Good morning Anita:

Thank you for replying even though I’m sure it was late there…

I agree with you and with Rose: I think my ex has defined “friends” and I need to accept and let go. I tend to romanticize things, which is the reason I felt a bit excited when she mentioned visiting next summer for a road trip through the mountains. I “romanticized” it, not in a romantic sense, but more in the vein of reminiscence. We took so many trips in the hills and mountains of the DC area, that the idea of another trip with her would remind me of happier, more carefree times–even though we both knew those times were shortlived.

She laid things bare when she returned home last December (after I helped her move out of her apartment and the ill-fated Christmas party):

It’s not that I don’t miss you but things just have to be different. I don’t mind having you as a part of my life, but we broke up months ago. I know we were still close and I let lines blur sometimes, but it doesn’t change the facts; we aren’t a couple, we are friends. It’s not that I’m mad at you for how things were left last week, but it was very clear that there needs to be a definitive separation between us. I can’t go to Italy with you. I can’t do a road trip with you to move your stuff. I can’t do a weekend with you in the mountains for my birthday. You didn’t want to make the full commitment to me but you also struggle with this being just a friendship. I didn’t have the ability to put my foot down on the line between us when I was in DC, but now I can/must. I really didn’t want to talk about this. I just wanted you to take the facts and the hints and let the friendship settle where it will. But you continue to push for romantic settings, and I’m not sure how else to easily let you down. I don’t hold resentment towards you but I also don’t hold any romantic feelings for you.

Granted, things were still raw then but the walls she put up remain. Certainly, I would welcome a visit by her–and hopefully her son–next summer, but what are the chances of that? We could still be in the midst of the pandemic, she could be even more involved with her current beau (or a new one), I could be involved with someone, I could move… There exist too many variables to pin my hopes on a visit that may or may not happen. And, yes, I think she does hold deep and powerful feelings for me, but she stuffed them down to cope and survive. My ex has had a contentious (to put it mildly) relationship with her father. This is part of as series of texts she sent after she’d asked her father to send some books to her in DC, and he flipped out when he could not find them:

I don’t want the day to come that he’s gone forever and I’d wished I was there more. But it is so hard to love someone like that. To let him be a part of my life. To let him have an influence on my son. I know now I can’t leave my son with him. I can’t trust his anger and I can’t… I don’t know. But I don’t want to look back and feel I deprived him of that relationship.

My mom always gives me shit for being someone I’m not. Being tougher than I am. Having walls and being cold. Because when I finally let go of that shit, I finally wear my heart on my sleeve again it gets shredded every time. Every fucking time.

And I believed in [my son’s father]. I believed in every person who’s ever hurt me. Even after they hurt me. I want so bad to call [my son’s father] and see if he’s ok, tell him he doesn’t have to be ashamed and just say upfront what he actually wants. But I know he won’t and I know I can’t. And I know he doesn’t deserve it.

But it is my own security that I think everyone will hurt me. Including you. It’s probably why my relationships never work because I mentally set them up for failure at the start.

I just have so much hate inside sometimes and I get so angry but it’s all trained. I wasn’t like that as a girl. But the more pain I go through the more hate and anger I hold and sometimes I just blow my top and then I hate myself. I hate myself so much because I’m such a good person by nature, but I’ve choked the life out of that girl for so long. And now I can’t get it back. And I hate that I’m raising my son with this angry person. (Referring to her father.)

I’ve worked hard to make myself a better person. And to love who I am but I just can’t. Because I eventually explode every time and I’m reminded I haven’t changed for the better at all. And I’ve worked hard for nothing. To mask the person I’ve become. It’s not real change. It’s like putting a fresh coat of paint on a dilapidated house.

This is my fresh start. A reminder that no matter how far I run I can’t escape me. I still yell at at my son, throw things, lose my cool. You don’t understand the level of anger that resides in me, Ry. I’ve tried not to let you see it. You’ve seen some of it recently, but it’s like another person. The rage makes me shake and I could honestly kill someone without a second thought until I’ve calmed down.

While she tried counseling in the past and while we dated, she did not in DC—when she probably needed it most. And to be honest, this was a large part of why I could not see myself in the relationship long term. Perhaps it was selfish of me, but while I loved her, I did not want to deal with the seething anger. Yes, much of the time, it was stifled, but it was always there.

And for the reasons she mentioned in the text chain above, she will only allow me to occupy a cursory part of her heart and her life. No matter how deep the connection is, she will keep any vulnerabilities hidden. She won’t ever call to say how much I meant to her, or how important I was to her and her son. She has said those things and they are buried now. I must learn to move on or accept the perfunctory nature of our relationship.