This Is Just Wrong

OK. Everyone who reads this blog knows my last two postings about Riin were not particularly complimentary. I have my issues with the woman; I do believe that she has a lot to learn about life, the universe and everything, particularly in the areas of how to recognize love and getting along with people whose ideas differ from hers. However, I have never, nor would I ever, wish ill will on her; I still love her, even after everything, and want to see her happy.

Well, right now, she's bloody miserable; take a look at her most recent blog posting.

OK. That is just wrong.

I'll admit I'm not a big fan of antidepressants; I think society is relying way too much on pills these days instead of helping people find ways of dealing with their own emotions. Still, once you're on antidepressants, you can't just stop taking them out of the clear blue; that can be dangerous.

Riin has apparently been without her antidepressants for several days now thanks to the cluster fuck going on with her prescription at Walgreens. It's to the point now where Riin is in a place I haven't seen her in a long time; it's a place I never wanted to see her again:

[M]y brain chemistry is totally fucked. This week has been really hard. Lots of irrational thoughts, lots of waking up at 5am and crying for 2 hours, dizzy spells, thoughts I just really don't want to have.

It would seem that the personnel at Walgreens Pharmacy in Ann Arbor have their head shoved further up their ass than even my troll.

Do these people have any idea how dangerous it can be to screw with someone's prescription like this? "Oh, it's just an antidepressant; she won't die without it." Bullshit! "[T]houghts I just really don't want to have." She could be thinking about hurting herself here!

I used to be able to talk her down out of these kinds of moods; she called it "getting me off the ceiling." I wish I could talk to her now, talk her down like I used to but, under the circumstances, it would only make things worse. Her paranoia was very likely a large part of the reason she stopped trusting me and, right now, her paranoia is amped way up; my arrival in the picture would only amp up her bad feelings even further.

I am terrified she's going to get hurt, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. :(

Men: Slime or Sublime?

In my experience, many men have an overly casual, and often outright juvenile, attitude about women and relationships. That's probably why many women I know don't trust them. I don't blame them; I don't trust them, either, and for the same reasons. It just makes me profoundly uncomfortable to talk to men who continually make crude comments about women's bodies or make explicit comments about what they'd like to do, or have done, with a woman.

Unfortunately, even among my friends, I encounter this kind of behavior a lot in men. This is why all but one of my close friends is female. If I'm talking about a woman I love and respect, the last thing I want to hear is crude sexual comments about them. To me, crude sexual comments cheapen a woman, reducing her to a mere object of sexual fantasy. The idea of someone I love being reduced to a cheap sexual fantasy makes my skin crawl.

The male stereotype is hardly a complimentary one:

In most modern Western cultures, men are expected to be assertive, risk-taking, tough, unfeeling, insensitive, combative, the owner or ruler of the home . . . Younger men are often depicted as pimpish, boasting, prideful, obnoxious, promiscuous and sometimes violent. - Wikipedia

No wonder women tend not to trust men.

Of course, stereotypes are just that: stereotypes. Men are individuals; not all of us are jerks. Unfortunately, there are enough jerks out there to make life very difficult for the truly honest, respectful man. I've often found it very difficult to get women, sometimes even my closest friends, to completely trust me and my intentions because they're not used to encountering a man who is so far outside the male stereotype.

Telemarketers face a similar problem due to stereotyping. Having worked in telemarketing, I know what a struggle it can often be to get people to give their credit cards. This is because giving a person your credit card number is risky; it renders your account vulnerable to whatever that person decides to do. Unfortunately, too many telemarketers have scammed people this way so people tend not to trust them.

Of course, just as not all men are jerks, not all telemarketers are dishonest. Also like men, telemarketers have a reputation; the telemarketing stereotype is of a bunch of teenagers crammed into a boiler room tricking people into scams. Unfortunately, there are telemarketers out there like that; the damage they do to the reputation of the profession makes it much harder than it should be for the honest ones to conduct legitimate business.

Male/female relationships follow a similar dynamic. Entering any close relationship, whether it be a friendship or a romantic relationship, always involves trust. Giving someone your trust is not unlike giving your credit card to a telemarketer except, in a relationship, you're giving a someone a piece of your heart. Like the telemarketer with the credit card, that person can now do what they want with that piece of your heart; that renders your soul vulnerable.

