Why Can't We Be Friends?

I seen you 'round for a long long time
I really 'membered you when you drink my wine

Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
---War

Last week, Todd said "I don't understand why we still can't be friends." I know what I said back to him, but that wasn't the complete response. No, I took the safe and easy way out - oh my response was truthful, but it wasn't the whole truth.

Here is the real truth, or as I like to call them The Seven Deadly Sins:

1) Eight years of lies. Okay, well we've been together for 10 years, but I would say that the first two years were relatively honest years, or at least what I can remember of them. No, I think the lies started some time after our Ross-And-Rachel break of 2000. We got back together because he said he wanted to be with me. The truth was, he did not. Ever since that time, he has had a roving eye.

2) Ten years of manipulation. From the moment we became exclusive, Todd started to manipulate me in order to get me to become the mate he wanted. "I could never be with someone who didn't have (this kind of) sex." So, I started to have "that kind" of sex.

Next: "I can't be with someone who isn't nurturing." Okay, so I never really fixed that, because I am not a nurturer by nature. But I became more nurturing, paying close attention to his needs and trying my hardest to fill them.

Next: "I need you to be a life partner. You need to make some real changes in order to become that." Well, this was a difficult one to tackle, and I never got it right. Of course, I never got it right, because of the next item on my list:

3) He didn't let me into his life. Oh yes, he wanted me to be his life partner. He ranted and raved about it. But, you see, he set me up for failure. I could never be his life partner, because he didn't let me into his life. He didn't introduce me to his friends. He wouldn't allow me to attend the local BDSM meetings with him. He wouldn't even invite me to his game nights. (He waited until I was out of town to host them at the house.)

Oh he'll say "But I introduced you to my family." Well, that's kind of true. I say "kind of," because the few times I attended family events with him, he didn't introduce me to anyone. No, his family members all introduced themselves to me. Or I'd introduce myself to them. But when we were all seated together, he wouldn't include me in conversations or ask me to join him if he was going to another part of the room to talk to various other family members. He would just leave me on my own.

4) Roving eye. He was never satisfied with me, and he let me know that, both through word and through action. Even before we were broken up, he opened several online accounts through which he used to flirt with and contact other women. If confronted, he would give it up for a while (or so it seemed). But then sooner or later evidence of this would reappear, and would cause more strife between us. Which brings me to my next reason:

5) "You make me crazy." These words were often said to me by Todd in anger and frustration. I was the cause of his anguish. I was the one who was making waves. It was me who added undue stress in his life. So, if I complained about his flirting with other women, or questioned his treatment of me, or brought up any other number of valid concerns, he would get angry and turn it around on me. I made him angry - how dare I? And yet, now I see that I had every right and reason to bring up those things to him. I am just sorry that I let his turning it around on me go on for so long.

6) He led me on. For the last two years, we've been, well, I don't know - not on a break, but supposedly by his terms "redefining our relationship." The way I understood it was that he needed certain things and needed to set certain boundaries, and we'd see how it would go from there.

The thing is, "we" were supposed to be redefining our relationship, but in all actuality, he was redefining our relationship. And that might have been something we could have worked through, if he hadn't kept the new definition a secret from me.

During the last couple of years, the rules of engagement were constantly changing. It to got the point where I had no idea where I stood, how I should act, and what he wanted from me. If I asked him, I would get one of the following two responses: "You drive me crazy!" or "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

Um, the truth would have been nice.

7) Lies of a sexual nature. I know what you're thinking: "you covered lies already." Well, yes and no. The lies I was referring to in item number 1 were the lies that he told us both (himself and me) that our relationship was important to him. "You are the most important person in my life." If I had a dollar for every time he told me that in the last ten years, I'd be a rich woman. Yet, I couldn't have been that important, as he wouldn't let me into his life (see item 3).

No, the lies of a sexual nature are actually, in a lot of ways, more hurtful. See, I can perhaps even understand how he could lie to himself and me regarding the seriousness of our relationship (as I think he believed this lie to be true). But I can't understand how he would not let me into his sexual world, and instead choose to share his sexual needs with others.

I didn't even really know this was going on until recently. I found something at the house, and all of a sudden things started to make complete sense. A Disney princess bag that contained a pacifier (in a sealed baggie), a teddy bear and a blanket - this bag appeared after a weekend I spent with my folks. I thought it belonged to his friend's little girl, until I met the girl: she is approximately ten years old. And while she might have a teddy bear, she certainly wouldn't have a pacifier. It dawned on me last week when I came across something else as I was moving items: he must have hosted a sex party that weekend, and had some age play going on in the house.

I figured this out after I found boxes and boxes and boxes of condoms and some sex toys- sex toys I didn't even know he had. Sex toys he had never used in our own sexual adventures. Sex toys he hid from me, so I wouldn't find them.

When all of this dawned on me, I felt nauseous and dizzy. He had been lying to me for ages. He put my sexual health at risk. And, once again, it was another area of his life he wouldn't let me in to. Why wouldn't he choose to play these games with me? Why wouldn't he ever bring them up with me? Instead, he decided that his life partner (ha) wasn't good enough to play with, but his friends obviously were.

One other thing: after that weekend, you know, the weekend I was at my parent's house and he was apparently having just a regular "games" night at the house, I found a girl's ring in the bedroom. It didn't belong to me. I asked him about it. He played dumb. Then he said he asked the cleaning girl about it, and she said she had found it in the living room. He told me that someone must have taken it off while playing games.

Well, that never made sense to me. Why would a girl take off a ring if they were playing a board game? Now it all makes sense - it wasn't board games, it was sex games.

How stupid am I not to have put this all together sooner? (Don't answer that!)

As for "friends," no I don't think I could be friends with Todd again. Or at least, not for a very long time. I am so mad and hurt and confused. How could someone who professed to only have my best interest at heart actually be so destructive to our relationship? How could someone who claimed that I was the "most important person" in his life actually bend over backwards to prove otherwise through words and action?

But you know, I can't just blame him. Oh I want to. Believe me, I want to. However, I put up with this for ten years. Ten fucking years I was hanging on with a wing and a prayer. I chose to only hear the good things: the I Love Yous and the You Are The Most Important Person In The World To Mes and the I Can't Imagine What My Life Would Be Without Yous. I'm stupid for focusing on that, when in fact I should have been focusing on how badly he treated me.

Yes, I should have broken up with him a long time ago - in fact, if I was the smart woman I pretend I am, I should have never gone back to him in 2000. Just think of how different my life would be -

But it's not different and I made a huge mistake. I wasted ten years with someone who never really wanted me in the first place. What he really wanted was someone to hang out with until someone else better came along.

I don't even think I have the right to cry about this - after all, I made my bed and now I have to lie in it. That doesn't mean I can't wash the sheets, though, and try to clean it up a bit. And that's what I'm doing now - cleaning up and moving on.

So why can't we be friends? Because honey, obviously we never really were friends in the first place.