How do we make decisions in life? The big ones. The ones that tell us which direction to go when we hit a crossroads. The ones that impact us for years afterwards. How do we live with those decisions and deal with the consequences if they don’t work out right away, or if they don’t work out at all? What standard are we to apply in making big decisions? Is there a standard? Or are we just guessing? Do we apply logic and the higher mind or are we only driven by instinct, emotion, fear, love, instant gratification, and our unconscious need to feed those brain chemicals flying around in our heads on a daily basis? Are we secretly controlled by our limbic cortex, i.e., Lizard Brain, but we just don’t talk about it any more because we’re supposedly “evolved” and no longer live in caves and hunt for our dinner? (I suspect that it plays a far bigger role in our lives than we realize.) These questions have always interested me, in particular, how they inform the way I navigate my personal relationships.
I broke up with someone I loved a week ago, after we spent three years together. I’m still bleeding. I’m gonna bleed for a while I think. The way it ended is ugly and complicated, and it’s what I want to write about because I’m still processing it. I won’t rewind the whole relationship. You can read about it here and here, neither of which will come close to doing it justice. We shared everything. We got deep. Deep deep. Discussed the raw and uncomfortable, not just the good. Laughed all the time. Honesty and trust were our baselines. I’d never been in a relationship as honest, tolerant, and non-judgmental as this one. We saw each other at our best and our worst, though her worst was not nearly as annoying as mine. I witnessed her survive the fallout of the most traumatic experience of her life: a separation and still-in-process divorce from her husband after having been ambushed by his infidelity right after they moved their entire family across the globe. Then being left alone in the U.S. to raise three kids during a pandemic while he returned across the world to live his best life with the woman with whom he had his affair. Absolute fuckery. One of the most one-sided divorce situations I’ve ever seen. The way she handled it was heroic. It still is.
As amazing as this relationship was–three years of sharing, loving, and intimate friendship–the seeds of its ending were planted in its beginning. Just look at what I wrote three years ago while we were still getting to know each other:
And this, right after we met in person in Boston for the very first time:
And this:
I intuited these things early, but we also discussed them together. Honest communication was a huge part of our relationship, a special and rare component that I’d never experienced with another person, not on this scale at least. A lot of couples find it difficult to be open and honest about who they are and what they want in a relationship. Many subjects are too scary to discuss. It’s easier to dissemble, lie, or ignore them entirely. But we didn’t have this problem. For a while.
For two years we focused on us. We didn’t concern ourselves with what could happen in the future or where things were headed. We were enjoying ourselves too much, milking that exuberant high you get when you meet someone new and experience their personality, their sense of humor, their smell, their body, and their outlook on life for the first time. We were both hungry in our own way–starved for connection and intimacy–and enjoying the meal far too much to worry about who was going to pay the bill. Bill? What bill?
But no matter how great the relationship, when you bury or ignore things, eventually the bill comes due. This past year, the bill came due, and we woke up to reality. Me with ‘Where is this going?’ and ‘Don’t you ever want to be together in the same place?’ Her with ‘I’m just trying to get through today with three kids and a job. I don’t know what I want, my divorce isn’t even final, and I can’t promise you anything about the future. Can’t we just be together when we can, see each other when we can, and define our relationship they way we want? Make our own rules?‘
At a point when I wanted to cement our future and make a real, long-term commitment to each other, she was non-committal and heading in the other direction. Usually it’s the other way around. I remember exactly how I felt when I expressed similar sentiments to ex-girlfriends in the past. It was a sign of my desire for something else. So to me, her attitude, which she consistently expressed in multiple conversations on the subject, was a massive Red Flag. Other times, most times, our love, friendship, and magnetic connection predominated and made me forget about the Red Flag. I’d start thinking that maybe it wasn’t a Red Flag, maybe it was only a Rose Flag, or a Fuchsia Flag. Maybe if I stuck around long enough, continued showing her my love and being my best self, that Red Flag would drain of its color and eventually turn pink, then white. Maybe one day it would disappear entirely.
This, my friends, is called ‘denial.’ I was deluding myself. Red Flags don’t turn pink or white. They stay red. And they never leave.
More conversations. A revealing one on a swing in Louisiana during New Year’s where she said she wasn’t sure what she wanted or where she wanted to live in the future. Maybe overseas? Another one on the phone early one morning where she said she wanted the freedom to make out with someone on the dance floor in Ibiza if the planets align. Not that she was expecting it to happen or looking for it. She wasn’t. She just wanted the option to make her own choices in ‘special moments’ that are rare and may never happen again. Seriously, how often do planets align?
