Dear Cary,
About six months ago, the man I thought I was going to marry left me unceremoniously for another woman. During the aftermath -- the moving out, the settling of affairs -- he acted cruelly and horribly, cementing the split and making damn sure I didn't come back. I spent much of the next few months depressed, having constant nightmares about him, unable to get out of bed and constantly self-medicating, because the reality of my situation was too much to face. I work freelance, and have been accepting just enough work to scrape by, wishing the end of every gig to come so I could get back into bed. Slowly, I have been scraping out of this. I saw a therapist for a bit. I started dating a nice man who makes me feel loved and is kind enough to both give me my space and be there to help me heal. I was working more, dedicating myself to my jobs and beginning to hustle for new clients. I found the inspiration I had been missing to move forward with my pet project. I had been making new friends, reconnecting with old ones and looking ahead. Seemingly, I had forgotten all about him.
And then I received an email from my ex nonchalantly asking if we could be friends again. The grapevine quickly informed me that he and his new love had split. At first I felt palpable outrage -- how dare he contact me so casually. I felt like I was owed an apology, or at the very least an acknowledgment of how badly he'd behaved. I did not respond; instead, I blocked him from contacting me and searched my psyche for the schadenfreude that was sure to come.
Instead, I've fallen very quickly back into depression. My thoughts are consumed with him and I am once again flattened by the sadness. In a way I hadn't before, I miss him desperately. I wake up every morning wishing he was next to me. I've shut everybody out again, stopped looking for work, and spend most of my days sleeping, yet again. I'm lost and I don't know how to pull out of this again. Although I know with every fiber of my rational mind that I should not contact him and that no good can come of having him in my life, I am overwhelmed with these feelings that I can only explain away as female biology. My brain is trying to find ways to rationalize the following statement: "If he is no longer with her, it stands to reason that he should be with me again." I feel hurt that he hasn't tried to get back together with me and sad that he destroyed what we had to pursue something that turned out to be so fleeting. I want to shake him and ask him, "Was it worth it?" I want to remind him how wonderful we were together, before the hurt and the betrayal. But these are ridiculous thoughts that I have no intention of entertaining. Instead I lie in bed tortured, wondering how and when I can get my life back.
I don't have much of a support system. I met my ex when I moved to a new city, and now that he's gone, I've found myself with few people to lean on. I live with my best friend now, but she has no advice, except to take the time I need to try to forget him and move forward. She has had some difficulty come up recently, so I don't want to burden her with my troubles, which seem very petty and juvenile in comparison. I've asked the man I'm seeing to give me space, because I don't want to lay this on him. What do I do? How do I heal and get back, at least to where I was before the email came in? Reaching out to my ex for closure is not an option; I feel that any contact with him right now would push me deeper down the hole. I also live in constant fear of running into him, or worse -- ending up on a job together (we are in the same industry). I can't regress every time I am reminded of his existence. I know that time is always the answer to these things, but I've never been fragile or delicate, and this feeling of being a walking house of cards is only making me feel worse. Please advise.
Being Sucked Back In Sucks
Dear Sucked Back In,
There are three things I would like to say to you. The first is that you were mistreated and have a right to be angry. The second is that this is not a good time to push away new friends, so stay close to the man you recently began dating. The third is that sometimes breakups are not just "the way things turned out," but acts of deliberate cruelty.
There are times, I'm sure, when people have a change of heart. They don't know what is in their hearts, and they lie to themselves, or they think a relationship will work out, they think difficulties will be overcome, they overestimate their own capacities and the capacities of their mate. Things end.
But then there are the people who fuck you over.
This guy fucked you over.
He didn't offer an apology. He didn't throw himself at your feet. He didn't apologize to you and to your father and mother and brother and sister and uncles and cousins and township.
He just called a few months later and asked if you could be friends.
Those of us who grew up in arid, overly intellectual households full of complicated codes and passive-aggressive behavior, we probably know about this better than most: One way to assure ourselves that someone loves us is to cause them pain. So we go about hurting people in order to remind ourselves that we can be loved.
That's pretty sick, isn't it? Knowledge of such impulses ought to inoculate us. But it doesn't.
So what happens to those of us who may be full of pain but are too good to go around hurting others? We hurt ourselves. We turn it inward, being the little angels that we are. We turn it inward with depression, with drink, with suicide, with cutting, with failure.
So this guy seems to have no scruples. But you, you have scruples. So instead of gathering your tribe to light their torches and go burn his fucking hut down, you rely on some abstract notion of inner schadenfreude. You shut down and pray for vengeance. You turn your anger inward where it festers, sucking you into a bleak landscape of self-hatred and self-blaming. Face it, sister: You were fucked over and have a right to be angry. Schadenfreude won't cut it. You don't get any schadenfreude because this guy hasn't had a fall. He hasn't suffered. That's the further outrage of it. He's had a little girl trouble. That's all. Other than that, he's going about his self-involved little life, taking what he can take and giving nothing back.
He made you a promise, and relying on that promise you did many things. You arranged your life in a certain way. You were deceived. In some families, in some villages, this would be a crime. You are right to be outraged.
It seems to me that in arranging our romantic lives in such private and secular ways, we overlook how society, family and religion have protected us in the past from such calamities by placing a high price on a promise of marriage. And I suppose it is necessary to note how in gaining independence women have given up some social protections. We say, happy day, sister, you're on your own, but where is the social remedy? Where is his punishment? Where is his amends? Where is the family, or the society, to enforce the making of such amends?
Well, we have insisted that family and society get out of our hair, so we can handle things on our own. And now we sit alone with our catastrophes.
So reach out to those around you. This is no time to be shy. Go out with this new man. Burden him with your woes. Burden him until he yells out for you to stop.
Do not let your life be further wrecked by this ex. If he shows up again, chase him off your property.
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