No one will ever send you the memo about a relationship being a full time job. When you first meet someone that you don’t have the urge to strangle within five minutes into a conversation, you consider them to be the coffee bitch intern. As time progresses, and things get more serious, a promotion is expected. Before you know it, it’s been 2 and a half years, and you’ve become… “that couple.” The couple that is emotionally disconnected, and on the verge of flat-lining.
My phone vibrates and wakes me. It’s 2:15 in the morning. I laid there for a few seconds, restless and aggravated. I just hung up on my drunk boyfriend who was slurring his way through an argument. I grabbed my phone, ready for round two of this screaming match. But there was no screaming. There was no drunk boyfriend. It was Greg, my “substitute boyfriend.”
I was never a fan of cheating. But, when the guy you are having an emotional affair with calls you in the middle of the night, drunk, promising you that if you pick him up from the ferry he will, “return the favor”… it’s hard to just hang up the phone with the hopes that you will wake up from this horrible nightmare.
Greg: Nicolllleeeeeee, I’m so drunk, can you please come pick me up from the ferry? I’m so drunk!
Me: I’m home. I’m in bed. My eyes are barely open. I’m sorry, I can’t, but I’ll stay on the phone with you until you get home.
Greg: Maybe it’s a good thing. Being in the car with you right now might be a bad thing… I would fuck the shit out of you!
Me: (Thinking to myself, I should hang up, this is getting out of hand). Ummm, yeah that would be a problem.
Greg: Out of 1-10. How wet are you right now? I bet you are at at least a 9!
Me: ::Speechless:: Feeling vulnerable and weak because as each day passed, I realized my real relationship was failing miserably. Greg was my crutch, an illusion, something to fall onto while I watched something else fall apart.
But what happens when the emotional becomes physical?
I’m pretty sure that when you’re in a monogamous relationship, it’s inappropriate to cuddle, with your lips only inches away from crossing into a world of lies and deceit. All while your, “special friend” sticks his hand down the side of your pants to conduct an underwear check. (Thank God I didn’t have granny panties on that night). This was enough for me to run out of his house, but it wasn’t enough for me to stop putting my hand on the stove.
A few weeks later, we were hanging out in his car after one of our typical trips to Starbucks. Words were coming out of his mouth, but all I heard was, “blah, blah, blah… kiss me.” Before I got out of his car that night, I tested out my delusional theory. I sunk so deep into this affair, that I was convinced that I could kiss him… as long as there was no tongue involved, and it still wouldn’t be considered cheating. I called this a, “friend peck.”
Believe it or not, I fessed up to my boyfriend about what happened. “I checked out of our relationship on an emotional level, but I want us to talk about what went wrong, and if we can fix things great, if not, we know we tried,” I said. He OKed me to death, our fights got worse, and I knew it was because he resented me. I honestly couldn’t blame him, if he pulled what I did, he would be six feet under right now.
My relationship with my now, ex-boyfriend lasted for two and a half years, and we were pretty much your typical couple. When things were good, they were great. When they were bad, they were miserable. Unfortunately, after two years of running on the same “routine,” something snapped for me. Maybe it was the hectic work schedules. Maybe it was the pre-graduation gitters. Maybe this relationship was progressing to a level of seriousness that I wasn’t ready for. Regardless, I freaked out. I had a midlife crisis at 22.
Karma of course proved to be a bitch, because I then rebounded with Greg for four months before that fizzled out. Could I honestly expect anything more? How could he trust me? And how could I trust someone who helped sabotage my relationship?
I know I’m not the only one out there who has done this. Do you think faced with the same situation, we’d handle it differently?
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