Author: fb9nhacai

His rugged smile, the way his cheek creases into a seductive, playful dimple. He is as far from what my ex was as possible, the complete opposite. Rough, blunt, decisive, the alpha male that commands attention in a room. And at the same time the sweetest, most insightful and caring man I have ever met. He was number 23. After going on 23 dates with 23 different men, this was the man who stood out. From the first meeting he was honest about what he wanted and asked what I wanted and genuinely wanted to hear what I had to say. He actually listened and questioned with curiosity and when I was evasive, he leaned into our conversations with more questions and he wanted to understand me. No one had ever wanted to know me, and no one had ever cared enough to ask me. I didn’t know how to react to him truthfully. He threw me off balance.

My heart was healing still; you don’t walk away from 22 years together without collateral damage and wounds that may never heal. My ex was very much still drawing blood from my wounds and in every place I saw his face, in every place his memory haunted me. I was no longer living, no longer healing, I was punishing myself for staying. But 23 made me feel like I could heal; he made me feel like I wanted to heal. He understood me like no other and kept trying to understand me. 23 was loving me back to life and I was letting him until I didn’t. In my hurt and focusing on my wounds I shut him out. My mistrust of my emotions, of his intentions, caused me to withdraw and I betrayed our deepening relationship. I moved to another city 4200 km away. My heart could not trust opening up to 23.

We made a pact to stay friends. Does staying friends ever work out? When you both have feelings for each other but agree a LDR is not a good idea and you decide to see other people? How do you feel happy watching them enjoy doing things with other romantic partners? How does jealousy not make you say petty things? How do you watch another woman make him smile the way you used to? You don’t. You suffer in silence until it erupts and you fight. “Were you on a date?”, “How many women/guys are you seeing?”, “Please stop assuming every time I don’t answer, I’m banging someone.”, “We are not together, so I don’t know why I’m/you’re upset”. How do you go from “we” to “you” without feeling hurt? How do you love unconditionally when the condition is you want something that is no longer yours?

I’ve written a hundred versions of good bye letters with no intentions of sending them but working myself up to let go and slip away with what little dignity I have left. Maybe running away is a pattern with me or maybe I believe running is my only option because the longer I stay the deeper I go, the higher the risk, the larger the hurt. After all it took me 22 years of fighting to keep a relationship going when I should have left sooner and a long slow burn leaves it’s mark forever. I decided it was easier to walk away from vulnerability before I am in too deep. I never again want to risk the level of hurt that changes me for the worse.

My third letter…

You came into my life at the worst time of my life and gave me the happiest, brightest memories in the darkest of times. I didn’t trust my myself and you did everything you could to earn my trust and my heart. You gave me a safe place to be myself. You loved me for who I am and you were honest with me through it all. You made me believe in love again and you made me feel like I mattered. 

I don’t know what the future holds, just know if I could snap my fingers I would want a future with you and a future of “us” and all the adventures we planned together. So please believe me when I say, I held onto hope as long as I could and the possibility of you was the only thing that carried me through some of my darkest days. I have never met someone who is so giving of time, attention, love, concern and all of that while hurting and healing inside. You are the strongest person I know and the most stubborn SOB I have ever met and loved. I will never forget you.

There are no words I can use to comfort you when I am gone. Please be angry with me. Please scream at the sky and blame me. Please hate me for leaving. Please tell me I am a coward for choosing the easy way out. I know I am a coward for leaving rather than fighting for us. Every time I wanted us, I felt you pull away and withdraw so I backed away to protect my heart. The thing is I was waiting all this time for you to finally see me and choose me but I was wrong. Know that I would chose you over and over again and I’d let you hurt me over and over again because I never believed I was worthy of love. All I wanted was to feel secure in our bond but when actions tell me I am an only an option then it leaves me nowhere to feel safe.

I wish you the best in life. You deserve a happy future and good times to come.

