Thanks, guys, for stopping in. But not so fast, SD.
Things have been a struggle this week, but we've had some good moments. One good moment was on Friday night, H2H and I went out for dinner, then met S. for a movie afterward. So S. has been outed to a fellow DBer.
Now, the bad news. Last night S. came over to talk about our schedules for this week, and I went over mine. When his turn came, he "might be going out on Tuesday with a woman he met at the coop a few years ago." Alarm bells started going off. "What woman?" I asked. He said he'd run into her at the coop last week, and that he hadn't seen her in a few years, and they were going to "catch up." He said he used to work with her there (we're members of a food coop where we work a shift every four weeks), and that he'd had some "good conversations with her." At this point my alarm bells were clanging hard.
I asked him who she was, and he started telling me little bits of info like "Her name is [name], and she moved here from Montana," and I realized immediately that it was this woman he fell head over heels for in the very beginning of our R, who he took out on a few dates, whom he broke up with me (the first time) over, and that he'd completely forgotten that he'd told me about her!
I cut him off and said "OH MY GOD, S., THIS IS THAT WOMAN YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH!" with utter incredulity, and he just stared at me, totally busted, having no idea, I'm sure, how I knew that (how STUPID is that? He told me about her in detail)... and so of course a conversation ensued about WHY he lied to me, what it meant to him to see her (they are both in Rs now, and she wasn't interested in him in the first place)... My heart was pounding, and I was furious at the lie.
I can't go into it now, because I will explode, but here are some disjointed thoughts
1. He feels TERRIBLE for lying (waaah) 2. Seeing her means nothing to him other than catching up with someone he likes, he just didn't want to tell me the truth because he thought I'd make more of it than it is 3. He's "made his peace" with the situation with her (she broke his heart) 4. He hates "cutting people out of his life" and sees no need for it (a nod to Swiss Miss) 5. He was planning to go out for dinner with this woman, which is SORE for me because he is always harping about eating at home and saving money, and last week he took his ex-GF out for dinner (she's a good friend), and now he's going to meet this woman? How about meeting her for tea, in the daytime? 6. I started to cry (not because of HER, but because he LIED, and really out of anger and frustration than pain), I asked him WHY he lied, and he said "Because of this," meaning because of my pain. I told him truthfully that I was sorry he didn't feel like he could talk to me about things like that ("I'm sorry, too," he said), but to choose lying over discomfort was "incredibly disrespectful to me, and made me feel like a fool." ("I'm sorry, Jennifer," he said). 7. I talked a lot about our HUGE trust issue and why he would risk jeopardizing the progress we'd made in that area to see this woman. 8. I asked if there was "nothing," and he hadn't even remembered telling me about her, why he felt compelled to lie. No answer.
UGH. I woke up at 5 and couldn't get back to sleep. I leave on Thursday morning for 10 days (thank god S. does, too, for a manly man woodworking workshop, so I don't have to worry about where he is and with whom)..., and I'm thinking of just asking for space this week (as in, not see each other) until after we come back in April, and figure out what my bottom line is here. He never said he wouldn't go out with her, so I'm curious to see what he chooses. The funny thing is, I don't even really care about the girl, but the fact that he looked me in the eye and lied so blatantly kills me, and when I started asking questions about her, he tried to make me feel crazy for the alarm bells. He said, "What's wrong? I sense this is making you feel really uncomfortable." I find it interesting, too, that I knew immediately that something was up.
There was a lot of silence from both of us and some tenderness from S. last night. I was stunned at the blatant, STUPID lie, and kept going over and over it in my head in silence. He was very anxious to know what I was thinking. I finally just got up to brush my teeth and go to bed.
He's still sleeping, but I refuse to talk about it this morning, because I have a lot of work to do and a meeting at 10:30 for which I need to be fresh.
