What I've learned

Wow. A year ago this month Steph and I split up. I don't consider the split a failure in our relationship, because we have tried to remain close. We were friends before, we are friends afterwards. The quality of our relationship has transformed, but the love is there. It always will be. And so we persevere and struggle to find ways to relate, to re-open doors that becoming lovers closed, because I was not able to maintain the depth of the emotional intimacy we had as friends while being her lover. She did not know just how deep the disconnect between intimacy and sex went with me, and neither did I. It caused her so much pain, to think that she was getting her best friend and her lover in one package, only to find the friend slipping away, and not knowing why, blaming herself. I needed her to accept what I could give, and she needed me to be emotionally available. Afterall, isn't that what women are, by definition? It was doomed from the start, but neither of us knew it. Much as I would have loved to be what she needed in a partner, I could not. I am much better suited to the mental, emotional, and physical demands men make of their partners than I am those of a woman. Reluctant as we both were to accept it, we finally did.

In going through the past year's correspondence I found the draft of a letter I wrote to her in August last year:
"I had seen this coming, so there is no shock, only sadness. I knew that you have a tendancy to cut former lovers our of your life, so most of my apprehension was that our relationship would become a casualty of change.

We have spend years trying to be for each other what we cannot be. Our natural state is friendship and the more we slid from that intimacy, the more strain it put on the foundation of our caring. We have become strangers in ways, because we have so carefully modulated our interactions that there was little left that came naturally and free of concerns about misunderstandings and hurtfulness.

It is with a sense of relief that I now face each day, knowing that we are each of us free to be ourselves and free to be friends again. You are more natural and relaxed around me now, more inclined to be affectionate even, now that there is no worry that such attentions might be misconstrued as being sexual in intent..."

I am reminded of that conversation with Michael about wanting to take a lover soon, but not wanting a lover so much as a partner, but that it needs to be someone I am deeply comfortable with if my next relationship is going to be a step forward for me--and that takes so much time. And about Chris, and my feeling that given time to allow our affinities to develop and the physical intimidation factor to fade...that he is the most eligible man in my life. And he reminded me that the reason why I had chosen to be celibate was because I wanted to focus on myself, wanted to resolve the issues I had that made me curtail my emotional involvement in my relationships. I told him I didn't know if I'd ever resolve all of that, but I had this awareness that you lose when you hesistate, and my concern was that my hesitation to enter a sexual relationship with Chris had more to do with being afraid than with being concerned for theraputic reasons. So he asked me about the second part of the reason why I had chosen celibacy. I asked what he meant and he reminded me that I had been in relationships for 15 years straight, no real break between them, and I had felt it was necessary to contemplate what I had taken away from those relationships. He asked, Are you done learning from your past relationship?

So I started compiling the list of all the things I had learned about our relationship and what I had learned the past year with regards to her, and me, and 'us'. And the more I thought about it the more I felt like I owed her an apology. So I sat down tonight and I wrote out a card thanking her for being a part of my life, and I included this list of things I learned from contemplating our relationship:

[*] I learned that love and will can make a way, but it doesn't mean that it should be made, because forcing will upon the time also forces compromise.
[*] I learned that I can't fix everyone I love, nor should I try.
[*] I learned that you are an emotional genius and I am an emotional cripple.
[*] I've learned that feeling something so deeply that trying to express it makes you incoherent does not mean you are crazy.
[*] I learned that I had grown so adept at invalidating my own emotions that I was unconsciously invalidating yours.
[*] I learned that I wronged you every time I stopped listening to you because your argument was couched in emotional terms.
[*] I learned that my logial responses to your emotional appeals were little more than rationalizations of irrational fears.
[*] I've learned that its ok to be an emotional being. I hope one day to feel safer being emotional, but that will come with time and practice, I think.
[*] I learned that resolving not to do something ever again because I felt threatened by the intensity of your responses was controlling and illustrative of how childish my coping mechanisms really are.
[*] I learned that where love and rage intersect, I am more dangerous than I imagined, for my well of rage is almost as deep as my love's.
[*] I learned that I am capable of a level of physical and emotional intimacy I never thought possible.
[*] I've learned that I have always placed too much emphasis on sexual chemistry.
[*] I learned that loving a woman full-time is not something I am capable of maintaining indefinately.
[*] And I learned that it was time to face Demming and the dam that my experiences with her had become in my life. If I had not gotten involved with you, I may never have dealt with Demming.

I left it on her desk while she was sleeping. I wonder how she will react?