Do I Miss Him?

 

 

Or do I miss having a man in my life? I’m not sure.  If I do just miss having a man in my life, does that make me ‘one of those women who needs to a man to make her happy’? and if it does, is that a bad thing?

We’re supposed to be happy without a man in our lives aren’t we?   If we meet someone new we’re supposed to say offhandedly “Oh, I am totally happy being alone, I love my lifestyle you know, I’m independent.  If someone came along, that would be great but it’s not the be all and end all”.  Well, I’ve said that, or something along those lines anyway, and at the time I actually think I believed it –  but maybe it’s just what I wanted to believe.

I’ve been thinking about D a lot, and I don’t know whether I actually miss him or I’m just feeling lonely, craving a bit of human contact, someone to look at me in that way, that comforting ‘I’m here, I understand you, everything’s ok’ way.  I can honestly say that only 2 of the men I have been with really ‘got me’, there’s something to be said for having someone who you can communicate with by just a look across a room, or a touch on your arm or the small of your back, or a tender laugh at one your little idiosyncrasies, someone who knows the words you need to hear. 

Actually there’s a lot to be said for that.

I’ve asked myself this question quite a lot lately “Do you only get over someone when you meet someone else who takes their place?”  I don’t know the answer.  I think it was part of the reason I realised I wasn’t into M3 –  I felt it one night when someone mentioned D in conversation, that feeling like the wind has just been knocked out of you, everything kind of goes into slow mo and you can’t seem to comprehend what’s going on around you.  Yeah, that feeling.  I knew right then that M3 wasn’t going to last much longer, I mean if I was really into him, simply hearing D’s name shouldn’t affect me in that way – but it did.

Maybe when you break up with someone, you have that lingering fear of “maybe I won’t find someone else” – so you cling to the memory of that person, believing you still have feelings for them, romanticising your relationship, until you meet someone else who sparks a new feeling.  Fuck - what if I never meet anyone that sparks that feeling, what if noone I meet helps to blank out those feelings for him?  Is that being dramatic?  

It would be a little bit of a twist of fate actually, when I left S and he was really upset (he was 27 to my 37)  I consoled him by saying “you will meet someone else, I know it feels like you never will right now, but trust me, I don’t know anyone who is still pining for someone after a couple of years, you will get over me, I promise”.  Well he did, he was married within 2 years – but what if the twist of fate is that I never get over my feelings for D.    

I got together with D about 2 years after that relationship with S ended –  2 years of therapy and letting my hair down so to speak.   I wonder if one of the reasons that I had such strong feelings for D was because he was my first relationship after I had been in therapy.  During the time that I was with him – I was my ‘best & happiest self ever’ – he got the best ‘me’ that there’s ever been.  And trust me, there have been a lot of different me’s.  And because he’d already known me for a long time before we got together, he knew my history it was comforting, thinking on it now,  part of why I was the best me was because I could be myself with him, utterly & completely – that’s a great feeling.  I wasn’t myself with S – I was a toned down version of me, I became the person that I thought he wanted me to be, I lost myself. 

My past is kinda crazy & there’s alot to it, there’s parts of it that I don’t feel great about, there’s parts of it that I’m not particularly proud of.  There’s parts of it that are hard to explain & there’s stuff that I would prefer not to revisit – but D knew it all, there were no questions or explanations or toned down versions required – no picking out the bits that I thought would be acceptable to someone and only sharing those bits.  The thing about only sharing bits is, that after a while it becomes clearer that there are a few dots that need to be connected – unconnected dots, just hanging there in the air, like one of those thought bubbles over his head, and my head for that matter. 

That’s another reason it wouldn’t work with M3, he was inquisitive – he wanted to know stuff, as I imagine a lot of new partners would, but I don’t like explaining my life, it’s hard work – it made me tired.  S wasn’t interested in my past too much, he didn’t ask a lot of questions, but as time went on I think he joined some of the dots in his own mind, and often what someone imagines, is more sinister than the reality.  I definitely glossed over some stuff at the beginning of my relationship with S, but that was less than a year after I lost B … my head wasn’t on straight, but I didn’t know that at the time.  I submerged myself into becoming what I thought S wanted me to be.

Here’s the thing, after having all weekend to think about it, I really don’t know the answer to my original question.  What I do know is that I couldn’t be bothered going through that ‘getting to know you’ phase with someone new right now or even in 10 years time for that matter. Maybe I’m just tired and a little bit jaded, I guess 22 years of relationships and 18 years of parenting can do that to a person.   I’m hoping that Man Ban 2010 might give me time to recharge my emotional batteries, and hopefully I will be able to answer the question with

“I miss having a man in my life, but you do get over someone, even when there is no-one to take their place”

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