Everybody has a Sunday ritual. Mine is listening to Free Jazz With Fred at ten, smoking, staring out the window, and kind of moping. It's practically a religious ceremony. Jürgen's ritual is listening to the Yiddish hour at ten (in the morning) and reading the Sunday comics online.
So it was Sunday morning, as Jürgen was quickly closing windows to show me an allegedly hilarious comic strip about Dick Cheney, or somebody, as he was kvetching about the lateness of Yiddish hour, that I saw, in the space of a synapse, in the time it takes a computer to process the "close window" function, the love letter in Jürgen's inbox. The love letter that most definitely was not from me.
Did not fully comprehend any of this until I performed a brief meditation on Tuesday morning. Eggs -- eggs were near the source of my concern... Eggs... "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast," that ancient Pink Floyd song with the sound of eggs frying in it... Eggs? Or was it bacon? No, it was eggs, because the title of that part of the song was "Sunny Side Up." Sunny. Sunny, sunlight, sunshine... The love letter had begun, "Hello, my sunshine," or some such thing... It's fucking bizarre the way my mind works...
The love letter had said two things that caught my synapse: the word "sunshine," and the words "I know you love me." I hadn't been snooping. Hell, Jürgen KNEW I saw that love letter, just didn't know my brain worked fast enough to get anything out of it. And so, the old parasitic feeling of betrayal returned and started chewing on me.
I said, Tuesday morning: "You're seeing somebody else."
I didn't look at Jürgen. I was afraid of the look on his face. I thought I'd probably encounter one of those "What in the fuck are you talking about, you stupid, crazy BITCH? What the hell is WRONG with you?" looks. I don't know if that was the look on his face, really; I couldn't bring myself to look. But it's my experience that when you confront a man about a lie, or a secret, or anything of that nature, he looks at you like you're the most fucked-up, ridiculous, pathetic creature that has ever lived. And if you meet his eyes, he won't look away, because he knows that's just damning himself, and the blame for this "seeing-someone-else" foolishness belongs to you alone. But his eyes will shift a little -- he'll look from one of your eyes to the other, trying to see what you know, or what you think you know. And then, of course, he's damned anyway, but it's an involuntary response, and he probably won't have any idea he's doing it, and won't know how damned he is.
I didn't want to see that look. Whether or not Jürgen was seeing anybody else, I didn't want to see that flash of anger, that "you-stupid-fucking-bitch," that blame... I've seen it before. I'm sick of it. Then again, I've been through boys with girlfriends before -- and boys with boyfriends -- I've found the love letters, the lipstick on the collar, so to speak. And I'm sick of THAT, too.
Jürgen had been seeing somebody when we met. Naturally, this was not mentioned. I can ALMOST understand that. Almost. If you meet somebody cute in a bar, and you think you've kind of clicked, you talk about the weather, not about your current partner. You just let that fester inside you until you've figured out what to do. You test out the new person, and you don't tell either partner about one another until you've figured out which one to discard. That's how it's done these days -- which pisses me off to NO end, but it's how it's done these days, so I guess I go along with it, right?
I asked Jürgen, a couple of months ago, if he was SURE he wasn't gay. I liked him, and things appeared to be working out quite pleasantly. So I asked if he was sure he was straight. Then I asked him if he was sure he didn't have a wife and children hidden somewhere. I can't remember if I asked about a girlfriend. Jürgen assured me he was, indeed, just about perfect, and we were just about perfect for each other (well, if you say so... I'll go with that for now, I suppose...).
And one evening, Jürgen and I got onto the subject of affairs with married folks. He asked if I'd ever had an affair with a married man. I said no, but I'd had little mini-affairs with people who were dating somebody, even people who were in pretty seriously committed relationships. He said: "...and...?" I said: "And I won't do it anymore. I won't be the Other Woman. Maybe I can make do with somebody's divided attention, and maybe I can't, but I will NOT subject the Full-Time Girlfriend to finding out I've been messing around with her boyfriend. That sucks. It sucks too much. I won't do it anymore."
(Aw hell, maybe I will again someday. I don't know. Never say never. But it's still a shitty idea, and I'd still prefer not to have to think about it ever again...)
Jürgen didn't say anything. Jürgen went into the Denny's with me and ordered something to eat and a beer. You can get beer at the Denny's in Olympia. They even have a Denny's cocktail lounge. Most fucked-up thing I've ever seen... It was a nice dinner, even though I sat through it thinking about cheating.
Jürgen told me he couldn't bring me to Portland. He said he wasn't ready to introduce me to his parents. I said: "You know, I don't think of parental-introductions as any big thing... If I introduced you to my mom, she'd look you over, offer you something to eat, and bring you into the conversation, which is most likely about lesbian porn, or the precise manner in which circumcision takes place. If you didn't want to be in on that, she'd send us out to play and not think twice about relationships or grandkids or what-the-fuck-ever.." But Jürgen said: "It is a big deal to MY folks... If I brought a girl over to introduce to them, it would be a huge deal. I think it's a bit early in our relationship to be introducing you to my parents." I said: "okay."