After my marriage broke down, I entered into the online dating world. I didn’t know what I was looking for and I didn’t know what a healthy relationship was. With all the counselling we did to try to save our marriage, what I learned was we were both co-dependant and had clashing communication styles to put it nicely. So there I was, in my 40’s learning to date after being in a monogamous relationship for 20 years. The same person for 20 years. If that isn’t devotion, I don’t know what is!

At first dating was like being a kid in a candy store! Men were eager with compliments and gifts and promises of romance and steamy sex. And, yes it was steamy! For the first time in my life I felt like a beautiful sexual being, no arguments, no resentment, no broken promises, just clean adult fun and companionship. I had only dated one person before meeting my husband at university so I had never learned the dating skills needed to sort out the keepers from the rest. This was my time to learn who I was and what I liked and how to be a woman again. I was finding me. Then HE happened. It was one of many messages I received on the dating site, but his profile caught my eye. It was fun and playful but not overtly sexual or hookup oriented. His pictures showed a fit man with tattoos and washboard abs and he wasn’t 25 looking for a sugar mamma or a 60 year old looking for a younger woman. He was 3 years older than me and from New Brunswick. I lived in Vancouver at the time. I replied back to his text, with something along the lines of you’re kind of far away but thanks for the compliment. He messaged me back right away. More compliments and some flirty banter. Then he gave me his number. Bit presumptuous but the app was glitchy so texting would be easier. I texted him and he replied. He was funny, smart, passionate, romantic. He told me about his recent divorce from the love of his life and how he was looking for companionship. We chatted about work and life goals. He asked me questions about myself and my goals in life and career. We were hitting it off. Then he started to write erotic scenarios of what he fantasized about with me. It got my mind racing. He described scenes in such detail I could close my eyes and imagine them. I had never experience such strong desire and lust before. He lit my mind on fire. It was amazing and I wanted to know more about the man behind the words. I challenged him to answer a question of the day. Each day one of us would ask the other person a question, and then the other would ask a question after hearing the response. We agreed that we also had to give the “why” behind our answer to help us understand each other. We both wanted to know what made the other person tick. It was fun and we got to know each other’s favourite breakfast, how we like our coffee, what our birthdates were. Then we started to dive deeper into what we wanted from life. How do we define success? What characteristics do we want in our ideal partner? What is important to us in relationship dynamics? Who inspires us in life? What drives us to do better, work harder? How do we deal with conflict? We got to know each other on a deeper level. He said he had never been able to talk like this to any woman before. The more I got to know this man, the more I admired him. His drive, his passion, his commitment to his work and his life. I admired his heart and his raw brokenness after his divorce. He laid it all out there with vulnerability and love. After being in a relationship where communication was a struggle, I was dying to be able to have honest dialogue to say what was on my mind and have it received with love and understanding and here was this man communicating to me openly, sincerely, and lovingly. I was starting to fall for him. We talked daily all throughout the day for three months. We started to dream about a future together to make plans. He wanted to marry me to have me in his life forever. He wanted me. Never in my life had anyone given me so much attention and affection and hope. He was giving me hope that I could love again. He sparked my mind and my heart. I was falling and falling hard. Then I got scared. I needed space to think and I pulled back. He immediately asked me what was wrong. I said I needed some space. He said if you are feeling what I think you’re feeling, I am feeling it too, I am falling in love with you. I didn’t respond. I had just left my husband and the ink wasn’t dry yet and I was falling in love with another man. It did not feel right in my mind. I felt I owed it my husband. Between the pain of knowing my marriage was over and the joy of being seen and heard, I was conflicted. I did not feel I had the right to be happy. But I was falling in love with a man 5500 km away who I had never met and only talked to on the phone. I was falling in love with him. I didn’t know what to do. I jokingly said one day, that if he found me a half marathon race in New Brunswick, that I would go and we could meet. He found one the same day and sent me the details. I entered the race and booked my flight. Then it fell apart. His messages started to become more infrequent, erratic at times. He kept telling me he was in love with me and it was killing him inside because he knew he could not keep me. We lived on opposite sides of the country. He said he was hurting because he knew after we met that he would have to watch me walk out the door to go back to Vancouver; he would be losing his soulmate. He called me his soulmate, the one he had been searching for his whole life, and he knew what love was now and it was with me. His words burned into my ears and seared into my heart. I wanted this. I wanted passion, love, intimacy and I wanted to be his treasure, his soulmate. I needed to feel loved.

