I'm happy to report that memories and dreams are troubling me less of late. I have been able to make progress in my work pretty steadily. I do have thoughts gnawing at the edges of my mind all the same, so I figured it would be smart to put some down.
When I was in high school, girls would often say to me, "Oh, well, I'm not really that interested in him anyway." I knew it was a lie, though. They had been talking about a guy non-stop for weeks, and suddenly they claimed they had no interest at all. I had gently encouraged them to ask him out. Easier said than done, especially in high school, I know. I would say, "But it's just one date; you don't have to marry him!" I still say that to people. You don't know if you don't try, and one date is not some life-long commitment. Still, my friends would baulk. Sometimes there would be signs that the guy was not interested, but most often he would just not know that my friend existed. The fear of him not being interested, of being rejected, was so intense, though, that my friends would let it go. After obsessing over the guy, apparently they were not longer into him, and maybe had never really liked him anyway. If you reject the person first, then they cannot reject you: a classic defense mechanism. It is lying to yourself.
It is all the more tempting to do this after the end of a relationship. Oh, well, the guy was crap and not for you anyway. After all, "there are plenty of fish in the sea" and all those other things that people say to try to make you feel better after a breakup. I remember when Amin broke up with me, he said that it would have been easier to end things in a fight or to say something mean to make me hate him. He claimed that it is not better or nicer, but it helps people move on faster or better. That anger, masking fear of being hurt, or of being rejected, makes you want to reject the other person and forge a new path.
Even if I am angry at the end of a relationship - though I do sit in hurt for the most part - I never have this thought of "good riddance!" I did not even have it over François, who was not a good boyfriend, and I knew it at the time. I knew there were better people for me, but I preferred him, and I stayed that way entirely too long. No, my illusion tends in a different direction. I am in so much hurt, and shock, that I am scrambling to catch up. How did this happen? It takes some time to figure out just quite what it is, but the conclusion is always the same: Somewhere, there's a lie.
Something was wrong: things obviously didn't add up. When Amin broke up with me, of course it was understandable: he did not want to abandon his family forever. My mind was busy reeling, though, looking at how he told me he had given up on ever coming back to Canada, even after his military service, but he kept up with his immigration French course. That was no longer necessary for someone who was never becoming a citizen of the country. He did it all the same. So one of the things was a lie: which was it? Was it a lie to be taking French, or was it a lie to be giving up on his dream of living in Canada?
With Charlie, the lies were absolute poison. He manipulated information to suit his purposes at the end of the relationship, and of course that continued afterwards in any interactions I had with him, including when we were trying to patch things up and try again. He told me that he did not remember ever threatening to do certain things if ever I left the relationship. Since he did not remember, I must have made it up to cast aspersions on his character. So thought everyone in his family too, he informed me, and they all hated me now. He had no filter by that point; this is not something you say to someone you want to get back together with. His statements that I had "ransacked" the apartment when I moved my things out, and "stolen" from him resulted in the property manager letting him change the locks. I was still on the lease at this time to make sure that Charlie was not thrown out, but I was not able to return to pick up some things I had left behind. Charlie would not let me in, and I could not let myself in.
The worst lie of all, though, was about his hospitalisation. He called his parents and they found him in such a state, they took him with them for a few days to support him. The first thing they did was take him up north to their cabin. He was not stable mentally before I left, and he had a major crisis when I left. They finally came to their senses and admitted him at the hospital psychiatric ward. "Do you know what that was like?!" he blurted to me once. Yes, yes I did, in fact. I knew because I had visited a relative on the ward. It is serious, it is stark. I had taken him to the clinic on campus once because he told me he was feeling suicidal. His parents took him in to the hospital because he was feeling suicidal. Or was he? He told me at some point later, after trying to make me feel bad about how I sent him to the ward, that he only did this for legal purposes. It was only so that it could be documented in case he needed to sue me. Somewhere there's a lie, but I don't know which one it is. Did he lie to cover the fact that he really was suicidal? Or did he lie about being suicidal to help his case? Either way, that is seriously fucked up. How could he have let me think for the last two years of our relationship that he had been suicidal, when it was supposedly only in case he needed to appeal his comprehensive exams (he was paranoid at that point and convinced that his committee was out to fail him)? How could he have let me worry about him like that? Less importantly: how could he have pretended just to have more ammunition to sue me? That is just a colossal waste of everyone's time, including people who actually need help on the ward. This was supposedly an act to make me look like the villain, but apparently I was the one who was calumniating him...
Here it is a year after my break-up with Jeremy, and the same thoughts are returning: Somewhere, there is a lie. The relationship was not real. I was lied to. He never loved me. He was with me just because he was homesick. He was with me just because he was lonely during Covid. As soon as possibilities started opening up for us, he did not want them. He did not want to move in together. He did not want to meet my parents (I had to twist his arm.) He did not want to go on dates anymore. He did not want to hold hands anymore. He did not want to talk as much. He did not want to date anymore. It was a slow progression, but that is much how it went. Someone who didn't want to be with me surely would have been able to leave sooner. Why did it take so long? He said he wanted to be friends; we were friends first. Now we barely talk. When I point it out, he's confused. He doesn't know what to say to me, and he doesn't understand that what he is doing does not constitute friendship. Surely this is a person who does not care and never did. He would tell me that I'm wrong, and say that I always assume the worst. Somewhere, there is a lie...
The worst lie of all, though, is the other one I tell myself. He will wake up one day and realise what an idiot he has been and come back. He really loves me, it's just that he's been struggling. One day, there will be a second chance for us. Months and months, this persistent little thought goes on in my mind. Months then turn into years. I know why I do this now: in my therapy, I've discovered that this is all about my trying to prove to myself that I am lovable. Instead of letting someone else show me that I am lovable, I am waiting for the ex to change his mind to prove it. It seems to be some kind of compelling proof to win someone over and change their mind. Intellectually, I am so done with that. I want to date someone who actually wants to be with me. Emotionally, I haven't let this go yet.
I'm writing this post in part to bring it to the fore to keep working through it. I keep seeming to have to repeat these things to myself, about how people do not magically change. Life is not like in the movies with sweeping romantic gestures and quick turn-arounds. People mostly do the same things that they did yesterday and last week, and will continue to do them next week, and next year, and the year after that. Jeremy is not going to wake up one day and suddenly not be phobic about commitment. It is not because I did not love him enough; it is because he was afraid. He just hid it too well for me to see from the start. It is hard to hold all of these things, and to stare the truth in the face. Yes, he was depressed, and that is why he left. Yes, he was afraid of being close to me, and that is why he left. Both were true at the same time. Yes, he also did love me. That was no lie. It is tempting to pretend it was a lie so that it hurts less (though I am under the impression it hurts more sometimes to think these kinds of things.)
I think sometimes that mostly, the lie is that feeling of "Somewhere, there is a lie"...
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