Red Flag. Red Flag. Red Flag.
These were not the words of someone who is satisfied being in a relationship or who wants to be exclusive any longer. If she didn’t realize it, I certainly did. At least she was honest about it. But what to do with this information? On cross-examination, she assured me that she didn’t want to be in a relationship with anyone else, that she loved me, and this was about ‘having experiences‘ and ‘living‘ and ‘doing things I’ve never had a chance to do.’ She made it sound reasonable.
Enter Mr. Spock.
Spock needs no introduction. A Vulcan, he is famously cool, calm, and collected. Emotionless. He makes decisions based purely on logic with an objective detachment that the humans around him can barely understand. In contrast, Bones, the character with whom Spock butted heads the most on Star Trek, ran purely on emotion. He was the opposite of cool, calm, and collected. Bones lost his shit on the regular. Their conflicts laid bare both human failing and human greatness. There were times when Spock’s logic made more sense and helped the crew escape a dire situation, and there were times when it came up woefully short and failed to account for human emotion and variables that no Vulcan could fully comprehend.
I’m an extremely logical person. Logic and reason are a big part of my personality and how I view the world. So I respect and appreciate Spock’s cold logic. Sometimes things ARE that simple. We live in a world of undeniable truths that can and should determine our choices and behaviors. If we apply logic to those truths, this should lead us to make better decisions. So when these Red Flags kept appearing, and it was clear that E. had feelings about the future that were different from mine, my logical questions were: ‘Should I get the fuck out now?’ and ‘What do we do if we want to maintain our relationship, which we both value and want to continue?’
Logical or not, her wants felt like rejection to me. Who likes to hear that the person they’re in a relationship with doesn’t want to plan a future together, and instead wants to go make out with someone on a dance floor if the opportunity should ever present itself? Why should I accept that? Who would? Who wants to wait for that opportunity to punch them in the face? I sure as fuck didn’t. I have a pretty healthy view of myself. My self-esteem has rarely given me problems. I’d given everything to this relationship, and THIS is where she is and what she wants after three years? Jesus F’ng Christ, who needs this?
But to my logical mind, the following facts were undeniable and had to be factored into my analysis of the situation:
- E. and I met at the tail end of her separation, when she was still picking up the pieces of her life. When we first started texting, she and her ex-husband were still living in the same apartment! A lot of emotional shit had yet to be processed on her end.
- She married young and had barely dated before she met her husband.
- Before that she was living under her parents’ rules and had never truly been on her own with the freedom to chart her own course and make decisions for herself, without considering anyone else.
- I had an almost completely different adult experience from her. During the 17 years that she was married, I was single, in and out of several relationships, and had complete freedom to make my own decisions and play the field. She didn’t.
- She has three kids and can’t relocate for a very long time, even if she wanted to, which she apparently doesn’t. At least, nowhere near me.
- Her kids’ needs and her ex-husband’s fucked up decision to live in another country do not provide her with much freedom to experience life, and they won’t for a while.
- I’ve been divorced for four years, separated for over six years. She isn’t even divorced yet. This is a massive difference on multiple levels.
- She’s a Sagittarius. I’m super attracted to them, but they’ve always given me trouble. I knew this going in.
To my logical mind, these things made sense and mitigated her Red Flags. None of this was malicious, it just was. If I were in her shoes and had just ended a long marriage that blew up in my face, destroyed my trust, and forced me to carry the burden of three (beloved) children every single day, with little or no freedom to do much of anything until that cheating motherfucker decided to come visit them every 6-8 weeks, I would feel the same way. I wouldn’t want a relationship either. A relationship is the LAST fucking thing I’d want.
I also recognized my own bias. That I’d lived a life far different from hers in terms of relationships and independence. This may sound strange, but she used to like me telling her about those experiences, my sexual experiences in particular, down to the most sordid detail. We had a lot of fun with that, though I wasn’t clueless enough not to notice that she was living vicariously through my past escapades for a reason: sooner or later, she’d want to experience the same (or similar) herself. I’m a fair person, a logical person, and I loved her, so who was I to deny her these things? How was that fair? If I wanted to maintain our connection, and I did, I needed to try and find a place for it. Make room for it, until she’d either had her fill or I couldn’t take it any more.