In the weeks leading up to the half marathon, I poured my distress into my runs. I ran, I cried, I ran some more. His messages came less and less every day and he was pulling away. He kept telling me he was busy out of town with work but that he missed me and that he would see me at the finish line. My flight was booked and race day came. I hadn’t heard from him in over a week. Standing at the start line I looked for him, daring to hope he would be there. He wasn’t. I ran, pushing against a head wind and the knots in my stomach. I ran, I walked, I let the thoughts run through my head. What was I thinking? Was I crazy? He probably has a girlfriend and I was an online flirtation that went too far. What am I doing here? Who would ever want a woman who gives her heart so easily? Who would ever want me? The more I dwelled on my feelings of inadequacy, the heavier my feet felt, the harder my run became. Then I reminded myself, my ex wasn’t very interested in my runs, maybe it was the same, after all I stayed for 20 years, so maybe I needed to be patient. I started to rationalize the change in behaviour to make excuses for him, for me.

When I crossed the finish line, I looked for him. I texted him and no response. I collected my medal and sat in my rental SUV and made an inspirational video about my run and that no matter how hard, we have to push through. I smiled and put on a brave face for my instagram followers. Inside I was dying. I flew across the country for a man who didn’t even care to text me back. I went back to my hotel and cried myself to sleep. I had two days left in New Brunswick before flying home. I decided to visit Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park. No one back home knew I flew here to meet him, only that I came to run a half marathon and be a tourist, so I better have pictures to show for it. On the drive to Hopewell Rocks I started to think and to get angry. How could he do this to me? It’s called love bombing. I didn’t know it at the time but there is name for it, where one person showers you with attention and affection to manipulate your emotions. When I got to Hopewell, my fury had drained and I was left with despair. I sat in the driver seat sullen and defeated. One more try I thought. Instead of a text message, I decided to make a video so he could see my face and hear the pain he was putting me through. I pressed record and started to tell him how much I had hoped we could meet, that I promised myself I would not get emotional but I could not help it. He was right, I had feelings for him and I wanted to meet. I told him how disappointed I was and how sad it made me, and my eyes welled up and the tears fell. As I was recording, a message flashed across my screen, “sorry babe, just got back into town, was stuck in Maine for work, where are you now”.

• 

And it is like that. You live your life, you work hard, you struggle, you succeed and you help others and you generally live your life as a good person, and then you wake up. One day it hits you. What are you doing all of this for? Who are you doing all of this for? Since I was young I was given the message, work hard, be good, take care of your family, take care of your future spouse, take care of your future kids. Live your life in the service of others. So I did. I volunteered, I was a good neighbour, a dutiful daughter, a great friend, a good student, a good employee and all my worth was tied to being a ‘good’ person in the service of others. It was the right thing to do, the noble thing to do. Then why was I left feeling so empty inside? Every act of service was a good deed done. I was shown gratitude, love, respect, friendship, kinship and I was valued. But what happens when you can no longer serve? You quickly find out that your value is tied to what you can do for others. When you are no longer of service to them, they no longer care, they no longer see you, your value is gone. You quickly find out who values you as a human and who values what services you provide. When you wake up you realize you and only you can change that. Your worth is not what I can do. My worth is who I am. I exist and I am worthy. Life is amazing and to be alive is a great mystery and a great miracle. Once you wake up then you can choose to start living for you. And I know hard times are ahead as my awakening will push away those who are using me. It’s time to trim away those that were eating at my soul when my worth was so closely tied to how well they valued me. I am awake and I need to value myself, my time, my worth. My choices in life will be for me and I will learn to chose me first and yes, some people will be unhappy about my choices, but in the end this is my life and I live the consequence for better or worse. I am married to my life, until death do us part. This is my awakening and I chose me.