he was always too busy, she was preventing him from doing it, she didn't want him to see me. She was occupying his mind and his every move and I could tell that he was not the same person anymore.

Then came Christmas. He sent me a text message on the day and we exchanged many that evening. I said that I wished that we were having the kind of Christmas that we used to have together and he once again gave me hope that we might just do that again in the future.

We slept together over the summer. He went cold suddenly after New Years Eve and he was not responding to my emails, but then he sent me a happy birthday text message on January 7th filled with kisses. Not long after this, I recall one night when he came over and we slept together and I drove him home the next day and asked if he had been having a fight with his girlfriend and he said he didn't have one, which I now know to be an untruth. I said that I know him too well for that and the only reason he would have come to sleep with me is that if he didn't have another option, he said that he was on his own and trying to work things out without a relationship, but I saw through this.

When he finally came clean and revealed all on this fateful evening I was as I said, shocked. More shocked really that he told me, not so much that it happened, because I already knew that. I knew that he was distracted all those months when I was desperately trying to work things out with him, I knew he had more fun and exciting ways to occupy his time, but the revelation took me by surprise because all of a sudden it was real.

I realised that everything I had been going through to try to recover what we had and to try to get my life back was completely and utterly pointless. She had him from that first night when she slept over and I never ever stood a chance no matter what I did.

I had hoped and prayed and believed that he had moved on from that mentality that if you just ignore the emotional stuff it will go away. I had hoped that he had valued me and what we had enough to see that this was a small stumbling block and that we could have sorted things out and we could have been happy again. But I was not enough for him and I knew when he told me the truth that I was never going to be and never could be. There would always be something else, someone else who was more exciting, new, without any problems or issues to work through. He just doesn't want to deal with any relationship challenges, ever, and certainly I was never important enough to want to change that.

After he left I was speaking to my housemate. She could tell something was wrong but it took me some time before I could find the words. I told her and she said 'that girl is going to have a lot of bad karma coming her way'. It was at that moment that I started to weep. I said 'you know, she should have a great deal of bad karma, but someone like her, who prays on a situation and a person and is as opportunistic as her.....well, those people seem to just go through life without karma catching up with them'.

He told me that she is 28 years old. She has a great family, comes from a great deal of money and I know from the photos that she is blond, slim and completely stunning. From my experience, people like that don't get caught by karma, they just go through life being happy and lucky and not facing anything significant and things just work out well for them.

I guess it hit me most that he had been so serious about her that he had wanted to have a family with her and he had spent a great deal of time getting to know her brothers and her parents in order to assess this and make that decision. Given how he feels about my family and how dysfunctional they are and the fact that he always found this a huge roadblock to us having a future together, I felt hurt because it once again proved to me that no matter how hard I try in life, no matter how hard I work to get out of the family situation I have come from and regardless of being the best person I can be, I will still always be judged on things that are completely and utterly out of my control.

I rung my best friend in the world Phil who now lives in London to tell him what I had been told. He, like me was speechless. But again, there was this feeling from him, as there was from me that we already knew anyway. I wasn't crying. I have not cried at all, but I continued to weep, the tears just streamed from me and were unstoppable, this was the case for the rest of the weekend.

Phil told me that he thought the ex was crazy to not have overlooked my family issues and told me that he felt that I am one of the most accepting and loving, caring people he has ever met. This made me weep even more. Why, if I have those qualities (which I do not profess by any means to have) would someone not value them? Why is it always that I am judged on where I have come from rather than who I am as a person.

The rest of the day I spent in bed. I wept, I slept when sleep would allow me to come. That evening my housemate came and knocked on my door and asked if I would like something to eat. I said that I would and I got up and it was night time. She had made me a wonderful dinner of homemade cheese, spinach and egg pie and salad and had put 2 strawberry fredo frogs on the side of my plate when she served me dinner on the couch. I asked why I had been given the frogs and she said 'because I bought them for you before when I went shopping, I know they are your favourite and I don't want you to be sad anymore'.

