So what brought me here? It's a doozy.
A few months ago, I ended my on-again, off-again 3 year relationship with the man I thought I would end up marrying. While it was really hard to step away from the comfort that long term boyfriend brought, I knew it was the right decision.
It also didn't hurt that for months I'd been developing feelings for one of my coworkers, Ben, and that it had slowly been snowballing into something bigger. Neither of us had ever acted on anything, but the chemistry had been growing, and our texts had started coming in later and later into the night (as well as first thing in the morning). The one complication? My work husband had a real girlfriend. Of four years.
Now, I would never set out to do anything with someone I knew was taken. (I hadn't always known about his GF, that was a revelation that came a few months into our friendship.) I always assumed that Ben was too good of a guy to ever act on anything outside of his relationship and I thought I was too aware to ever let things go down that path. 4 years, after all, is a significant amount of time.
Obviously though, I knew I was catching feelings, and as our time started to shift from inside the office to bars and touristy activities on the weekend, I began to wonder if there may be more happening.
One night, after too many beers and too much flirting, we crossed the line from talk into action. I wondered if he was questioning his relationship- imagined that he had to be at a crossroads, determining what his next step was in his life. I had a huge pit in my stomach that night- the anxiety alone was keeping me up. I didn't really ask him about any of it, chalked it up to the drinking and tried to do damage control when I saw him the next day. (I left it at an "Are we ok?" The answer was a resounding "Yes".)
This is the part of the story when savvier women would have said more- and put an immediate end to things. Unfortunately, I am not yet one of those wise ladies. I let things continue. I let us keep getting into situations that would escalate, and kept up our constant contact. He was on my brain, in my heart, and unfortunately, in my bed.
Ben was a perfect boyfriend: great communicator-- someone I could discuss anything with, a snazzy dresser, our chemistry could rival nuclear weaponry, and above all else he made me laugh all the time. The only issue in that fairy tale? He wasn't mine.
The pit in my stomach started to gnaw at me at all hours, until finally I could take it no more. I asked him to lunch and ended things. After much hemming and hawing, I spit out that our friendship was too important, having him in my life was something too special, and that I didn't really think we could be these two people.
Under different circumstances, I'd want nothing more than him, but in the current state: "cheater" & "homewrecker" are such awful titles to have looming over your head. He agreed, said he understood, and although he was visibly upset that was where we left things. Off we went, back to our respective cubes where we could log back into IM and proceed to talk as though nothing had changed.
I felt comfortable, freed, and so happy. He was still sending me texts non-stop, we were talking like normal, and flirting again. It was business as usual. In the back of my mind, I wondered whether this may be enough for him to leave her. Especially as the late night texts trickled in about missing me, I thought that he may be able to make a clean break and that we could start over.
Until today.
In the small world that is DC my friend Jane went out on a date with a friend of his. Yay connections! Obviously, I turned to her for a full report. My download: aside from an awesome date, Jane had learned that Ben had been keeping one more secret from me. Not only did he have a girlfriend, but they'd also been living together for years.
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.
I realize that someone who's been cheating on their girlfriend has to be capable of keeping secrets, but this felt so different. I didn't understand how Ben could have possibly kept our dalliance up for so long without some serious lies, nor had I realized the extent to which he'd been hiding parts of his life from me. I felt betrayed and more than a little sick.
While our whole exchange had pushed the boundaries of what I could accept, I had always thought he was still figuring things out. The fact that he was living with his girlfriend pushed him over into very serious relationship territory, not the on again off again world I had existed in with my ex. My heart simultaneously raced and felt heavy as I came to terms with what I had done. I went running in an effort to sweat out every icky thought I was suddenly thinking, not just about him, but about me. What had I done?
Obviously, I had crossed some lines. Not only had I helped Ben betray someone, I had betrayed myself. Real Life.
So.... here we are now. I'm not happy about the turn things have taken in the past few months, but I'm ready to start anew. As I pull back from the person who's had the most consistent presence in my life of late, I need some serious distractions.
One date a week? Here we go. Date 1 is tomorrow. Wish me luck on new beginnings.