The unfortunate reality is, just as there are a lot of dishonest telemarketers out there, so too are there a lot of men that simply think with the wrong head; it's hard to know what a man's true intentions are. "Is he just trying to scam me to get into my bed? Or does he sincerely care?"

Ironically, the bad reputation of men affects friendships between men and women more profoundly than romantic relationships; with so many men out there just looking for one thing, it's all too easy for a woman to wonder about a male friend's intentions.

I've found that most men don't like to say "I love you" because they think of it as a sexual thing. Certainly it can be; as I said in my prior posting, sex is the most profound language through which one can express love. However, love itself is not about sex. The problem is, most men think it is. By extension, most women, hearing a man say "I love you," tend to automatically assume that the meaning is sexual.

When I say "I love you," I never mean anything sexual, even when I say it to a woman I am in love with. To me, "I love you" means: "I want you to know how important you are to me." Even when I say I'm "in love" with a woman, to me that simply means: "I think you're beautiful, and I trust you enough to handle my body when it's unprotected and at its most vulnerable." In other words, to me, being "in love" is more about trust than sex.

Love, even being in love, isn't about sex; it's about showing someone how important they are to you.

I only wish love wasn't so sexualized in our culture; showing people in my life how much I love them would be a lot simpler if it wasn't.

Revelation

The past four years of my life have probably been my most emotionally intense years in this world so far. I've fallen in love a total of four times. I've pursued two of those relationships. One ended in heartbreak; one ended in friendship. The other two ultimately became my dearest friends. During all of this, during the good times and the bad, during the joy and the heartbreak, I've done a lot of thinking about love and what it really means.

I've always known that love is simpler than people make it out to be. Whenever I talk to people about love, there's one concept I consistently encounter: "Different kinds of love." People talk about how the love you feel for a lover is not the same feeling as the feeling you feel for a friend or a family member.

I don't believe that. I believe that love, as a feeling, remains the same regardless who you're feeling it for. It's not the feeling that's different; it's how you express it that varies. When you take away sexuality entirely, one's feelings for people one is "in love" with, for people who are "friends" and for family are identical. "Love" is something entirely separate from sexuality; love, as a feeling and concept, would exist with or without sexuality.

To understand this, it's helpful to understand the relationship between language and thought:

When two people converse speaking a language fluently, it's easy to think that the words themselves are thoughts and feelings. If you're fluent in English then English is so ingrained in you as a method of expression that, as you read this, it probably feels to you as if these words are my very thoughts themselves. The language and the thoughts are so closely related that it's hard to separate the two.

However, words are not thoughts; they are merely a vehicle by which thought and feeling are expressed. If words were actually pure thought, then you should know what I'm trying to say when I write "jIwuQ." However, I'll bet you dollars to donuts you have no idea what that means (I deliberately picked a language here very few people would know to clarify my point). OK, how about this one? "J'ai un mal de tête." Or this? "Tengo un dolor de cabeza."

"jIwuQ," "J'ai un mal de tête" and "Tengo un dolor de cabeza" actually all say exactly the same thing in three different languages. The first is Klingon; the second is French; the third is Spanish. Yet, all three sentences express exactly the same thought: "I have a headache."

The most basic definition of "language" is: "Any means of conveying or communicating ideas." A "means" of conveying or communicating ideas. Language is not idea itself, as much as it sometimes may seem to be; if it were, all the misunderstandings we suffer because of our unique points of view wouldn't happen. If our words were our thoughts themselves, our words should carry the meaning of our thoughts across perfectly but they don't; not always.

It is in the definition of language that my ideas on love become clear: love and sex are related in the same way thought and language are. Love is an idea, a feeling a concept; sex is a language.

This distinction is critically important, because it means that there is no such thing as "different kinds of love." Love, as a feeling, is totally independent of its expression, just like all feelings and concepts are. Like all concepts, love can be expressed in a myriad of different ways. Just off the top of my head, I can think of several ways to express love for someone: a smile, a hug, a gift, a kiss, a poem, or even by simply saying "I love you."

To me, sex is only another language by which love can be expressed. Sex is capable of fully expressing only two concepts: love and lust. However, the fact that sex can be used to express any concept qualifies it, by my definition, as a language, albeit a very limited one.