We went back and forth on this stuff over the past year. I’m condensing a lot here. It’s not all we talked about – in fact, it wasn’t the focus at all. We were mostly living our lives in connection and seeing each other when we could. But these issues increasingly were in the back of our minds, mine in particular, because I’d been out of my marriage longer, and I was ready for something real.
We discussed the possibility of making our long distance relationship non-exclusive so that we could maintain our connection while still giving each other the freedom to live our lives the way we wanted. We even tried it out briefly a year ago. She went on a couple of dates, I went on one. Then we came back to each other like magnets. Trying to do this again in 2023 felt like a step backwards to me. And what was the point, really? How many more times were we going to do this? Wasn’t it just a Band-Aid covering a larger problem? Wouldn’t it just invite more pain or potentially fuck up what we had? Better to just end things.
Finally, after one too many of these conversations during a meh visit last April, we mutually decided that it was best to end things so that we could both seek out what we wanted for ourselves. It was an amicable parting. It was good. Positive. We both still cared for each other, but it was time to recognize reality and avoid future heartbreak. Her feelings about what she wanted had not changed. It was unclear if or when they ever would. I wasn’t willing to invest more time and effort on a house that was starting appear as if it was built on sand.
If you love something, set it free, blah, blah, blah. Fuck off.
So in April, we broke up. Said our goodbyes, had tearful hugs at the airport, and went our separate ways. I felt sad but also liberated and free. Like I’d barely avoided getting hit by a speeding train.
It never felt like a real breakup though. I didn’t tell many people, and something still felt hedged in my mind because Spock never stopped doing his work. What she wanted was reasonable, and I still wanted her. I missed her. She was my best friend. Her absence was a massive fucking hole in my life. (Kind of like now.) Maybe we could find a way. Maybe it was possible. But I needed to let our ‘ending’ breathe a little. I needed to give her room to decide what she wanted, to make her own choices without my presence, influence, or input. I needed to see what those choices would be and where they’d lead.
I think we went a week, maybe 10 days without communicating. Then a check-in text, then a response, then a WhatsApp video call, then her face, then that familiar pull, and then we’re sucked in again. Forget all the Red Flags. Just close your eyes and enjoy the dopamine. There was a July trip to Italy that I had booked for myself and M. in February that E. was possibly going to join us on before our breakup in April. We resumed plans for that and shelved our other issues.
Then we met up for four days in Italy, and it was amazing. Magical. Dreamlike. Having her meet my family. Being with her in one of the most special places in the world to me. Having her connect more with M. An imaginary little family that belied reality. We didn’t have the kind of arguments between significant others while traveling that I’m really good at and infamous for. I returned to Venice, a fantastical place where Ex. and I had argued, started to come apart, and didn’t have sex once, but where E. was happy, patient, and smiling, where we laughed, ate well, and just enjoyed each other, including carnally. Man, this happy memory is stinging me even as I type these words. It was wonderful. I’ll never forget it.
Then two weeks after we returned to the States, E. came to visit me the week before my birthday. We went to Williamsburg together for the first time, another place that’s special to me. We sang karaoke together, ate out, got buzzed on Aperols, and went home. It wasn’t Venice, but it was good to be together so soon after we’d just seen each other. But she had this anxious energy about her, this need to cram things in schedule-wise and check off certain boxes, instead of just going with the flow like we used to. It wasn’t a big deal, but I noticed it.
Then she went back to Chicago, and we fell into our old habits, just as we had done before our trip to Italy. Since May, we had been living in this strange relationship limbo. Together but not exclusive. It felt exclusive, it felt just like it always had, but it wasn’t. We agreed that we could see other people, but we never defined what this meant or what the boundaries were. It was a form of ‘Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell’. I went on a few dates that were uninspired and where I felt disconnected from the people I went out with. It was weird, like I was half there. You want to talk about my most recent relationship? I’m still in it! I felt like I was hiding a secret because I was. I don’t like dating this way and don’t typically do it. I didn’t even kiss anyone. I didn’t want to. Going through the motions of ‘being fair to myself’ while remaining connected to someone I was still in love with was an absolute joke. No one could hope to compare to her and what we had.
We didn’t talk about my dates. She didn’t seem particularly bothered by me dating (another Red Flag) but she didn’t want to know if or when they were happening. I didn’t know if she was dating. She hinted that she wasn’t going on dates because she wasn’t looking for a relationship but I expected it to happen at some point.
