The Birthday Gift
I noticed hair in his drain the first weekend we spent back together after a month apart. We had ridiculous sex. He said things no man has ever said, like
This is where I belong.
I belong with you.
This is the best sex I’ve ever had. You are so amazing.
•
That weekend was followed shortly after by another plagued with lady part infections: both embarrassing and unusual in intensity of symptoms and response to treatment.
•
I intended to go home on Sunday but wanted more time, another chance, just something I felt lacking from the weekend. On Sunday afternoon he received a package from Amazon, opened it, and left the contents on the kitchen counter.
•
The contents were interesting, but why he’d leave them in the open and thrown away the obvious gift/love note, was beyond me. I didn’t fish through the trash thinking “wtf?” I don’t even remember how I ended up seeing the note in the trash, but I got something delivered too, and it’s a blur after I saw my order and random lingerie sitting on the counter.
•
There was a note. I read it. It’s been so long now I just remember it saying something along the lines of “can’t wait to see you babe. Love, [OW]” I’ve written about this man, and this woman before, so I’m not using either of their actual initials.
•
My boyfriend had received red lingerie as a birthday gift from another woman who called him “babe,” and signed with only her initials. I didn’t say anything. I was shocked that the gift was just casually sitting so obviously on the kitchen counter next to my package. I’d struggled all weekend to sleep due to the uncomfortable symptoms mentioned above, and only stayed on Sunday in hopes of having more time together. But after seeing the package and note, I felt sick with anxiety, adrenaline, anger, and an overwhelming feeling I can’t quite describe with words alone.
•
My emotions, and the length of time that passed since this occurred, probably explain why my memory of the evening is blurry now, but I only remember sitting outside and not being able to sleep. In the morning, I packed my stuff and got ready to leave. It was a Monday morning after all, and we both had to work. I remember the next part clearly and I often wish I didn’t.
•
I gathered my belongings outside the master bedroom so I’d be ready when he was ready to leave. We both had coffee and I could tell he was upset by his demeanor. I was upset, about the lingerie and note. I decided to ask him about it and so began a lengthy tirade of screaming.
•
First, he blew off the gift and note as some crazy ex-girlfriend who he didn’t even recognize the initials an had to look in his phone to figure out who it was. Then he quickly fast forwarded to focusing on me and all of the ways I’d upset him and wronged him that weekend. It was a full on dress-down in actual screaming that I couldn’t stop. I sobbed, wanting to interrupt to explain in certain places, but he just kept laying into me and telling me all of the terrible ways I’d hurt him over the weekend. He would ask questions and not let me answer with an explanation, only screaming for a yes or no, when answering only one or the other wasn’t a fair or accurate way to respond. I finally just complied through sobs hoping to make it stop faster, thinking if I let him finish it would eventually end. And it did. He asked for a response and I was shaking and crying. I told him that I’d been suffering from symptoms I hadn’t told him about and I expressed that I was trying to keep a bit of mystery and personal space by not mentioning my health issues. He asked why I hadn’t interrupted him while he was yelling at me. I was speechless. I wondered if he knew how frightening and unbreakable his angry rants were and I couldn’t possibly interrupt him once he started on one. We eventually wrapped up on a “better” note and agreed that we should both try to address issues more contemporaneous to when they occur and not let anger build up. We drove back to my house and he dropped me off. On the way, we discussed plans for his birthday weekend, the following weekend.
•
I bought decorations for his birthday dinner and planned a meal. I bought gifts and thought about what lingerie I would wear. But over the course of the week, we argued and he broke up with me, meaning the decoration and gifts I bought would be unnecessary. I was angry. I had to attend a final inspection of a property for a client one day that week and decided to stop by his office. I left two of the gifts I couldn’t return in his office chair.
•
I later discovered, probably not surprisingly, that the gift from OW wasn’t just a crazy random ex-girlfriend. He had been dating her, apparently for a while. She was an ex-girlfriend, but an ex with whom he rekindled the flame at some point. I forgave him. I forgave him as much as one can for cheating and then lying about cheating. He apologized correctly once, but he walked it back and every apology since then has been shaded with some version of blaming me as well. That’s not how this works. He isn’t really taking accountability. Nothing I did or didn’t do caused or excuses what he did and that’s not how apologies work. But forgiveness is different. I just want to move past it.
•
We’ve never been exclusive again and I still love this man. I don’t see a long term romantic future for us, but we intermittently spend time together. Just being in each other’s lives is a struggle that neither of us has yet been willing to give up permanently. We are both frustrated by the other, but so inexplicably drawn to the other it’s almost maddening.
•
I shared this story from when we were together to remind myself of why we aren’t together, committed to each other, now. If he wanted to, he would have, and he didn’t. He still could and still isn’t. But I do like when we have moments of good time together and that’s why we’re still here.
