Friends, I’ve left out a really important part of the story.
I haven’t told you how much hurt there is between me and Sweetie. Every loving
thing I’ve said about her is true and sincere, but there is a very deep sadness
between us that’s getting harder and harder to push aside.
Every so often, we trigger something in each other that is very
hard to live with. We only have bad fights a few times a year, but the things
we’ve said to each other are a very heavy load to keep carrying. Any couple
that’s been together for twelve years might have deep angers and resentments,
but in this case I don’t understand how we can get to the point of liking
ourselves, individually or together. For a long time she attacked my sexuality
whenever we were fighting, so even though she’s almost always supportive now it
is hard to accept myself as bisexual. I have a very, very deep wish to be gay
for her, to make all of the complications and dissatisfactions (well not ALL of
them, I suppose) go away.
Saturday, we thought we got it figured out. We were
bickering on the nude beach of all places, exchanging barbs about how I always
want her to go in the ocean and she doesn’t want to. It, um, wasn’t really
about the ocean. I told her I couldn’t deal with the idea of swimming alone for
the rest of my life, couldn’t deal with paddling around by myself with all
those happy couples. I didn’t want to hit on them, I wanted to be them.
She pointed out, incorrectly but insightfully, that the
wave-frolicking pairs I was envying were all boy/girl combinations. I’m sure
this is partly because I was hurting over Mr. Sweetheart, but I know that’s not
all.
“I haven’t been your primary partner for a long time.” she
said, again wrong but not wrong. What I feel for her is closer to
best-friendship than romance to the point where I dearly wish we could skip
right past divorce to being pals. But she would have to not be madly in love
with me for us to do that.
Having been back and forth about divorce bunches of times,
we decided we were finally going to rip the Band-aid off as soon as we got home
and start the divorce process. I got up and walked into the ocean, suddenly and
completely fine with swimming on my own. It was cold and it took me a while to
settle in, pick my feet up, float and even smile. I felt relief. I could
finally stop trying to squeeze into this thing that no longer fit me. My long
hard quest to somehow what she wants was over. I could stop running and finally
turn to face myself.
Of course she swam out to meet me. I started to cry. “I’m so
sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
I started to cry harder and sobbed out “I want a husband.”
There in the water, cool and naked and facing the person who
knows me best in the world, it seemed so clear. It seemed like such a simple
truth.
It’s impossible to overstate the amount of shame that my
failure to be gay and monogamous has brought me over the years. I felt, I still
feel, like I let her down so much. I’ve been given a partner who is almost
perfect, almost every single thing a person could need, why couldn’t I just
TAKE it? Why couldn’t I just be satisfied?
I’m not sure if I can every really love myself within the
context of this relationship. It is certainly very hard to accept being bi, let
alone the taboo and crazy-feeling wish for a male primary. Every time some dude
wrecks our evening in whatever careless way, I overflow with sorries, for
taking away her time and happiness, for the fact that I could never manage to
just settle down and let myself be loved.
Day to day, she’s understanding and giving, the most
supportive a poly girl could hope for, but in the fights the truth always comes
out. Like I started to say, for years she’d attack my sexuality during every fight,
calling me a slut or a whore and telling me that I’m disgusting for wanting
men. She talked so disdainfully and I gave as good as I got. These days she
doesn’t tell me to go suck a dick like she used to, but she does go from zero
to you’re-a-stupid-selfish-bitch-and-you-never-shut-up-about-boys every so
often. I wish there were some in-between there.
She doesn’t say those things because she really hates men or
bisexuals or anything like that. She does it because I do get self-involved, yammering and fussing through every crush,
and it makes her feel insignificant. I am not loving her the way she deserves
to be loved, and I am not loving myself, either.
As we drove home from the beach, stopping for sundaes and
listening to Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me as
usual, the enormity of losing each other kept hitting us and what to do next
became a lot less clear. Whether I stay with her or not, a husband seems like
an impossible dream-where does one get
one of those? How does that happen?
The best thing about this, though, is that I’ve allowed
myself to stop denying it, to stop wishing and trying and struggling to be the
wife I planned to be ten years ago, to be what’s expected of me, to be what she
really wants. I grieve for the nice lesbian wife I didn’t turn out to be, but
I’m also glad to be (almost) free of her. (Free of the imaginary me, that is.)
Since Saturday, we’ve been intermittently fine and sobby. We
fall asleep separately but she still crawls in with me every night, we still
hit the snooze a million times and hold each other in the cool morning air. I
wish we could hit the snooze on this decision forever.
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