Reframing

It was such a brief conversation. No more than 10 minutes as we both walked the aisles of the grocery store. He was buying juice and diapers. I was buying basil and beer. The comments were almost tossed off. Asides to a larger conversation.

“You know I travel with a crew now.”

“She’s OK if we play, we just can’t fuck.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. In the cooler section. The 6 pack of apricot ale I’d just selected all of a sudden very heavy in my hand.

“Wait, what? We can’t fuck? Have you told her how you feel about me? How you’ve said you’ve felt?”

“Well baby, it’s not like we traded essays.”

And then he had to go. I could hear the baby starting to cry. I bit the inside of my cheek and willed my own tears to stay put. Crying in Safeway was not on my to do list that evening. But once I hit the parking lot I couldn’t hold them back. Somehow in the space of that conversation all of the pieces finally fell into place.

How he came here in January he didn’t tell her, because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. How he wouldn’t give her a straight answer when she found evidence of my last visit in his apartment. How he’ll step into the next room to take a call from her when he and I are together but my calls to him when she is there always roll to voice mail.

The truth is, that back in September, when she got pregnant and he told me she needed to know about me. He wasn’t entirely honest. He confessed his physical infidelity. He did not confess his feelings. And that makes all the difference.

We’ve had this discussion before. He always retreats to a position of me not wanting to share him. But that’s not the case. There has been plenty of extracurricular fucking around for both of us. I don’t care at all about that. What I care about is that there is a person in his life, who he readily admits there is a minimal relationship with, that still has this hold over him.

Even though, by his words, she’s not the smartest person. She has no drive. The sex isn’t good. She wants him to change any number of things about himself. That a five day vacation with her is four days too many. A woman who went off birth control without telling him and trapped him into having a child.

This is the person for whom you will make all kinds of concessions to spare her feelings?

This is the person you continually choose over me?

When I am the one you once said you wanted to spend a life time with. That made you think of marriage and children for the first time ever. The one you said finally gave you the freedom to be who you are. Who embraced your sexuality and made you feel normal.

Just because I’m the one with whom you can be open and honest and not filter anything, my feelings somehow don’t count? Because I’ll understand? I’m not OK with that.

And I’ve spent the majority of our relationship giving him the space he needed to deal with his situation. I think I’ve been more than understanding. All I have ever, ever wanted, from him or from anybody, is to be met in the middle. To know that he wants me around. I need people in my life who will fight.

And he’s lost his fight. He’s resigning himself to a life that he does not want.

I’ve spent the last several days crying. And sitting in the dark listening to the most melancholy jazz I own. Drinking. And fucking men I care nothing about just to distract myself a little.

I took his pictures down. Most of them.I’ve quietly told my closest friends. His photo will stay on my desk at work for a while. I need to take my time with that one. Even when I take it down he’ll be everywhere. On the cover of so many of our publications. Quite literally larger than life on a banner that hangs at my theater. And his head shot remains atop my piano.

I’m reframing our relationship. There will be no declarative email. No impassioned speech. I’m just letting him go. I’m no longer thinking of him as my primary partner. As my boyfriend Aaron. He’s just my friend. With whom there is a romantic past. And although the door is still open for a romantic future, he needs to be the one to walk through it. With purpose.

I’ll still talk to him when he calls. But no more calling him baby. No more “I love you.” No more random text messages that he doesn’t respond to anyway.

My needs are really very simple. I just need to know that I’m loved and that you want to be in my life. Remind me often if you have to. But assure me of that and there’s nothing I won’t do. There’s no end to my patience. Right now he just can’t give me that. And I deserve nothing less.