But Jürgen didn't want me to go to Portland because he didn't want me to meet his girlfriend.
Girlfriend? What girlfriend? He'd promised me he wasn't gay, he'd promised me he was no longer married and had no children, he'd assured me that he was ideal boyfriend-material, and he'd listened to me ramble on about how I didn't date guys with girlfriends. It was a long while before he came clean about his girlfriend in Portland. Then, he said: "I broke up with her because I was not in love with her, and I am in love with you." He said she was very upset. He said he broke her heart. Fucking great; so now this dude I've been dating has lied by omission to me, AND he's telling me that, for me, kind of BECAUSE of me, he broke somebody else's heart. Fucking great. My boyfriend's a liar, a cheat, and a heartbreaker, and I'm going to take partial credit for that last. But then again, that's how things are done these days, so I guess I'm supposed to go along with it...
I went along with it.
And what the fuck, after all; like *I* have ANY ability to bitch about somebody cheating? Fuck no; I've been the lousiest, stinkiest, most foul cheat in the world. I was keeping one lover a couple blocks away, one in my email account, and one two flights up. Yeah; I've been a disgusting cheat. What right do *I* have to bitch about somebody two-timing ME? Norman said to me: "To be fair, Helena, it would be really hypocritical of you to bitch about somebody else being unfaithful." (I know, I know... and I'm sorry... again... still...)
So whatever; Jürgen had broken up another relationship to be with me. ...Hadn't TOLD me about it, but whatever... I gave him the benefit of the doubt and believed him that the relationship was no more. I gave him the benefit of the doubt when I asked if he was hiding any other secrets and he said no. I didn't ask any more questions.
Hell, I wouldn't even CARE if Jürgen was still seeing the girl from Portland, as long as I fucking knew about it and he didn't lie about it. I believe in loving more than one person at a time. I do NOT believe in lying. Lying fucking pisses me off. Though, yeah, I've done that too. That's the part I really hate though, about me, about everything I've ever done: the lying is the really shitty part.
I told Jürgen, Tuesday morning, that I'd seen the love letter in his inbox. I told him the words I'd seen.
He said it was from a girl overseas he'd dated. He said the girl couldn't get it through her head that it was over. He said it had been two years since he'd seen her.
Of course she couldn't get it through her head that it was over. Of COURSE she couldn't; that much was obvious with the line: "I know you love me." Jürgen wasn't telling me anything I didn't know. I wanted to know WHY the girl couldn't get it through her head that it was over. Perhaps because Jürgen wasn't TELLING her it was over? Perhaps because it WASN'T over? Perhaps -- just perhaps -- because the overseas girl is in crazed denial? I asked Jürgen that: "But WHY can't she get it through her head?"
He made the overseas girl sound pretty fucked up. He admitted that the overseas girl did not know he'd been seeing other people since he'd left her. He said that it would hurt her unnecessarily to know "details." I, of course, and the Portland girl, being "details." Or, as my dear friend Rachel would have put it, "side dishes." Bottom line, the way I heard it: Jürgen didn't think the girl was sane enough to handle the information that it was over. So he was handling the situation delicately: telling her vaguely to start seeing other men... Two fucking years, Jürgen had been leading this poor girl on, telling her to see other men, but not mentioning that he was telling other women he loved them.
I stopped feeling betrayed. I stopped feeling as though my boyfriend was lying to me, or cheating on me. I only felt disgusted with Jürgen, and unbearable pity for the overseas girl.
"She said she knows you love her..." I reminded Jürgen.
"I DO love her... but it's different now than what it was... I still love my ex-wife, too, but it's much different from when we met, or when we got married, or anything..."
"Does the overseas girl know it's 'different' now?"
"Yes."
But I don't believe that. I really don't believe that. You don't write love letters to people you love as a "friend." You don't say, "I know you love me" to people who haven't given you some implication that they're mad about you. That is, unless you're really kind of nuts, but I'm just not willing to write off the overseas girl as some sort of fucked-up groupie-chick in denial. What I believe is that Jürgen keeps his women around long enough to make sure the next woman is going to work out. I believe that Jürgen fancies himself a sultan with a harem. I believe that he's done himself a damned good job: one in Hungary (I think Hungary), one in Portland, and one in Washington without reliable transportation. And perhaps, of the three of us -- or maybe more, but I'm kind of doubtful -- he DOES love me best, or whatever. I think, of the contestants, I'm at least a pretty high runner-up. But I don't WANT that. When Jürgen told me that the overseas girl didn't know about me because it would "hurt" her, I didn't want any of it.
