After almost two years of running from my feelings, I gave in and went on a date with my ex. I’ll admit spending time alone with him wasn’t the smartest thing to do considering our history, but common sense often eludes me. Or I avoid it. Same difference, right?
What started out as a mostly innocent attempt to rekindle our relationship, ended with me in a drunken stupor, wearing a magenta wig, waxing poetic about urinating on my mother’s herb garden to everyone and no one in particular.
Actually that was pretty much my typical Wednesday night.
The truth is I had dreamt about going on a date with my ex for quite awhile. Part of it had to do with revenge. I’d look hot. He’d want me. I’d fuck him and then tell him how badly he sucked in bed as I walked out the door. But the greater part was the fact that I never really got over him. Maybe it was because I didn’t get closure. Perhaps I was too stubborn. Maybe it was just the fact that we had a child together and I missed our family. Whatever the case, I hadn’t totally moved on or given up on us, even if a significant amount of time had passed since we were last together.
During the interim, I had distracted myself with shiny things. Too many, in fact. I thought I could forget about him and our family by doing so, but seducing other men only proved to be a temporary solution. As soon as I actually got close to any of them, I fled. Sometimes I hurt them. Most times I just hurt myself. Afterwards, it always came back to him.
I wanted so badly to erase my son’s father from my memory, to not care, to start anew, but it was impossible to do when I had to face my past so frequently as a result of our co-parenting and custody arrangement.
Eventually I convinced myself that maybe we both deserved a second chance, and that our son did too.
I imagined our first date would begin with him holding my hand while professing his undying love for me. He’d then admit all of his wrongs and beg for my forgiveness, get down on bended knee and ask for my hand in marriage which, most importantly, would be followed by us having sex in a public restroom like we often did when we first started dating.
Needless to say only one of those things happened in the real life version. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t the sex that I so desperately wanted. Instead he told me everything about the woman he had left me for; a girl really, as she was twelve years younger than me. It was my own fault, because I asked. One too many drinks during dinner resulted in me growing a decent sized pair of lady balls.
The evening started out normal as we left our son with a mutual friend. We’d been alone several times in the last year, but it was always more friendly and never labeled a date. This time was different. I had even shaved my legs for it, as well as other unmentionables.
The night started to take a turn when we pulled up to a Hooters. While nothing says “I love you” like tight asses and breasts, I’d been hoping for more class and less competition. Luckily I had put on my best push-up bra and conveniently misplaced my panties. If the last year had taught me anything, it was how to whore it up with the best of them.
I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. I thought he had changed. I thought maybe, just maybe, he planned to sweep me off my feet, but obviously I was mistaken. Rather than show my discontent, I decided to make the most of the situation by drinking, heavily. If I wasn’t going to get romance on this date, I most certainly was getting drunk. And quite possibly laid.
One burger, six wings, a pitcher of beer, three shots of tequila, and sixty minutes of him ogling the waitresses later, the date was over. And I was inebriated.
When we got into the car to leave, I asked him about HER. It had been something I had been longing to do for what seemed like an eternity. While I had questioned him several times towards the end of our relationship, and he had denied she even existed, I stopped inquiring once we officially separated. I figured, why bother? What was done was done. But the idea of her still ate away at my insides. That night, the liquor filled parts of me decided it was time to get the answers I needed.
And then he admitted everything…
How he had been sleeping with her for several months before he ended things with me. How he had brought her back to our apartment numerous times and fucked her in our bed. How she had known about our family, all along, but didn’t care.
He apologized profusely for hurting me and for the way he had ended things, but there was always a “but” attached, followed by a halfhearted justification for his actions. He claimed that he “needed” to be with her to realize what he wanted, and to figure out how much he needed me and our old life together.
As we drove to pick up our son, I verbally assaulted him with an arsenal of obscenities that would’ve put Sandra Bernhard to shame. Though I was mad at him, I was even angrier at myself for believing he might’ve morphed into the type of man I needed him to be.
I went home alone that night and drank myself into oblivion, convinced that he and I would never be. I cried for myself, and for the realization that my happily ever after was never coming. I cried for my son, and for the idea of him never having the normal family I so desperately thought he needed. I cried because I had wasted over a year of my life pining for a man who had hurt me so completely, yet I just couldn’t let go of.
And then I passed out.
A strange thing happened when I woke up the next morning. I finally felt free. Something deep inside me had forgiven him for everything in the past. I no longer felt resentment towards him and I didn’t want to. I realized that by staying angry I was only hurting myself. I didn’t want to beat myself up anymore. I no longer had the urge to chase after him or our family. I finally felt like I had the closure I needed, and it felt glorious.
But an even stranger thing happened over the next several weeks. Because I had stopped chasing him, he started chasing me. With a vengeance. The apologies kept coming. The promises were flowing. And then he pulled out the most powerful weapon of all: Our Son.
“Can’t you see how happy he is when we’re all together?”
“Don’t you at least want to try to be together, one more time, for him?”
While I wasn’t sure my ex was what I wanted anymore, I was sure I wanted my son to be happy. Somewhere in my mind I thought being a family again would be the answer to his long-term happiness, to our collective happiness, so I agreed to try.
At first things felt completely right. It seemed like I had finally found what I had been searching for since our separation. It was as if a missing piece of me had finally come back. The three of us were with each other as often as we could be, and I was happier than I had been in a really long time. The chaos of my single life had been replaced with normalcy. When we were together it was like nothing had changed. My son smiled. I smiled. He even smiled, which was a rarity. We had our family back. But when the days were over and we’d return to our separate homes, I was always reminded that things weren’t the same, and that they probably never would be.
In time my ex and I started sleeping together again. It felt nice to be that close to him, and especially to be getting laid regularly, but there was no longer a spark. It almost felt forced. It was that very fact that eventually helped me make an important decision.
When my ex left me two years prior, it was on his terms. I wasn’t expecting it. I had no say. I wasn’t the asshole. He was. Because of this I got to blame him for all the tears that my son and I shed, and for the demise of our family. When things went wrong after he was gone, I blamed him for each and every one of them. And rightly so.
But I discovered an evil little thing creeps up on you when you’re the one deciding whether to stay or go: Guilt.
This time it would all be on me. I was the one who’d be breaking up our family if I chose to face the truth that my son’s father was no longer what I wanted. I’d be the only one to blame when the tears and the questions came or when things got difficult financially.
I second guessed myself for months, never completely making a decision about what to do.
Was I being selfish to want something more? Did the kind of love I want even exist? If I stayed, would I be settling?
Caught somewhere between my old life and my new one, I couldn’t choose.
And then my son chose for me one night, while we lay snuggled next to each other in the dark of our bedroom.
…“Don’t you just love when me, you and Daddy spend time together?” I asked him.
“Yea. But you know what I like best, Mommy?”
“What’s that, buddy?”
“When it’s just me and you.”
That was all I ever needed to hear.
