View Workout (Joe Uhan)
Home, and out with C
December 1, 2013 (Morning)
Exercise Type: Other
Comments:
BIG day. Was up pretty early (didn't sleep well due to run fatigue, too much food, and too much beer), but had pretty OK energy. No coffee on the drive home, just some tea, to try to detox. Ate "light" (yard waste bag and nuts), since I wasn't running today.
Got home at 3:30, super-excited to see Chelsea. I just *felt* like it was time to make The Move. But I was still nervous about the Due Diligence: finding out the Jefe stuff.
She met me at my apt, but before that, I was home, alternately cleaning and "convict conditioning". She came over, and looked ravishing of course, in a simple sweater and jeans (damn). So we went to St Mary's for mass.
It was...awesome! It was actually a great mass - one of the best ever. Good message about "putting down the weapons and starting to build", "being awake", and preparing our hearts for JC. Good life applications there.
It just felt GOOD and RIGHT to be there with her. Gosh, it was great!
On our way to mass, she told me about her ex-husband, Curtis: he's moved back to EUG, which is huge for her and the kids, because he now has 50% custody and is a presence in their lives. She said about how now that she's done with Jeff, she's perceiving his affect changing. She made astute observations about his actions and possible intents ("Does he want to reconcile?") and is concerned about those boundaries. This, of course, is HUGE for her to perceive that, since a year ago, this would not have registered.
After that, we went to Agate Alley - where we met a month ago for the first time. We kept it light; I moved to her side of the booth to show pics of the weekend (lil SadeZ), then stayed there.
We transitioned into deeper discussion: I asked her about Jeff.
Ugh.
It was hard to listen to. First, she talked about HIS boundary issues after he "kissed" some other divorcee who was "confiding in him" earlier this year. He tried to deny it, but the crazy "Sausy B" contacted Chelsea directly to tell her about it.
But THEN, she told me about her own transgressions: "Super-Old Guy". Remember this fuckin' guy? She mentioned him a year+ ago. Well, I guess he was still creepin' around this whollle time (at least since I've been gone), and this includes HER kissing this fucking guy!
So I'm sitting there listening to all this, in mini-freak out, thinking to myself, "Are you fucking kidding me?". I almost started panicking, "What am I DOING? She's not going to change!..."
She gets back to Jefe:
He wanted to marry her, and "talked about it every day" in the summer. She said that getting married was what she wanted, but "my gut told me it wasn't right." The ensuing conflict from that - then the kiss revelation - deteriorated their relationship, and there were other arguments and conflicts she didn't share with me. But ultimately she did not want to marry him, and they broke up in early September.
What sealed the deal - for her and for me - with Jefe, was what she said about him:
"... the way he dealt with conflict and hard times was to retreat, to hide within himself and only emerge when *he* felt better", and that he'd done that multiple times in the last year".
She spoke of how she needs a true partner and teammate to be there in the tough times, and she knew he was too "selfish" for that to happen.
I couldn't let it go without at least one jab at him: "If he loved you as much as you deserved, he would've MOVED HERE a year ago." But I stopped myself after that.
They were still in periodic contact until about a month ago, when she told him "We are never getting back together, like...EVAR".
Good Game. RIP El Jefe.
That was all good, but I was still super-disturbed with Super-Old Guy, and the implications of a relationship like that on our future.
After some brief silence, I spoke, then flat-out asked, incredulously, "Why ME? Why not THAT GUY?"
She talked about that relationship: she "hooked up" with The Pepperidge Farm Guy, pre-Jefe, after her divorce, and noted it was "a friendship with poor boundaries". She spoke deeper about this concept: of getting married at age 20, and having "boundaries set for me", by her ex-husband, and that when that [seemingly repressive] relationship ended, "the pendulum swung the other way". And that included her interactions with this guy, which she described as "a friendship, but at times more".
I'm not sure how present this fuckhead was when she and I were spending time together last fall, but he was a presence once again in 2013 when she was committed to Jeff: the frequency of boundary-intruding, she did not specify, but made it sound like she'd done inappropriate things with him earlier this year. She noted that after her and Jefe broke up in September that Old Dickhead re-emerged (like the fucking douchebag that he is, no doubt), but that a month ago, she shut it down with him *completely* (e.g. nothing, including "no calls, emails, texts"). For good.
Hearing all this, I just felt heavy: frustrated, discouraged, questioning my faith in her, in us. I sat there for a while and thought about it:
- "OK, that's her shit and that's in the past. She's made actions in the past month+ to demonstrate her commitment to change, right?"
- "What about ME? I've done some sketchy shit, with my pick-up artistry and 'ambiguous female hangouts' this past few months that I'd rather not tell her, including fooling around with Teresa when I had feeling for her..."
Then, as I mulled on this, she started into the, "Why me?":
- she spoke of that first meeting we had a month ago. She contacted me, simply because she felt "things weren't right" with how we ended, and that feelings weren't yet present. She said, "Even at that meeting I thought I wouldn't see you again... until we hugged at the end." She said that at that moment, feelings began to rush back in, and they continued to build through our brief interactions after that.
- she re-examined things: literally, with the letter I sent her ("before I was too panicked", but now she was able to accept the message), as well as think about me as a partner: "I kept thinking of all the things I wanted in life, and from a partner, and I kept coming back to you."
- it was then that she pulled the plug on communicating with me in order to figure out what she truly wanted, and the changes she needed to make, and the rest (my feelings, then hers, beginning to truly cultivate) is known history.
This was all great, but I came back to the meat:
"I can't share you with anyone else. I want all of your heart!"
She agreed with that, and admitted that she never gave Jefe her whole heart, which played a role in her other poor boundary interactions.
We sat in silence for a few moments, me staring at my near-empty beer. I've learned that there's a fine line between faith, trust, and acceptance, and of *compromise*: of my values and beliefs, and what is right for us both.
Ultimately, I had to come back to my faith - in her as a person (who she is, and her actions, now, not before), and in our love - as well as to my word to forgive her. I spoke of those things -- of the hope I saw in her a year ago, and the authentic realization of that hope I see before me today, and the hope I have for us going forward.
I looked her in the eye again, and said, "I love you."
Looking at me, she replied, "I love you, too."
OMG! OMG! OMG!
She laid her head on my shoulder and I put my arm around her. It was a moment that I've dreamt about and hoped for, for over a year.
Continued...