Leaving

We can have fun, we can enjoy each others company, we can lie next to one another, and yet there is always one thing between us. My ex is torn and conflicted.

The fragility of our 'relationship' was again unveiled last night, on the eve of my departure, when after a nice evening out, we came home and he said he needed to make a phone call. I went to take a shower. When I came out of the shower, he sat there and had this anxious look on his face.

I can imagine how he must be feeling. Having to pretend, having to perhaps lie and hide on the phone to his boyfriend, and having to face me. The awkwardness was not just felt by me. He felt it too.

He asked me what I was thinking. And i told him it's not nice to have a good few days and suddenly he has to go off and call. It just feels all too much like three years ago, when he was interested in me, interested in starting something with me, and yet still cannot get the courage to break it off with his ex.

He turned around and told me to take some responsibility. I should have foreseen this, I should have known how difficult it is for him to be spending time with me while he is still officially with someone else.

I take responsibility for visiting him, for lying next to him, for sleeping with him. But I will not take responsibility for the situation he is in. He knew already back at the end of February how he feels, truly feels, about me. He declared his feelings for me, he said he did not have want he wanted or needed. I distanced myself from him purposely to give him time and space to deal with whatever he needs to deal with, but it was not enough apparently. He said it was unfair of me to just suddenly drop a postcard and "summon" him to meet at a place and at a time (I thought otherwise... I thought it was romantic and so very special...) He said it's unfair of me to ignore him for so long and not to say explicitly what I want. But is it not clear what i want when the last two weekends I have taken the effort to drop everything and just go and see him?

He wants me to take responsibility, to talk to him and somehow be involved with his breakup (if that is truly what he wants). His reasoning is because he's doing this to be with me.

But truly, I fail to see what role I can play in a relationship he started on his own, a relationship I've tried so hard not to intervene in or get in the way of. He just does not want to feel guilty or take the full responsibility for having to break someone's heart. He just does not have the guts to open his mouth and break up, and he asks me to be there to support him.

In what capacity I don't know. How can I be there and talk to him about what he should do, when he could one day turn back and say to me "I did this all for you! You forced me into breaking up! You were telling me all these things!"?

This entire episode is very telling o what kind of a person my ex is, and it does nothing to quell my doubts and fears about getting back together with him. I sometimes really get the feeling he just does not want to face things, avoids them and wants people to be there to hold and comfort him, when really a lot of things are his own doing. He chose to breakup with me. He chose to start a relationship. He knew fully well a few months into the relationship, and perhaps even before the relationship, things would not work out in the long run. And yet he's not strong enough to let it go, to put an end to things. He's still making the other person believe there is something there, when at the same time making me believe there is a possible future.

There can be no future if he cannot deal with this very issue on his own. There cannot be a future if he cannot have a clean break from the past and really feels ready to move on.

Everything is in his hands now, as I said to him. But he seems to want to take my hand and hold it while he makes up his mind and gathers up his courage...