Again, we didn’t define any of this. Looking back, I think we didn’t because it was easier not to, and the last time we got too specific, we broke up. Not getting clarity up front was stupid and a fatal mistake. At different times, we joked about we would do if X happened. She didn’t seem to have a problem with me having sex with someone else (another Red Flag), but a couple of incidents I won’t get into belied this and made me think that if I ever tested that theory, we might be done for good. We agreed that if this happened, I would tell her before being with her again. This was entirely one-sided though. I told her more than once over the past six months that I had no idea how I’d respond if she did the same thing. In fact, this is why I thought it better to end things in April. We were not similarly situated. Things were not equal. She’s the one who wanted her independence, not me. I was dating because I was trying to balance her needs with mine. This didn’t mean I wanted to go fuck someone else, and it certainly didn’t mean I was fine with her doing it. But we didn’t talk about it. We weren’t clear on boundaries. Her boundaries.
Still, the most that I thought would happen is she’d kiss someone. This is as far as she took that scenario in our conversations, so I was operating on that assumption. I also assumed that before one of us had sex with someone else, we’d have a conversation to discuss it to make sure we were on the same page to prevent the other person from getting hurt.
Something like ‘Hey, I’m seriously considering fucking someone else. Any thoughts?’
But you know what they say about assumptions. Mine were dumb in retrospect because this is an area that requires profound clarity, not ambiguity.
I have written before about monogamy and non-monogamy. Non-monogamy is fraught territory for most people. Most couples would never even consider it. The ones who do are either lifestylers who found the right partner and have been doing it a long time, or they’re dabblers who, more often than not, break up at some point afterwards. E. and I had experimented with non-monogamy in fantasy, not in real life, and it was hot as hell. (Lifenote: fantasy non-monogamy can be incredibly hot and enhance your sex life, particularly if you’ve been together a while. Like, really hot when done in a safe, non-judgmental, and mutually encouraging way in an exclusive relationship. Try it and thank me later.)
You have to be in a really secure place as a couple to make it work though. The non-monogamy thrill waned significantly for me when we started having conversations about being non-exclusive. This might seem counterintuitive, but it’s not. Safety, security, and knowing it’s just fantasy and the other person isn’t going anywhere are critical to letting yourself go and riding this erotic wave. Once those become threatened and your future is in doubt, it’s impossible to feel safe enough to enjoy any of it. At least it was for me. But if those other things are there, anything is possible, even pushing the envelope to an in-person experience, which we never did, but was not out of the realm of possibility if we stayed together. The critical part is BOTH people have to have agency, input, clarity about boundaries, and veto power over any experience. The primary relationship comes first. Nothing can threaten it. No secrets, and above all, no doing anything unilaterally or behind the other person’s back. Honesty and trust are critical to any non-monogamous relationship.
I have read a bit about this subject if you haven’t noticed.
So based on my assumptions (delusional or not) and the fact that we had just had an incredible time in Italy (at least I thought so), and had just seen each other in New York, I had no concerns when E. traveled to Spain to attend a friend’s wedding two weeks ago, a trip I was originally supposed to go on, which, for reasons I shall soon explain, is ironic as fuck. I figured that the most that might happen–because we had joked about it–was she’d have one too many drinks and make out with someone. I could live with that. If there was a possibility of more than that happening, I was sure she would have told me before she left and set some boundaries. I never expected anything more than that to happen.
When she got there on a Thursday night, she texted me a bunch of pictures showing all was good and normal. Then there was a noticeable message gap the day and night of the wedding, which I figured was just her out with friends enjoying herself, then a couple more texts before her return to the States on Monday. We did not video once. That was a first for us.
My initial inkling that something was off was the first time I saw her face on video after she got back. She was averting her eyes, distant, and would quickly change the subject whenever the wedding came up. I’ve seen that look before on other people: Guilt. Then I saw the same look the next couple of times we spoke. I couldn’t be sure though. All I knew was that I’d never seen it from her before, and my intuition was ringing alarm bells.
You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes
A week after she got back–a fucking WEEK–I tell her that I’m thinking of coming to Chicago for the Raiders game in late October and am about to buy tickets. She says that’s great, but I have to tell you something first. Then I see that guilty look on her face again. I say ‘what,’ but I already know what, I’m just hoping that it was only a make-out session like we talked about. She pauses and can’t seem to spit it out. She tells me that I know what it is already, and then she has the gall to ask ME to say what it is. Adrenaline coursing, blood rushing to my head, I tell her to just fucking say it.
“I slept with someone.”
I’m stunned. “You mean INTERCOURSE??”
