29.3.013 "Clean Break"

I was entertaining the idea of not writing this letter at all, but since I'm having trouble sleeping I might as well do something useful with my time.

We are no longer dating. You don't love me; I don't love you. We are not going to get married; we aren't going to raise children together; we're not going to sleep side-by-side anymore, etc. I have accepted all that. Those are easy facts.

I haven't cried since the first night, and I'm not angry even though I want to be-- even though I deserve to be. I would like to cry at times, because crying is a wonderful cathartic release, but I am just not capable-- and that sucks. If that was all I had to deal with, I wouldn't be writing to you, and there would be no further communication between us so long as I had anything to say about the matter.

Let me reiterate that I want to be angry. I know, however, that anger won't reverse the two weeks of ignoring me (which I happily took in stride, both because you were improving your life through higher education and because-- in your physical absence-- there was the knowledge in my mind that you loved me and would be spending your life experiencing the world by my side).

Anger won't reverse the four-minute and twenty-second phone call that followed those two weeks of willful ignorance. Anger will not reverse the "clean break."

Anger hurts my stomach. Anger turns to panic (and it did), or to bitterness. I don't want to be bitter, especially over something as cheap as a phone call. I also don't want to be bitter (or angry) because I would like to remember you fondly-- because I would like to think that you loved me at all, much less in the same manner or intensity that I used to love you.

I don't think you loved me at all. I think maybe you wanted to, and you convinced yourself of it. When the initial excitement wore off (and it always does, yet this is usually the point when people leave), you stopped living in your head-- and you got scared or overwhelmed or apathetic or a million other things. I may be wrong (I wouldn't know, because you communicated none of these thoughts to me-- you held them in), but, regardless, all of that doesn't matter. I'm just making guesses and assumptions.

What does matter is that once you realized that your "feelings had changed," you couldn't do me the courtesy of having a sit-down talk. I get that you wanted a clean break-- we all do-- but this is not a clean break. By withdrawing yourself from the relationship, and with your decision to end it with a brief phone call, you deflected all of the grief, confusion, sadness, hurt, and anger onto me. You left me to deal with this alone.

Had we broken up in person, we might not have known what to do with ourselves, and I would have been just as upset as I was that first night after the phone call-- but I would have known that (although your feelings had changed or evaporated or were never there to begin with) you at least cared enough about me as a friend to be there for me as we ended the relationship the same way we started it: together. THAT, Kevin, is what hurts so much.

As a human being, I do not want to cause grief or harm in other human beings. Had you any compassion for me as a human being-- much less as a friend-- you would have taken a few hours out of your busy schedule to end this relationship the right way: a real "clean break," face-to-face. The way you managed the breakup showed me that there is something lacking in your character that I think I had ignored since we first became acquainted. I'm reminded of a time years ago when I had reached out for you on multiple occasions and received no response for months-- not until you e-mailed me, asking if I could edit a paper for you. And I was so idiotically desperate for any contact with you that-- despite my disgust that you only felt it necessary to befriend me or communicate to me when you needed something from me-- I did it anyways.

I allowed myself to forget this, and I shouldn't have. It was the first and one of the few displays of selfish behavior that came from you, and my forgetting about it, I feel, has led me here.

Please, Kevin-- if you don't have the time or energy to see one of your friends, TAKE A MOMENT to do him or her the courtesy of explaining that to them. We all have that same problem. It's discourteous to both yourself and others for you to divide your attention; devoting your whole self to the present moment and to the task or person at hand is the only way to live life. To do otherwise is unkind to yourself and unkind to those who want to see you, spend time with you, get to know you, or-- hell-- marry you. This is something I'm working on myself.

I realize you have been very stressed, and I feel for you-- it sucks. Some people may get offended if/when you tell them you don't have the time to devote to them, but if you explain that you want to give them your undivided attention (and if you truly mean it), the people who are really worth your time and energy will understand.

I thought I was one of those people, and I thought I understood where we were in our relationship.

I would like to salvage this and remain friends, but I'm leaving it up to you. I would still like to talk about the breakup, find out exactly what happened, and end this relationship with honesty and complete closure/disclosure. I also cannot remain friends with you if you continue this same pattern of avoidance, ignoring, and self-centered behavior.

I still miss you, and I'm going to miss you for a while. I'm going to miss that feeling of embracing you and feeling like I'm really breathing in for the first time in weeks. I'm going to miss that small feeling of home. Even though I know in both my head and my heart that I have a wonderful and varied life ahead of me, I'm still going to miss that period where everything seemed like it was finally going right. It will pass.

I don't want to have to say goodbye—I want(ed) to keep building on what we had—but I’m going to need more from you in the ways of honesty and communication. I wanted so much to be there for you when you were stressed; I wanted to carry some of the load (or at least some of the groceries), but like you said, you've grown used to doing things on your own, carrying your own weight, not sharing the load. Feelings aside, I just don't think you were ready for this relationship.

If for some reason you harbor any ill will towards me (possibly because of this letter), and if you think any or all of what I've written is complete crap, just please promise that you won't ever break up with someone this way ever again. Promise that you won't ever cause anyone so much unnecessary grief with such a careless, backhanded gesture—ever again. You're better than that, and any decent human being deserves better. I deserve better-- and the thought that you didn't seem to think so hurt me a lot.

My hope is that we'll both continue to grow—together or separately, as friends or former friends—and that someday we might both be able to look past this. Give Nimbus my love.

-J****