Dear Michelle:

I spent a few hours this morning re-reading through your posts since January 27 this year. As a result of my evolving understanding of your story, I have new thoughts that I would like you to consider as possibilities. Some of what I will express may feel unpleasant, but please keep an open mind and have patience with me as I proceed.  I will start with a World War 2 documented story that left a great impression on me long ago, an extreme story that I will connect your story soon enough:

Josef Mengele was an SS officer and physician, infamous for the inhumane medical experiments he conducted on WW2 prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and for selecting many thousands of Jewish and Gypsy prisoners (who were considered very inferior to the Aryan race) to their deaths in the gas chambers. The story is that there was a handsome, talented gypsy prisoner boy, that Mengele liked very much. He gave the boy treats, dressed him in a nice suit, treated him kindly, had the boy follow him while going about his daily rounds, showing the boy affection and preference. It was surprising then, to those who witnessed it, that at the end of one routine day, he  calmly led the boy to the gas chamber, and then continued, undisturbed, with the rest  of his afternoon or evening.

If I was there, watching Mengele’s affection for the boy, I would have expected him to make an exception for the boy, to not send him to the gas chamber.. to maybe take him home and raise him as his son. But in reality, Mengele liked the boy in the strict, rigid, uncompromising context of a racially inferior boy who needed to be killed. In Mengele’s mind, he always knew that he will be sending the boy to his death, and it was not a big deal for him.

I am now connecting this extreme story of compartmentalization to your story: the man in your life whom we’ve been discussing, he is not a murderer or a war criminal of course, nothing like Mengele- but I think that it is possible that his liking and even loving you is limited to the strict, rigid  and uncompromising context of a short term/ temporary relationship. It is within this limit that he allows himself to be attentive, affectionate and loving, knowing all along that the relationship will certainly end.

January 27: “He said he felt that we were having a good relationship but if he was going to be honest he doesn’t see it long term.. He says he doesn’t likely see himself with anyone long-term.. He said he did love me in a way, but it’s not a one and only kind of love”.

You wrote on that day: “None of it makes sense based on his actions and the way he pursued things with me”- but it does make sense if you consider the way he pursued things with you being limited to the context of a short-term relationship.

“He acted like a boyfriend.. He was extremely loving and affection and generous with time and everything else”- all in the context of a short-term relationship. In other words: for as long as he knows, and for as long as he knows that you know, that this is a short-term relationship- he is able to act like a boyfriend and be extremely loving, etc.

August 10-12: “He said he loves me, but … he cannot commit to me that way. He thinks there is someone more compatible out there for him. He asked if I would continue to see him knowing it would end“- he wants to see you for as long as you know that the relationship will end.

November 9: “There is not a capital C for commitment, but it’s been so different to just see a relationship unfold naturally without any need to put it in a tidy little box with a red bow”- you were referring to a long-term/ marriage tidy little box, but I think that he has placed the relationship in a different kind of a tidy little box, that of a short term/ temporary relationship.

“Lately he has been especially romantic, taking me on dates, taking time off of work for me”- one would think that it means that this is leading to a long-term relationship, but what if him being especially romantic etc., is possible for him because it is clear in his mind that this is a short-term relationship.

December 19: “I am in a relationship that is said to have no future, and yet, we have  been moving along into the future quicker and quicker, picking up speed… continue to spend all of his time with me”- what if that speed is leading, in his mind, to the expected and accepted ending of a short-term relationship, what he is spending all his time with you because he knows the relationship is time-limited.

December 22: “He also told me that I have  gotten better looking since we’ve met. My friend told me that it’s a strange thing for him to say, and she took it to mean that he’s falling for me”- I too want him to break that tidy little box of a short-term relationship and make it long term/ a marriage, a  happily ever after. But.. we often interpret others’ behaviors according to what we wish those behaviors meant.

What do you think/ feel?

anita