I’m a Jerk§
writer: russell j.t. dyer; posted: October 19, 2007; revised: April 24, 2018; readers in past month: 687
This past weekend, I broke from the girlfriend. I cried excessively when I broke with her, while I talked to her about it. It was my idea and decision that we part, but I still cried. I cried because I knew I was hurting her and I hated that. I didn’t feel guilty; I just felt her pain. I can be very empathetic in that way.
So now I am alone again, naturally. I keep hearing that song in my head. I always talk up the merits of being alone, how it clenses me and teaches me to know the sound of my own voice. While that’s all true, it still is a miserable state at first. Of course, the value of being alone is the process we must go through to break us: we must be miserable until we let go of our attachments and dependencies that are unhealthy. Nevertheless, I feel adrift. I feel a float in the abyss, with no air and no gravity, no light and no external influence momentum and very little of my own.
I’m in the U.S. for a few weeks at the moment. In part that’s good — I can see my daughter every day — but I think I might prefer to curl up in my own bed and hug my teddy bear and cry at least once a day for a while. I feel bad and sometimes this week I wonder if I made the right decision in breaking from the girlfriend. She’s not happy with this choice and is hoping that we can get back together. She wanted me to wait until I got back to Milan to divide, as she said. I didn’t want to go through the pain again and I wanted to separate then. Still, I agreed reluctantly to discuss it when I returned, but state emphatically that we are divided now and that I don’t expect to change my mind then. I see her come on-line occasionally to see if I’m on-line. I guess she’s hoping that I want to talk. I don’t want to talk to her right now. I’m a jerk and should be shunned.
It’s hard making decisions about relationships. It’s difficult doing what you feel is right when you know it will hurt others, especially those you love. I do love her. I’m just not happy in the relationship and don’t think that I can be. I was in that situation with my marriage: loving, but not happy. It’s a lonely state, more lonely than being alone. I lived like that for many years and don’t want to be in that situation again. I had been trying to work it out with the girlfriend almost since the beginning, but there are some incompatiability items that make it difficult to resolve no matter how much we try. And, there are some ways of living that she has that leave me out of her life. Finally, she protects herself so much: she has many times pushed me away when I tried to get close to her. She has pushed me away so many times that she’s pushed me out of the relationship. In the end, I was at a point where I didn’t feel like I was in a relationship, but a casual arrangement. I got to the point where I lost my sense of boundaries. I operated totally independently of her with no concern for the relationship. I reached a point where if some other woman suggested that we have sex together, I wouldn’t have refused her. I lost all sense of boundaries and loyalty. In that state of mind, I needed to part from the relationship, or rather declare it over as it has been for a while. The girlfriend deserves to be treated fairly and with respect. She doesn’t deserve to be disregarded. Since I lost almost all sense of the relationship, I felt in good conscience that I needed to end it before I could become a total jerk, if I’m not one already. No, I am a jerk and despicable — despite my noble sentiments expressed here to justify my misconduct.