The Ethical Ass

This morning, as I tried miserably to drag my ass out of bed to go to my twice-weekly therapy appointment, I struck up a text message conversation with my buddy about a former lady friend of Paul's. We'd run into this woman out at one of the local bars, and in catching up, she'd made some underhanded jab at me that I didn't think to take personally until about three days later.

Still fully submerged in my sheets, I told my friend what had happened. As I was vigorously typing with my thumb, I thought to myself,  "Miserable bitch is just bitter that some man she was in love with who didn't give a rat's ass about her is now about to marry someone hotter."

...and then I thought, "Oooh. I do that."

To be fair—to be fair—that's not really true. I mean, I am certainly a miserable bitch at all times, and I'm certainly bitter that some man that I was painfully in love with who treated me terribly is now marrying someone else. But she's definitely not hotter than me.

Skinnier, definitely. And definitely some kind of Manic Depressive Pixie Dream Boat thing. But not hotter.

Before I proceed, I need to clarify that I love Paul. I LOVE Paul. There is no way I could pledge to marry a Republican if I didn't love him with every fiber of my being. And there is no one else that I would rather spend the rest of my life with, raise kids with, be poor with, have terrible pets with. I am painfully excited for our wedding, and even more excited to face whatever comes later with him.

But I also need to clarify that it takes me approximately forever to get over things. When I was a kid, I'd cry easily, and my parents would say, "Oh, don't worry, honey, you're just sensitive." (More on that later, no doubt.)

I openly admit this: I have never been in love with anyone the way I was in love with this schmuck Jeremy. Jeremy fueled a passion in me that was intense, unique, and dangerous, and I loved him, and I hated myself.

Our relationship was terrible. It lasted for maybe seven months, and I probably was legitimately miserable for a total of four out of those seven months. He was "polyamorous," meaning he felt that he had a genetic need to be in relationships with multiple women at the same time. Really, he was just intellectualizing his sluttery. (Please note that I do not feel this way about everyone who identifies as polyamorous. I just think he in particular sucked at it.)

I loved him for that intellect. God, I loved him. I loved the reading he did and the discoveries he made and the conversations we had and the mind that never turned off and that hunger for knowledge and even his self-delusions. I was certain that it was only a matter of time before he figured out how to be honest with himself about why he felt the need to sleep around. I couldn't understand—and still don't—how anyone could be that intellectually capable and not be honest with themselves.

I tried really hard. I really did. When I was not with him, I went on dates with other men and maintained balance in the openness of the relationship, or I sat at home eating ice cream and watching Netflix and trying not to think about where he was. My need for him grew exponentially out of his inaccessibility.

And I compromised myself terribly. I have never been interested playing second fiddle, so to speak, but I loved him so much that I swore it was worth it. He had a book about polyamory called The Ethical Slut, and he lent it to me. I tried for months to read it and got maybe three chapters in before it earned a permanent home on the floor of my car under a yogurt container and a Ryan Adams CD.

I was a person that I disliked when I was in this relationship with him. I was paranoid that he'd leave me at any moment. I ate a ton of weird vegetables I hated to cater to his crappy half-assed vegan diet, I tried way too hard to be funny and clever and kind (which are all things I am anyway, so fuck you, asshat), I cried more than I ever have in my life, and I let his gross sex drive and weird little mind take precedence over what I needed instead of insisting—rightfully—that we have an equal partnership.

It was not worth it. Where I stretched desperately, unreasonably to meet his needs, he saw my needs and thought nothing of them. Where I struggled to make a place for myself in his life, he saw that place and rented it out to others.

The only security I had in the relationship was that I was the only girlfriend allowed to keep a toothbrush at his place. It was wretched and stupid, but the location of that purple toothbrush was the only tangible proof I had that I mattered to him. It was a promise he'd made to me—"you're my primary, you are the only one who gets to keep a toothbrush here"—and one night, I went to his house, and there was another toothbrush in the cup.

I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. He refused to even consider telling the woman to take her toothbrush back, and he dumped me, two days before he was supposed to come home for Christmas with me, a week before he declared that he was heretofore monogamous with this chick. He married the same woman a few days ago.

The night he dumped me, I made him walk me to my car so I could a) give him his Christmas gift and b) throw The Ethical Slut at him. It was one more thing to hate about myself, one more crappy compromise of my being. I get angry and physical sometimes, and I am definitely capable of some messed up shit, but I do NOT throw books.

I am one engagement ring, three years, and 3,000 miles removed from this relationship, and it angers me to no end that it still hurts like it was yesterday. I am not a private person, nor a selfish one, but I gave myself to this man in a way I never had before. I gave of myself and was open in every way (except, of course, for the way in which I might've been like, "Oh, right, this is the worst relationship ever for me and I need to bail post haste"), and I was so open that I needed him, unhealthily. I hate, also, that I never took responsibility for myself; never put my foot down, didn't leave when it became clear that all I was getting out of the relationship was my own love for him.

Old hurts are old hurts. Six months after he made me leave, I met the man I knew I'd marry.

The problem I'm having now is not that the woman I was slighted for now has the last name I hoped would be mine. Nor is it really that I'm just bitter, nor is it that I am nauseated at even the smallest possibility of running into him.

The problem is that a gargantuan part of me was chewed up and spit out by a man who fancied himself to be operating under ethical standards; who is so deluded by his hypocrisy that he sees himself as having done nothing wrong. And that ruined, confused part of me is, unfairly, hidden from Paul.

Paul knows that part of me exists. He knows everything about me, and really, probably knew all of this before I did. He knows I'm drawn to his even temper, his honesty, his truth. He knows I couldn't help but hide behind those parts of him after something like my relationship with Jeremy.

And I'm sure he has known for years this thing that I finally discovered in therapy today: that I am sometimes so wickedly, idiotically, undeniably blind to parts of him that are too much like Jeremy that I am fucking up our relationship without meaning to. Most notably: I am so repulsed by and afraid of the passion in Jeremy that I once loved dearly that I behave as though that similar passion in Paul doesn't even exist, even though it was obviously the first thing I noticed about him.

I have been heartbroken before. No big deal. Happens to everybody. And I know that eventually I will get over this stupidity. The progression is already happening—I rarely, if ever, think about him on a daily basis. And obviously, as I continue to identify the issues in and around that relationship, the pain will ease. Never in a million years or a thousand perfect conditions would I choose another relationship with Jeremy over this thing of utmost beauty that I have with Paul, and I do say that honestly. But damned if I'm not sitting at the Haymarket Cafe anyway, listening to Damien Rice on this rainy day in Northampton, longing for something that I don't even want.

And I get it. By no means am I as aggressively bitter as Paul's former lady friend. (Not in any actual reality, anyway. If I actually tried to be confrontational, I would somehow end up buying the woman ice cream.) I blame Jeremy's new wife insofar as she exists, but it truly and easily could have been anyone who replaced me. But someone I loved with all of me and then some destroyed me to make someone else happy. So I get it. I really do.