Essay 1 of 18
. . .
I had to stop listening to the 46-minute conversation between you and Tema post her break-up email and voice note to you because it was insufferable. It really was very difficult to hear. It was excruciating because two different modes and dimensions of communication were happening.
It wasn’t quite an inquisition, but you were very much so like,
‘You need to connect these dots and lines for me.’
And her energy and her affect were so flat. I could see her being torn and embarrassed and becoming aware at a different level of acuity.
. . .
You established upfront, and I was so proud of you when you asked her,
“Didn’t I deserve more than this [a breakup over email and voice note]?”
She agreed with you quickly, but she didn’t agree with you emotionally. This is where love and truth come in because when you love someone, you don’t want to hurt them.
. . .
Let me step back and say that none of us really tell each other the truth as much as we promise to, and it’s not just an issue of deceit; it’s an issue of development. It is fiercely difficult to be that vulnerable around that kind of soul-wrenching information and still feel safe. It’s just really hard.
. . .
At a certain point, as I listened to the first 10 of your 16* audio notes/casts:
01 of 16 Prelude: 1m19s
02 of 16 These Cast: 1m59s
03 of 16 Generations and Dating: 7m48s
04 of 16 Turtle Pace — A [positive] Switch Flipped 6-month-in: 1m51s
05 of 16 Triggered — Being in Home City: 6m33s
06 of 16 Projecting out to a Future That May not Come: 1m44s
07 of 16 Age, Aging, and Health: 2m20s
08 of 16 Grief and Loss: 1m17s
09 of 16 Culture and Class: 2m6s
10 of 16 Social Life & Intimacy: 3m13s
*see Essay 8: Making Peace with Those Meta-Women, for a list of voice notes 11 thru 16 (coming-03.23.22)
I had an awareness that you were trying to process something profoundly emotional and visceral rationally. I then wondered if the gestalt and the release that you wanted was in the enlightened rationalization, as much as maybe it might have been if she had let you in on her raw truth, either as it was emerging for her or soon after it emerged?
. . .
Well, you know what? Truth is a timesaver.
When a person tells you their truth, especially if it’s a hard truth, it can be devastating, but it can actually be devastatingly freeing as well because you know their truth.
. . .
There are two thoughts that I’m having.
One, I wondered if Tema was really telling you her truth, and it was just hard for you to hear? Or, and I wonder if she was telling you as much of her truth as she could bear to tell, and therefore it was unsatisfactory for you?
I think everything that you were able to draw out of her in that post-break-up conversation she offered you to have after the fact, at least the parts I was able to suffer through hearing, and you were able to work through in your voice notes, you were approaching a lot of her truth.
. . .
At a certain point, something became clear to me. I wouldn’t say it’s the truth of what was happening, but two scenarios started to become clear to me. But first, I had to do a gender switch like if Tema was the guy and you were the woman, this made it easier for me to see what I was seeing.
Scenario One: You were her Sidepiece.
You were her sidepiece on the weekend, and she hit the jackpot. It was something she hadn’t expected. It was fun. It was meaningful and safe, but it ended up being more than she expected. Where she might have been saying to herself,
‘Oh, my fricking God, he’s amazing!!” “But, I just wanted a safe, consensual relationship that I could have out of town, someone I could have around my life, but not have the burden of integrating into my life, and it could just be fun, and we’ll just see where it goes.’
Then bodies got involved, and your maturity was present. Since your maturity and development make things possible relationally, I wondered if she had experienced what you bring to the table before in one person?
Anyway, in this sidepiece scenario, after you visited her home city and had a glimpse into her actual day-to-day life, she could have gotten to a place in her mind of,
‘No! We’re not supposed to be coming to each other’s home city! No! we’re not supposed to want to get involved in each other’s lives!’
That was scenario one.
Scenario Two: She was falling for you… but the age gap was too wide.
‘Oh, my God! I’m falling for this guy, and he’s older, and he’s really older, and I’m freaking out! I don’t know that I have the maturity for this, the complexity for this. Let me pull the plug on this now!’
It’s not nice; it’s not pretty. Do you know what I’m trying to say?
It’s like a panicky, ‘I got to stop myself from hyperventilating’ decision. Scenario two was entirely in service to saving one’s emotional freaked-out self.
I’m just keeping it real; that’s how I saw it.
Under scenario two, her thinking wouldn’t have been entirely well thought through, thus the lack of appropriate communication practices with you during the relationship, particularly how she ended it with an email and voice note.
Scenario one was a little more thoughtful and calculating, and scenario two was not. So those are the two big ones that were coming to me.
. . .
Let me be clear; it’s going take her ‘a minute’ to see herself in the face of what she did and how she did it.
. . .
Look Through Her Lens: Sense-Making vs. Probabilities
Your thinking and her thinking still led to different internal mental deliberations. Let me step back from it and try to look at your relationship through her lens. Her mental deliberations were not about probability, like what are the odds? Will this happen? Unlike your thinking, hers may have had more to do with “sense-making” internal conversations with herself.
What I mean by that is these are very nuanced, highly personal deliberations about,
‘What do I have the maturity for? What do I have the capacity for? What do I have the development for? I have one consulting practice; I’m starting another and taking on a business partner and financing. I’m wrapping up a 9-to-5; I’ve got young children. Will I continue to have to be heroic? When would I get to just rest?!?’
I guess what I’m trying to say to you is that these are internal sense-making conversations where a person might not just be thinking about the probabilities, but also thinking about, ‘What can I handle?!?’
. . .
Essay 2 of 18: Mirror Mirror — When you’re in a relationship… It’s like a two-edged sword (coming — 03.02.22)
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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