My heart melted when she served me a lovely dinner, but when she said that I started to weep again. Just the fact that someone thought I was worth doing something nice for was more lovely that I can ever put into words.

Since this time when my life essentially went down the toilet there have been very few of my friends who have actually made an effort to stay in touch or to offer their help and even fewer who have even made an effort to see me. Yeah, I have been slack on seeing them as well but that happens when you are homeless, dealing with the issues that go along with that, trying to move all the time and being completely preoccupied with worrying about where you will go next.

So during this time I have not only felt like the person I thought was my life partner, the first and only person I have ever loved had abandoned me, I also felt like the majority of my friends had as well. I was and have been certainly abandoned by my sister, who has never come to see me since I moved and who basically never enquires about my well being. There is certainly a tendency to start to feel like you are really quite worthless to anyone and everyone you know and who you have valued and who you thought valued you.

Phil calls these the "good-time friends", happy to be around when you are loads of fun, happy to call on you when they need you, but never there when things get hard. He has not been one of them. But the ex was and that is a mistake that I will be paying for for many years to come.

It no longer bothers me, what he told me that evening I am not jealous and not upset. I simply felt nothing when he told me other than shock and the feelings already described and also that he was telling me at all, why he told me I guess I will never actually know, he could have just said nothing - perhaps he just needed to get it off his conscious.....who knows.

Most of all I felt relief. I finally had closure. I knew I was not delusional and that what I had suspected all along actually happened. He did not cheat on me, I am not tarnishing him with that brush, but he allowed a third person to become involved in a situation that should have remained between two, just us. We could have resolved it, it was simple, easy and just needed a conversation without conflicted feelings and allowing others on the sidelines to fill our heads with "stuff".

He is a wonderful person and is actually a much better person than he gives himself credit for, I would love to have him and keep him in my life as long as I can hold onto what it is that he wants from me now, which is nothing but a physical thing for him.

I realise that he is just the kind of person who will always be seeking perfection and something better. I tried to make him happy, I did everything I could but I am not perfection, not by a long shot, and there will always be someone better. I don't have or come from a great, successful or wealthy family. My family is filled with complications and trauma and all the things I know make potential partners run from me. But they have also left me with some values and strengths and some characteristics that I had hoped one day someone would value. But that wasn't to be.

So where do the ex and I go from here.....well, as I said, I expect never to know why he told me what he did. I don't expect that in doing so he was hoping or expecting anything to change. It has not changed the way I feel about him. I will always have a wonderful and warm spot in my heart for him and will enjoy and revel in his company when he allows me to and whilst he continues his search for the perfect woman, and when he finds her I know I will be cast aside once again and I will accept this with grace and dignity, I hope.

I have not told many people about this, but those few I have told ask me if I think there is ever a chance that we could get back together - to this I say that I have no answer other than I know this is not what he would want. He is after something that I am simply not. He will never be happy until he gets what he has in his mind, and even then I suspect that he will want something more again.

I think what struck me most and what made me realise more than anything that we have no future together was when he told me that he and "Claire" went out on "dates", he would take her for nice dinners and take her out to places, the kind of thing I had hoped one day he might do for me, but he never did. He asked me out for dinner once when we were together, on valentines day. I bought a new dress for the occasion and he told me on the way home that he hated my dress and it made me look terrible.

I think ,when I look back at all these things it was simple he doesn't now and never did care for me at all, he doesn't want me back now and from the moment I left I expect that I was never even missed. But at the time these things were littered with so many happy times that I failed to see the truth.

The fact that I can be so easily forgotten by him and so many others makes me sad that I became a person who is so forgettable.

The fact that for the first time in my life I was passed over for someone 5 years younger that me leaves me in no doubt of what I can expect in the future if I ever let myself be drawn into another relationship - it certainly reaffirms my decision to stay away from anything like this, because there will forever be a better, more desirable and younger version waiting in the wings.