People tend to think of love and sex as being the same thing because sex, by its nature, is one of the most "fluent" languages by which one can express love. The expression of love through sex is such a profound experience that, when in the midst of a loving sexual act, the lines between the physical act and the emotion blur. However, like any fluent language, sex is still a separate thing from the love it expresses; the love itself would exist with or without it.

Upon realizing that, I came to define love as "friendship expressed through sexuality." In other words, my "formula" for "romantic love" has always been: friendship + attraction = romantic love. When I first came to that realization, I thought I had all the answers. I thought I knew exactly what love was and how to make it happen. That's why, when I realized what was happening between Riin and I, I pursued it, secure in the knowledge that it was "true love."

However, after my breakup with Riin, and in observing the dynamics of other relationships among the people in my life, I began to realize that the picture wasn't complete. While I'd never seen a couple "in love" whose relationship didn't rest on a firm basis of friendship, I had seen people who were friends who were attracted to each other yet did not "fall in love." That's where the paradigm broke down: if I was right, they should have fallen in love but they didn't.

So now I'm confused. There must be a missing part of the "formula" for romantic love... but what?

When I thought about it for a while, I realized that the key to this understanding lay in my relationship with Lisa. I used to be in love with Lisa; I no longer am. Why? I do still think Lisa is beautiful; I do still consider her a friend. In theory, I should still be in love with Lisa, but I'm not.

So I knew, whatever the "missing link" was, it was something that changed between Lisa and I. The question was: what changed?

Today, I wasn't really thinking about it consciously, but it was in the back of my mind all morning. Then, just as I got back from lunch, my mind was drifting and I was thinking about things Lisa has done that have hurt me over the years. One of the things about Lisa that's always troubled me was her inability to keep a promise. I thought to myself, "Lisa's just like that; you can't trust her to keep a promise."

I literally stopped in mid step when I hit the word "trust." It's like a light bulb went on: that's the missing link.

So I thought back again to my feelings for Lisa. Am I attracted to her? Yes. Do I consider her a friend? Yes. Do I trust her? No.

Lisa has lied to me over and over and over again and, although she's more honest now than she used to be, I still find myself wondering every time she speaks, "Is this the truth?" I'm never absolutely sure. When I thought further about that, I realized that's also why I no longer want to express my love for her physically.

To me, physical intimacy one of the most profound acts of trust one Human being can entrust to another. If I cannot trust Lisa, then I cannot be comfortable being intimate with her at that level. That's why I no longer want to express my love for her that way: I no longer feel comfortable enough with her because I cannot trust her enough to be that vulnerable to her.

After all the lies over all the years, I'll probably never again be able to trust Lisa deeply enough to express my love for her that way again. I know she capable of lying, and I know she will lie again if it serves her purposes. One cannot be in love with someone they cannot trust because, to be in love, one must be willing to lower all personal barriers; you can only do that with someone you trust implicitly.

That also explains why (I'm forced to admit, despite everything) I still love Riin. I don't trust her judgment, but I do trust her intentions. She has never lied to me or violated my trust. So, with her, I still have a feeling of friendship, attraction and trust; the love remains. This also explains why Riin fell out of love with me. She sent the police twice; you don't do that to someone you trust. If she lost her trust in me, then her love for me died with it.

Then I started looking at the other women I've fallen in love with in my life and asked myself if trust was a common factor. Sure enough, it was; each woman I've ever felt this way for is also a woman I trust implicitly.

So. True romantic love has not two, but three components: friendship + attraction + trust = romantic love. It's when all three of these feelings arrive together for the same person that the feeling of "romantic love" happens.

In order to truly love, you have to find someone you can trust with everything that you are, and who trusts you just as implicitly. Trust deep enough to ignite love happens only between people who have never betrayed each other. Ever.

Until now, I've never believed it's possible to "fall out of love" because I've always viewed romantic love's two components of attraction and friendship to be virtually indestructible. However, now that I know trust is part of the formula, too, I understand: trust is fragile; once it's destroyed it's difficult, and sometimes impossible, to get back.

Riin said she wasn't in love with me anymore. I never believed her but now I realize she was right after all. I thought she was still in love with me but was fighting it; in reality, even if she did still love me, she was no longer in love with me simply because, for whatever reason, she lost her trust in me.