So what: next pretty little thing that comes along, Jürgen brings home one night while I'm alone in my apartment listening to Free Jazz With Fred, and he doesn't tell me about it because I'm too fragile to handle such a thing? I could see that happening. I could see it exactly like that. And I think it's a bullshit way to live one's life: hiding all the important elements in your life from each other because you're too neurotic to let any of them go?
I said: "All of the important people in my life know about you, know where things stand between you and me. Everybody except my mom, I mean. I sent her a picture of you and me, and told her you were my friend. But she isn't stupid, my mom. I'm just not comfortable saying, 'This is the dude I'm sleeping with, ma...' Anyway, everybody else knows about you. People I love. People I am still in love with know about you. People who are probably very hurt to know that I'm seeing somebody else. I'm still in love with Norman, but I told him I was seeing you... If I could do THAT, why couldn't you?"
Jürgen said: "Well, that's your life, not mine. Those are the people in your life, not the people in mine..." (Oh yeah, like the people in MY life are SO fucking much saner than the people in anybody else's life? Please! I haven't known a stable individual since the Carter administration...) "I can't live my life like that."
I said to Jürgen: "I think that's a bullshit way to love." It was a pretty strong statement, I think, especially backed up with the tears that I'd been shedding since allowing Norman's name to enter the conversation. But what the fuck: it's a bullshit way to live, and it's crappy and unfair to fucking everybody involved.
Then he was defensive. Then he said he wanted a cigarette. Then his neighbor came by. Then a phone call. Then another friend came by. And nothing got resolved. And after the chaos ended, Jürgen wanted to make love.
So we did.
And maybe midway through, I thought spontaneously of Norman. I thought of something he said to me soon after we met: "No matter what, even though there's the age difference and everything, I am not ashamed of you. I am not going to pretend we're not together. You are not a secret." -- And, of course, promptly burst into tears, which I was able to mask fairly well, if I do say so myself.
I believe that secrets are disrespected things. I believe that if you love someone and you refuse to tell anybody else, you're doing that person a great dishonor. It doesn't mean you don't love that person; it simply means you don't respect her. And I've been through that; I've been the "Secret Girlfriend" before. I've even consented to being the "Secret Girlfriend." I will not do that again. Maybe it's the air off the inlet or something, or maybe I've actually grown up a little bit, but I think by now I respect MYSELF a lot more than that.
And yes, Jürgen did introduce me to his parents, and yes, he introduced me to his old friend from childhood, and his housemate knows me as "Jürgen's girlfriend," and so forth, so, no, I guess I'm not really a secret... But the Portland girl was a secret, and the overseas girl was a secret, and I think it's a bullshit way to love people.
But Jürgen and I spent the rest of the day together. I made tuna casserole for dinner. We watched the mountain from my rooftop afterwards. He slept in my bed and went to work in the morning.
Despite that, it's over. I'd like to remain friends with Jürgen, if that's at all possible. Not only because Olympia's a small city and we'd run into each other constantly, but also because I like him and I'd like to still spend time with him. I'd like to still make dinners together sometimes, maybe go to any of Olympia's numerous parties together, maybe even share a bed sometimes. But I do NOT want to be Jürgen's "girlfriend" anymore. I do not want to celebrate weekly anniversaries anymore. I do not want to feel like we have this sacred relationship that we're supposed to carry around forever. I want to have a friend, not a boyfriend who doesn't know it's bad form to NEVER break up with women and just lead them around for awhile... Maybe if Jürgen and I were friends, we could shoot the shit about things like that, and maybe I'd regain some of the respect I've lost for him. Maybe if there was less invested, he wouldn't have all these secrets and lies of omission... Jürgen's a good kid; I really believe he's just too damned neurotic, not truly an asshole. But I still can't live my life as his long-term girlfriend.
Jürgen said, when I first asked him about the overseas girl: "I think you're just looking for a reason to break up with me." I wasn't really; and to tell you the truth, I've had plenty of reasons already. It made me angry that he'd accuse me of digging deeply to find terrible things about him. No, I think I've got reason enough.
Now, I'd just like to be friends. No more "I love you's," as Annie Lennox might instruct. I'd like to have dinners, and nice afternoons, and somebody whose house I can go to when I need a friend. I'd like to have somebody who will entertain me when I'm bored of myself, and for whom I can do the same. I'd like to have somebody to sit with and read sometimes. I'd like to have coffee, and chore-exchanges, and maybe even some sex. I DON'T want girlfriend status.
I'm sorry Jürgen; I believe you're really just kind of misguided or something, and not that you're this awful manipulative asshole... But it still sucks, and I definitely need some time out from this alleged devotion we have to each other. I hope very much that you're willing to associate with me as a good friend who cares about you, and whom you care about. But for gahd's sake, this whole thing is a mess, and I don't want to be part of the wreckage...
~Helena*