Sidenote: one thing that makes me laugh my ass off, even after this painful debacle, is my choice of the word “intercourse” in that horrible moment. I sounded like a high school sex ed. teacher from 1953. “Intercourse”? What the fuck??! I never use that word. All I can say is my brain was freezing on me, and I wanted her to be crystal clear about what she had done. ‘Fucking’ wasn’t a word I was ready to face, but I needed to confirm that she had actually experienced penetration by a (likely uncircumcised) penis in her vagina, which had led to ejaculation in said vagina. In retrospect, I think I was subconsciously trying to distance myself from her and the act itself by referring to it so clinically.
“Yes.”
Incredulous. Head spiraling.
Enter Kirk from The Wrath of Khan.
I’ve been abandoned on the planet Seti Alpha V, and I’m absolutely fucking FURIOUS.
Without thinking, I wave goodbye and hang up on her 2 seconds after I hear her confirm that she fucked someone else. She calls me back, and I tell her that she had every right to do what she wanted, but I have every right to react the way I want to as well, and we’re done. It’s over. Hang up again.
I don’t sleep that night. Literally no sleep. It’s my first all-nighter in probably 20 years. I’m kept awake by a relentless thought loop spinning in my head and sickening scenarios that only betrayal and broken trust create. This wasn’t cheating by any fair definition because we weren’t exclusive. That much is clear. It wasn’t cheating, but it sure as fuck felt like cheating to me because it stung just as bad. In my mind, based solely on the way it felt, it was a distinction without a difference. And given the way she held this information back from me for a week and had that guilty look on her face the entire time, including when she told me, I think deep down she knows this too. If this was something we’d discussed and planned for, why hide it? Why look so guilty all week?
My thoughts spinning, spinning, spinning. Endless mind torture questions that I never gave her the chance to answer:
Who the fuck WAS this person? How did this happen? What led up to it? How could you do this without discussing it with me first? Did you think so little of me and how I would feel before doing it? Did you ultimately not give a fuck and just roll the dice? Did this happen one night, two nights, the entire time you were there? Did you know this person already beforehand? Were you in touch with him before this trip laying the groundwork for what happened while you were still talking to me? Was he there while you were texting me your horseshit ‘Having a great time!’ messages? Did you do this on a whim? Did he wear a condom? Did he cum inside you? Did you blow him? Swallow? Did he perform well for you? Every position? (Surely the answer is ‘yes’ to this one – you go to Vegas, you want to hit the trifecta.) Did you cum? Congrats! A good time was had by all!! Are you guys still communicating? Planning for another round?
Angry and jealous that she could be this attracted to someone else and then ACT on it not long after seeing me. A week later, this thought still makes a hydrogen bomb go off in my head.
I finally give up trying to sleep, get out of bed at 6 a.m. and start typing an angry goodbye email to her that I don’t finish for another five hours. I’m not at my sharpest. Kirk is the conductor on my Crazy Train, and it’s about to go off the rails. Kirk, who’s normally mild-mannered and considered, but also a man who’s guided by instinct and emotion and not afraid to act, logic be damned. Kirk is standing on Spock’s head as I type, but Spock manages to apply some semblance of logic to Kirk’s raw emotion so my email doesn’t sound like an unhinged rant.
I get my point across, but it’s not my best work. I meant most of what I wrote. I’m hurt–the kind of hurt I haven’t felt since my separation from Ex.–and a big part of me wants to hurt her back and make her feel as bereft as I feel. The only way I can think to do that is to withdraw her access to me for good. Surprise her the way she surprised me and hope it fucking hurts as much as possible. A part of me hates her for what she did and how she did it. My lizard brain is in overdrive.
Thanks for being honest. I’m deeply hurt. I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe I’m feeling this kind of pain from you. You were just here. I never thought this would happen. Broken trust. I feel betrayed. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. Your words mean nothing. We’re cutting all ties.
I hope it was worth it. I hope it was a good trade-off for her, a real fair trade. I’m sure she thinks it was. I have no doubt about that. She did exactly what she wanted and got to make a big choice–a sexual choice–on her own terms while putting her own wants and needs first. God bless. I’m sure that it will spark more of these experiences. That’s the whole point of this, right? Living? Experiencing things? No rules?
She responds to my email hours later, after I decline her phone call. I’m way too raw to speak, and I’m afraid of saying something so cruel that it’ll taint everything we had. For some reason I still want to avoid that. Besides, if she wanted to talk, the time to do that would have been BEFORE she fucked someone, not after. After is too late. After is just rationalizing your choice and trying to make me understand it too. I don’t want to fucking understand it. It hurts too much for me to try and understand it. Fuck you.