Maybe that, at least subconsciously, is why I fought her so hard on it. If Riin doesn't trust me, there has to be something I did that she misunderstood. I have never lied to her; I have never betrayed her trust (publishing pieces of her personal E-mail notwithstanding; I honestly didn't realize she would mind that and I took it down the moment I realized she did, so it wasn't a deliberate violation). I guess I just wanted, even needed to know why she stopped trusting me.

If only I'd understood then what I understand now, I probably would have given Riin more space instead of pushing so hard to talk to her. In pushing as hard as I did, I only amplified her mistrust. The fact is, there may not have been anything I could have done to begin restoring her trust in me but, if there was anything I could have done, it wasn't what I did, that's certain.

At least I came away from the experience understanding love's greatest vulnerability: trust. Maybe knowing that will help me not to make the same mistakes I did with Riin the next time I find myself in a relationship.

Of course, I'm not sure I ever will be in another relationship. Right now, there are only two other women I feel that way for, and neither has any potential for a romantic relationship. I'm still too emotionally raw to try to develop any new friendships, so I'm not likely to develop feelings for anyone else, either.

Maybe that's for the best. All four of these friendships were more important to me than anything else in the world. Of the two I pursued romantically, one relationship was destroyed, the other damaged. I'm not looking to marry; I don't want children. Maybe it's not worth the risk.

I'd rather keep the friendships I have, and the love I have with them, than risk them only so I can have one more language to tell them how much I love them.

---

On July 12, 2008 10:10:46 AM ADT, Tom Frost Jr. wrote:

A fourth requirement might be having something significant in common with the person. But what that thing in common must be is tricky, as the following story illustrates.

I started out thinking that as the most basic requirement, she must be a cyclist. So, when I started attending bike rallies 20 years ago . . . I always thought that that would be where I'd meet the appropriate lady.

But I never did! It turns out - and it finally became particularly obvious when I got on the internet several years ago - that just because somebody's a cyclist does not mean that they have an iota in common with me!

That's very true. If you ask me, I think it's because cyclists, particularly serious cyclists, tend to be unusual people in some way. By the very definition of the word, someone who is "unusual" will tend not to have traits in common with many people, and that can include fellow cyclists.

There are many women who are members of Velo Cape Breton, for example, and I find many of them very attractive, but I have yet to find one I have enough in common with to get close enough to to build the kind of intimate friendship that a romantic relationship would require. They're all nice ladies and good friends, don't get me wrong; it's just that most of them would probably find me boring as dust if they spent too much time in my company. ;)

Yesterday I learned, in my usual weekly e-mail exchange with the paper girl that I boasted to you about meeting last year, that she's not a cyclist and has no interest in becoming one (despite her apparent ample respect for my being one . . . ).

However, one of the things that this paper girl does have in common with me is that we both bash people who think that they're better than somebody else.

Attitudes like that are a pet peeve of mine as well, which probably explains in part why you and I get along so well. :)

Do I want to be like certain people who, throughout my whole life, have insinuated that my choice to be a cyclist is a "problem" that needs to be "corrected"? No!

This is also one of the reasons why I don't get along with my mother as well as I'd like to. Although she'd never admit it if you asked her to her face, she does think my choice to be a cyclist is "a 'problem' that needs to be 'corrected.'" We've had more than one argument in which she went on a tangent about how I should get a car because "everybody needs a car" etc. Oh bull! I can get around just fine without one, thank you very much.

Actually, cycling isn't the only thing she's done this with, either. When I first started losing my hair, she kept treating my hair loss as "a 'problem' that needs to be 'corrected'" despite my repeated insistence that it didn't bother me. I was still really big into Star Trek at the time (I still like it but I'm not as consumed with it today as I was back then); between Captain Picard, The Doctor and Sisko, it didn't seem to me that baldness was such a big deal... ;)

That's mom; if she thinks anyone has an idea that she thinks isn't "normal," she will always treat it as "a 'problem' that needs to be 'corrected.'" Granted, she means well, but she doesn't realize that not everyone wants to be "fixed."

