only a day later than i thought

i've been called self-destructive by many people... my mother, both my ex-wives, friends, work-friends, a couple of people who barely qualified as acquaintances, a therapist and by B, my former best friend. I say former because she doesn't consider me a friend any more.

i suppose i've always agreed with that diagnosis. i've had a lifelong affair with drugs, although fortunately it's always been under control, never more of an "issue" really than cigarette smoking. it's certainly never affected my work, or caused lost time or accidents or lost jobs or anything like that; it's always been recreational. many would call that self-destructive behavior, although i don't. ditto for drinking; i've always had a pretty high tolerance for drink, and i enjoy it. here too, i've never had a dui/dwi, or alcohol related accident or lost time, or any of that.

social behaviors, however, have been a problem and continue to be. what do i mean by that, you might ask. at work, i'm frequently a go-getter, so long as i'm interested in what i'm doing. let boredom creep in and i lose interest. the same thing happened in high school; i was bored so i didn't apply myself, only going to college when career advancement required it and by then i was interested in learning, had an appetite for it, the coursework was interesting and therefore i applied myself.

but what i'm specifically getting at is something different and here, there are two things that i tie together in my mind, the combination of which gets me in trouble. often. today, it ended the relationship i most value in this world, my relationship with B. it's hard even to call it a full relationship, because after what i did in october, we've been apart and for the last three months i've been working, hard, to get her to try to take another look at me, at us, and see if she might somehow come around to giving us another try.

i cannot handle confrontation. period. plain and simple. it locks me up, freezes me, affects my mind, makes me unable to function almost. also, i'm really a pretty nice guy. i never try to hurt anyones' feelings, or cause anyone any unnecessary hurt. i think that's something that most of us do and to do that we often tell "little white lies", we don't tell details that may unnecessarily hurt someone else, especially someone we care for.

so, for the sake of any regular readers (hehe, of which there are none, except for me), i'll spare the retelling of the recent rocky history of my relationship with B. i've said many times that i honestly believe that she is the woman that i was destined to live the rest of my life with. she believed it too, up until late last year.

B and i did not have an in person relationship. for over four years we've been chat, email and phone, although we did finally meet in june of last year. i left my wife shortly after i met B and have been pursuing her wholeheartedly for the last four+ years. during this time, B continued in her long time relationship with her live in lover/partner. during this same period, i was single, and found a couple of adult relationships. these always troubled B, understandably. on the one hand i completely understood how she felt about my fuck buddies; on the other hand, i'm not sure she completely understood how her refusal to meet me for so long, and the ongoing live in relationship that she was in affected me. basically, i felt that she told me "no" to meeting, to starting -our- in person relationship over a thousand times.

so, during those fb relationships, i didn't tell B everything. first off it was hard because in a lot of ways i felt guilty for having them when what i really wanted was to be with B. second, the details hurt her, a lot, and more than once caused us to "break up", or nearly. so, i obscured many details. which means, i lied.

there's different types of lying and different intents. there's malicious lying - where you tell someone something that isn't true, just to hurt them. NEVER tolerate someone who does this. there's lying to "get away with" something bad or that you shouldn't be doing. of these, ones' -intent- needs to be taken into account, i believe. lies told with "malice aforethought", ie, with the intent and planning to get away with something, are bad. and then there's the white lie, which for all intents and purposes is harmless and usually intended to spare someone else some unnecessary hurt. i will say that most of the lies that i told B were in this category; lies about stuff that ultimately would mean nothing, but that would have hurt her, for the time being, and possibly caused her to pull back or even break off our relationship.

i have done both with B. i had a relationship with another woman, which B knew about. she wasn't happy, but tolerated it because of our unique situation. i let that relationship encompass things, emotional, mental and physical things, which were sacred to B and i, things that she and I shared, that belonged to her and I, that we discovered together. but i let some of those things creep into the fwb relationship that i had with this other woman. and then i lied about it to B. why did i lie? first and foremost, because i wanted, needed to keep my relationship with B. as i said, i firmly believe that she and i are destined to live out days out, together. i lied because i'd been caught, been called out for taking those things away from my relationship with B and bringing them into this other relationship. and i lied because telling the truth to B was too hard for me to admit and to try to avoid hurting B more than she already was.