I’ve had no sleep, and I’m shooting fire from my eyeballs. A phone call would not have gone well.
The gist of her email is this:
- I’m sorry that what I did hurt you.
- There’s a lot of confusion here. We never defined anything.
- I did this for me.
- You know how I think. We’ve talked about this many times. You know that I’ve wanted to take advantage of special moments when “planets align”.
- I’m a bit surprised by your reaction. We never talked about the dire consequences that you are now imposing.
- I took your feelings into account and knew I might lose you over this, but I leaned on you being more logical about it and thought we might even discuss it afterwards.
- I wish we could talk. I thought we owed it to ourselves to do that before writing this off entirely.
- Thank you for everything. Goodbye.
Basically no regrets except the unfortunate side effect of my pain. She would (and will) do the same exact thing again except she would have broken up with me first so I never would have known about it.
Okay, thanks. That you want this at all is the fucking problem, so what’s left to discuss? What will that accomplish? You didn’t cheat on me, we weren’t exclusive, I should have understood and expected this could happen after just seeing you, and my reaction is somehow surprising to you. Got it.
What do you think, Mr. Spock? I’ll give you the last word.
Sidenote: Kirk has calmed down a bit over the past week. He’s taking a powder, except for those unexpected moments when I think about E. fucking some fucking guy–wait, I mean ALIGNING PLANETS and DANCING IN IBIZA (Christ, these euphemisms. Just call it ‘Freefucking’ because that’s exactly what it is, with lesser included offenses of kissing and heavy petting and whatever the fuck else leads up to it)–without me knowing, while sending me ‘everything is normal’ texts that conveniently omit the details of what she’s actually doing, and then keeping it to herself for a week when she gets back. All lies by omission. That’s when Kirk reappears with that rabid Wrath of Khan look on his face and a phaser in each hand.
Mr. Spock? What say you?
Thank you. It is quite logical for you to ask, for only I can be objective in this unfortunate situation. May I first say that I have not thoroughly enjoyed serving with humans? I find their illogic and foolish emotions a constant irritant.
Okay, stop insulting me and get to the fucking point. Only I am allowed to be long-winded here.
Fine. Here is what I think. Please think logically and take note:
- In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.
- E. is correct that you did not define your status and set clear boundaries. This is the paramount cause of what occurred.
- It is also true that if this relationship had been important despite its non-exclusive status, then the burden was on the initial sexual actor—here, E.—to communicate intentions and boundaries with as much clarity as possible before acting. This would have removed any element of surprise, set expectations, and most importantly, it would have given the other person the option of ending the relationship before anything happened if they did not accept those intentions and boundaries.
- To the extent your intention was to initiate a non-monogamous relationship, this was not the way to do it. Both people need to participate in that decision, be clear about boundaries, and be informed and on the same page when Freefucking opportunities–I mean, ‘planet alignments’–appear on the horizon. Only then is it possible. Maybe not even then. Secrets and unilateral action destroy trust, and lost trust destroys relationships. That’s what happened here.
- You both are at different points in your lives, and timing is everything, no matter how great the connection. People want what they want and wants don’t change. When those wants don’t align, pain and disappointment will ensue. This is logical.
- One of the most important things that was lost in this incident was respect for the other person and their feelings. There was a major, unilaterally-imposed change in the relationship’s physical dynamic after 3 years together. It was a significant step with enormous ramifications. It should have been handled cautiously and with honesty and openness, not reckless abandon and crossed fingers.
- Had you gotten what you wanted, after a time, you may have found that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true. Perhaps you both avoided future unhappiness?
- This ending is likely for the best. The primary goal for both of you must be to avoid a recurrence of this pain. This is logical.
- Lastly, talking about ‘planet alignments’ (Freefucking) and actually aligning planets (Fucking Freely) are two vastly different things. One can never know how the other person is going to react when they are belatedly informed that their beloved has engaged in a secret planet alignment (Freefuck) with a likely uncircumcised foreigner, possibly multiple times in multiple positions with dual, though most likely not simultaneous, orgasms. Assuming that this physical act, especially when performed with another for the first time in three years, will be understood and freely accepted by the other person without having discussed it with them ahead of time, without confirming with them that Freefucking is definitely on the table and will happen should the opportunity present itself, and without preparing the other person for this possibility, is fucking stupid.
Well said, Spock.
(Okay, that last one was mine.)