Of course the greatest irony is, if she thinks you need "fixing," she'll arrive with her tool belt on, but Lord help you if you try to "fix" her; she takes profound offense to the idea of anyone telling her how to run her life. The idea that other people might feel the same way about her attempt to "fix" them, for some reason, just doesn't occur to her. Then again, she's never been particularly good at the art of putting herself in others' shoes... ;)

All that being said, I love my mom dearly. She's always been there for me when I needed her, and I've always appreciated that. Her heart's in the right place; it's just that she cannot seem to grasp the idea that there are other ways of doing things besides her own.

Not trying to change each other is the most basic "thing in common" that I want to have with somebody who has already met the first three requirements that you cite . . .

You make an excellent point. While I don't think that "not trying to change each other" is necessarily a component of the feeling of romantic love, I absolutely agree that it is a component of a successful long term relationship. Actually, I think this is a component of the "trust" aspect; you have to be able to trust that this other person loves you even if they don't necessarily agree with you on everything.

You know, I think this is where Riin and I fell off the rails. We loved each other deeply and, in the beginning, we trusted each other implicitly. However, as time went on, Riin kept trying to change me. She wanted me to stop drinking (she didn't even want me drinking at reasonable levels); she wanted me to be a vegetarian; she wanted me to be totally non-violent (she was uncomfortable with how I'd enjoy a good movie fistfight or WWE match).

Because Riin was always trying to change me, I found myself trying to change her. I tried to make her a faster cyclist; I tried to convert her to drop bars; I tried to convert her into a Star Trek fan. I don't usually do that to people but, in Riin's case, I couldn't help thinking, Well, she wants me to change stuff; it's only fair that she change some things for me, too.

I think that might be why she eventually stopped trusting me, particularly when she tried to get me to stop drinking. I tried; I really did. I failed. I think she viewed that as a lie, a promise I broke. It was probably the only promise I ever made to her (or anyone) that I've ever failed to live up to.

Riin's never had an addiction. If only she had, maybe she would have been able to understand what I was going through. I was not lying to her. I did mean what I was saying; I had every intention of keeping my promise. I just couldn't. Even I was taken off guard by the power of addiction because drinking is the only thing I have ever been addicted to; trying to quit was my first experience with trying to break an addiction; I simply wasn't prepared for the power of it.

Regardless, if Riin and I had only been willing to accept each other as we are, maybe we would still be together today. But Riin kept trying to change me; that made me feel like I had to change her to "even the score," so to speak. Eventually, this wiped out her trust in me. Unfortunately, I never lost my trust in her so she lost her love for me and I didn't lose my love for her; that left me holding the proverbial bag, which is why the breakup hurt me so much.

That's probably also why those two remaining friendships mentioned above still work so well. I accept them both as they are and, in fact, would not want to change them; I love them both just the way they are.

If I ever am in another romantic relationship some day, I'm going to keep that lesson close to my heart; maybe that way, even if the relationship fails, I won't lose the friendship it was built on like I did with Riin.

On July 25, 2008 7:59:24 PM ADT, Anonymous wrote:

Why do you refer to the troll as she? Could it be a he?

No. I know who the troll is; I just can't prove it.

M

The troll has often chided me that no one reads my blog or cares about what I'm saying; she'd use the fact that there are not many comments being posted here as "proof." I've always responded that people are sending most of their comments to me personally. Of course, I could never prove that because most of the people commenting did so privately specifically because they did not want their comments made public.

However, one of my commenters, probably one of the most intriguing of them all, said the following in one of her recent E-mails:

I'd prefer you not to make the comment [itself] public, but you can feel free to say that I've written you and agreed with every one of your points, citing examples in my own relationship with Riin.

The above was written by someone I've mentioned previously: M. Riin's former friend of 27 years. She's been reading my blog since the whole mess started and has actually contacted me on several occasions. What's interesting however is that I did not seek her out; she came to me.

The first time she contacted me, it was a total shock. As I've said previously, I've had very little contact with any of Riin's friends, and M was no exception. It would never have occurred to me to contact her, and it certainly never would have occurred to me that she would contact me. However, I've discovered of late that she and I are birds of a feather in some very profound ways, particularly where Riin is concerned.

My most recent post, "The Pedomorphic Pharisee," struck a particularly resonant chord with M; it was that posting that prompted her to allow me to reveal that she's been contacting me. In a nutshell, she told me that the issues brought up in "The Pedomorphic Pharisee" are exactly the reasons why she didn't try harder to mend fences with Riin when their relationship went sour.