for the record, it doesn't work ultimately, the effects are ten times worse than if you just deal with the truth and the fallout from that when it happens. but that's a hard lesson to learn, no matter how many times you get beat over the head with it.

now, some people will say that lying is lying. period. B is one of those people. to her it doesn't really matter if you white lie about whether or not you drank right from the milk carton, or if you lie about fucking other people. a lie is a lie is a lie. intent is not a factor. severity is not a factor. a lie is a lie is a lie. and she cannot tolerate it. period.

and so we come to where we are today, or more accurately, where we were yesterday. i know B damn well. she says i don't know her much now because of how much what i did in october changed her, but i say i do still know her. and while she was maintaining her distance and keeping me at arms' length and not admitting that she had any interest in rekindling our relationship, i knew that there -had- to be some spark of interest left in her, some hope of an "us" again, otherwise, why would she put up with the constant reminders of the pain i caused her? why would she talk to someone who did to her what i did to her?

so, fast forward to today. it's been a almost a month since i broke up with the other woman to try to get back to where i belong - with B. i haven't had much contact with her, but some; the reason isn't important, but even B concedes that some contact seemed prudent. however, i lied to B about something trivial - how the woman contacted me, i think. and something else, which was that i left out something the woman wrote in a card to me. in both cases, on a scale of 1 to 10 in importance, they were zero's.

but the thing that stands out the most is that i lied. and when i've been begging B to continue to talk, to take it a day at a time, to see that i've changed, i said i wouldn't lie to her. but i did. and here again, intent or "scale" isn't important. the point is that i lied.

deal breaker. end of story.

she's done.

she wrote me, briefly, and confirmed what i'd hoped had been true.. that there was a spark, a chance, but that i've now killed that too. she said she was disappointed (meaning she did hope we'd make it) but that she was not surprised.

and now she's gone. she hung up on me probably 10 times. i wrote her long emails, talking about what i've done to try to come back to her, how i feel, what i see, what i see in her that makes me think that she too wanted another chance at us. but she's having none of it. i lied. that's all that matters.

we've been watching a tv series together, one that she's just discovered recently and enjoys. i saw it when it was first on tv. for a long time we've read books together and she suggested that we might watch this series together and talk about it. i wholeheartedly agreed; something that we could do together and talk about! so i didn't tell her that i'd already seen them. it's bothered me for a couple of weeks but i never said anything because i didn't want to lose the activity. i told her today. she just saw it as another lie.

and now she's gone.

we've been working at this for three months; she started talking to me again in january. due to scheduling issues, the woman i was with didn't leave my house until the end of february, but B and i talked daily through that time. since then, it's been more and more and while it's been rocky, i felt we'd made some progress. the last week or two have seemed pretty rocky. plus, i'm feeling depression creeping in again (it's been coming on for several months but is now... needing attention, i think, and i've been thinking about going back on meds).

thoughts of just giving up, yes, suicide, have been with me a lot. last week especially, when B was gone for 3 of the 5 days, even though we had pretty good days. by the weekend, i thought it'd be somewhat ... ?fitting? to end my life, and the hurts i've put in the lives of so many other people, on my birthday. it's one of those "special" birthdays too, which made the timing seem... again, "fitting" comes to mind. but, i needed to talk to B again, and did so on monday and we had a pretty good day, till the end. by then i wasn't much thinking about doing it.

and then there's today.

and in front of me i have a handful of pills; some oxycodone (percoset), some hydrocodone (vicodin). one of either, taken with a stiff drink or three, provides a really nice buzz. i looked up the warning info online... too much can lead to "respiratory depression"... hehe... in other words, you just stop breathing. probably long after you've fallen asleep though. it's funny - i'm not "scared" at all. the thought of leaving a mess here for others to clean up bothers me a little, just because it's putting them through an unpleasant task.

to be honest, i'm undecided. frankly, i don't see much difference in either course of action, except that staying on means dealing with the job situation, the money situation and more importantly, the start of a lifetime without B. so in many ways, the "easy way out" is really the easiest way out.

like i said, right now, i'm undecided. i think i'll take one and have a good stiff drink, then see where my thoughts take me. i'm pretty chicken, really, but i've never been more convinced of her conviction that she's done with me. i'd like to see my daughter get married and have kids someday... but i'll have to go through intolerable days, weeks, months and years without B in my life. and i'm not sure i can handle that.

so, we'll see.