The difference between M and I, of course, is that M recognized right away what it took me a year to finally figure out. She didn't even try to mend her broken relationship with Riin because she recognized immediately that it was a lost cause. She knew that, in order to fix it, Riin would have to admit she'd been in the wrong in some things; Riin can never, ever admit she's wrong about anything. That made any reconciliation impossible.

That, in fact, is what has destroyed all of Riin's relationships. I'm not saying that we (those who love her) didn't make mistakes. We did; all of us. That, however, is the difference between her and us. We can admit we made mistakes; Riin cannot. Relationships can always be fixed (even this mess between Riin and I, theoretically), but fixing a relationship means a willingness to admit fault on both sides. That's where the paradigm falls apart; Riin cannot admit fault.

M is not the only person to show me support in this; not by a long shot. I have noticed, however, an interesting pattern. Those who support me, by and large, E-mail me privately with their comments and tell me who they are; the troll, by way of contrast, makes a public display and refuses to identify herself. I think that speaks volumes about the level of the troll's maturity and how much stock I should put in what she has to say.

The most interesting thing to me, though, is that one of my greatest supporters is someone who used to be one of Riin's greatest supporters, and for far longer I've known her.

Self recrimination is all too easy when a relationship falls apart; one always wonders, "What did I do wrong?" However, if Riin has managed to destroy every important relationship she's ever had, including one it took 27 years to build, maybe the fault isn't with me after all.

It's sad. Even M agrees when I say there is a beautiful person inside of Riin, but the beauty is buried under a blanket of bitterness. As a blanket of snow will, if never melted, eventually become a glacier, so too has her bitterness become a sheet of ice, thick and unyielding, impenetrable, burying the beautiful forest, home to the nymph underneath.

Love provides warmth, but not enough to reach her. Melting that ice is going to take love from both sides, ours and hers. Myself, M, Pete, her mom, her dad, we all still love her, the nymph under the ice, but we cannot reach her if she cannot love us back.

The ice nymph, trapped by her inability to love.

The Pedomorphic Pharisee

I don't really spend a whole lot of my time on-line. Still, there are several places I like to visit from time to time, like Car Free, Casey & Andy, Cheshire Crossing, The Yarn Harlot (I don't usually read knitting blogs, but I love this woman's sense of humor :)), We Move to Canada, and Peter Alway's Journal. The ironic thing about these particular places, however, is I probably wouldn't even know they existed if not for Riin; they're all places she introduced me to.

Of course, Riin still frequents some of these herself, so it's inevitable I'll occasionally stumble across traces of her. I most often encounter her comments on The Yarn Harlot. I only check in there once every month or two but, when I do, there's always something new from her there.

I hadn't checked in with The Yarn Harlot for a few months so, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to see if she'd written anything interesting. She didn't disappoint; I saw a posting from January 2 titled, "At least it's predictable." It's an excellent example of why I love to read her blog. The fight for computer supremacy. Yup, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, collected the Beanie Baby; Lisa and I have had our share of conflicts over computer resources. :)

I was chuckling away, thoroughly entertained, until I stumbled across this in the comments:

You know, after being married for 14 years to a guy who couldn't remember where we kept anything ("where do we keep the...?" "Uh, same place we've kept it for the last 14 years!" Geez, grow a brain) and then getting involved with a guy I later came to call Stalker Boy, I've pretty much decided I just don't need men. I am far better off alone. Maybe I've had incredibly bad judgment or really, really bad luck, or maybe men just suck, but I'm not taking any more chances.

Posted by: Riin at January 2, 2008 3:31 PM

It wasn't the "Stalker Boy" comment that caught my attention; this wasn't the first (and probably won't be the last) time she's called me that. What caught my attention was what she said about her ex-husband:

"Geez, grow a brain."

Riin's ex-husband's blog is one of the aforementioned places I like to visit. I don't know much about Peter Alway beyond what Riin has told me and what I've read on his blog. This, however, I can tell you unequivocally: he did not deserve that.

Until I read that comment, I thought Riin reserved public, unmerited, juvenile barbs exclusively for me. This is the first time I've ever seen Riin launch an unwarranted, public attack against anyone besides me, and it really made me think.

Riin used to call Pete down a lot. I can't go into most of it because most of it would be too personal to him, but I will say she's said much worse than "Grow a brain." I frequently tried to defend him in the beginning; I even tried to talk her out of her decision to divorce him. However, Riin has an odd way of slowly altering your perceptions until, before you even realize it, you find yourself on her side without even knowing how you got there...

It wasn't until I saw her attack Pete publicly that her true nature finally became apparent to me. Pete's not one to toot his own horn, particularly in public, and I can only tell you what I saw of him filtered through Riin. Still, in retrospect, it seems to me that man tried damned hard to please her.

When Ken Kifer died, he was there for her every day. Not sure how to help, he did the only thing he knew how and wrote her music and poems to try to soothe her. He even supported her friendship with me, even when he knew how she really felt about me, and probably knew somewhere deep down that it would eventually spell the end of his relationship with her. He did that for her because he loved her and wanted her to be happy.

He gave her 14 years of his life and his love. How does she repay him? By publicly implying he's stupid.

That's when it hit me.

On her blog, Riin claims to "practice compassion toward all living things." Naively, I took that at face value. I assumed that the practiced compassion towards everyone else and reserved her rancor only for me because she felt threatened by me (legitimately or not). Now I see that her acrimony sprang, not from her perception of me, but from the same wellspring from which her infamous "rants" sprang: her pharisaical, pedomorphic peevishness.

In light of that realization, I looked back on her attitudes over the two and a half years I knew her. I came to the most startling realization:

Riin is a bigot.

In society today, the word "bigot" has come to be synonymous with people who are prejudiced against skin color or religious belief, and that's the first thing that people think of when they see or hear the word. However, the word's meaning is much broader: "a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his [or her] own." That definition describes Riin impeccably.

Riin may not discriminate on the basis of race, but she does discriminate. Off the top of my head, I can think of many groups she discriminates against: Christians, motorists, people who eat meat, people who live in big houses, people who smoke, people who drink, people who shop at Wal-Mart, people who drive SUVs. She won't say it to your face but, if you don't choose her way of doing things, she automatically thinks there's something wrong with you as a person.

"Well, she has the right to her opinion," some might say. Absolutely. The problem isn't her opinion; it's her attitude. I know from talking to her more intimately than 99% of the people who will read this that she will frequently dismiss an entire person on the basis of just one thing about them she doesn't agree with. That is the earmark of the bigot: total lack of tolerance for views that do not tally with one's own.

If Riin is a bigot, then she is also a hypocrite as well. "Practice compassion towards all living things," she says. If she truly believed that, she wouldn't be so wantonly callous towards those with whom she disagrees. Her blog should say: "Practice compassion towards all living things that I feel are worthy of compassion." Anyone she deems "not worthy" are subject, not to compassion, but to vainglorious, venomous vituperation.

Pete, should you ever read this, I want to say this in public and for the record: I apologize to you for not trying harder to defend you. I should have fought Riin harder about her decision to leave you, and I didn't; I let her dominate me instead. I've always admired you and, in the beginning before Riin soured on you, I was looking forward as much to getting to know you as getting to know her. I regret that the awkward circumstances prevented that. :(

My only consolation is that what happened between you and Riin was inevitable. If he hadn't died, she would have left you for Ken Kifer. If it hadn't been me, it would've been someone else in time. Still, inevitable or not, like Shawn Michaels when he fought the match that ended Ric Flair's career, I now have to carry the burden of knowing that I was the one who was the catalyst. Knowing it's for the best (you're lucky to be free of her) does little to assuage my guilt.

If anyone needs to grow a brain (and, for that matter, a heart), it's Riin, not you. Thanks for trying, even if only in those brief few months in the beginning, to be a friend.

So. This leaves me with one very serious question:

Do I still love Riin?

I don't like to let love die. I try to fight to keep it alive. There is a deeply romantic part of me that wants to believe in the ultimate power of love and how it can survive anything. I do believe, if both people truly love each other, love can be an unassailable power. The problem is, in light of what I've discovered about Riin, I'm now not certain if she ever truly loved me. I am, in fact, not certain if she's ever loved anyone; I'm not sure she knows how.

That being said, I can no longer deny the truth of my feelings inside. Do I still love Riin?

No.

That's the simple answer, but it's more complex than that.

There are actually two Riins:

1. The Pedomorphic Pharisee: This is who Riin truly is. Bitter, vindictive, angry at the world, unremittingly narcissistic, concerned only with her own ideas, beliefs, perceptions and points of view.
2. The Perspicacious Paragon: This is who Riin aspires to be and who she wants people to think she is. This is the woman I fell in love with. This is the woman who truly believes in "Practic[ing] compassion towards all living things."
   

I am still in love with #2; the problem is that #2 doesn't exist, at least not as a living, breathing woman.

The sad thing is, Riin is capable of being the Paragon. In order to do that, however, she would have to recognize and acknowledge her own faults and at least try to make amends to the spirits she's crushed over the years; only the noxious narcissism of the Pharisee prevents her from doing this. The Pharisee can't see past her own world enough to know how much Peter, M and her parents loved her, and how much she hurt them.

I do still love the woman Riin wants to be; I probably always will.

I just can't help but feel sorry for the beautiful fay trapped under the skin of the fiend.

I hope, some day, she finds a way to break free.

Unresolved Anger

An Article by Ramesh Gupta

It is a good exercise to try to not react with anger to the reaction of others. It is good to know that our anger is produced in our mind as a reaction to the immature responses of others who unknowingly, keep insulting and disrespecting us because they have not matured enough in their lives. They are like 3 years old immature children who do not have tolerance of stress and they do what they desire and they say what ever comes to their minds.

This was the way our illness started in our mind because the others did not care for our feelings when we were exposed to a loss of self-esteem. We were neglected or angered by the anger of our immature parents or stressed or sick parents who could not continue to love us for a little longer time so that we will completely mature in our nurturing.

Emotional illnesses are illnesses of anger reaction to our surroundings or the people who surround us in our lives. They keep producing anger in us until we ourselves mature to a complete maturity. The love we need for our own completion of maturity and resolving our emotional illness, we should do that by our compassion for immature adults around us who behave like children and keep insulting us by their immature actions.

Generally in our life two immature people have anger issues and a person who is more matured should act a little more grown up and forgive the other for their anger.

The God and spirituality can helps in our life to complete our maturity, as can do good thoughts and a good conduct in our lives.

In summery, if some one ruffles your feathers treat him or her as 3 years old who lack completion of his or her maturity and spare yourself for raising your own anger.

Whenever we anger, we should know that we need maturity our selves, unless our anger has a meaning in the lives of others.

Some times the people in our lives know many different but wrong, ways to get our attention, just like a 3 years old child. For a child we do not get so upset as we do for an adult. It is a child who transfers his or her anger by saying, "I hate you," and we just smile and do not take it seriously. We should try to understand this. You will be surprised how many words can make us angry in our lives.

Anger reaction is a reflex action, but we do have a little time to stop it by keeping all this in our mind. More we stop the anger before it explodes, better it will get in time. A time will come when a modified reaction will take place without exercising the step to analyze the anger.

Many people do not grow up in their lives and remain childlike. We should learn to treat them as children and then we will not react with anger. Please practice this.

No One Can Restore Our Mind If We Keep Ditching It With Our Thoughts and Conduct

An Article by Ramesh Gupta

Drugs, psychiatrists, psychotherapy and antidepressants cannot restore a personality if we keep ditching because of our faulty thoughts and actions.

In our lives we spread our self-esteem by lowering our character and make the vultures of our culture take advantage of our falling nature and leave us bankrupt of our positive energy, which maintains our mental health.

When we react with anger by judging others, we lower our own self-esteem because we usually anger only when we are not in command of our surroundings.

We should learn to express our opinion rather than a judgmental angry statement.

This coupled with a good thoughts and conduct spares us from emotional illnesses. Good thoughts and conduct makes us very strong from our own devaluation and devaluation of others, which causes us our emotional pains.

Staying open and fluid rather than judgmental maintains our self-esteem and our emotional well-being.

This prevents anger and other anger producing thoughts that cause our depressions, which steer us in to the ditches of our journey of life.

To day we know that there is only one emotional illness that needs a mood stabilizer for life and that is a bipolar illness. It may also change in time.

Staying open and fluid is the thought of the day that has been come to us from many people and we are forwarding to you with our comments of self-esteem.

Sheldon Brown

When I first got back into cycling in 2003, the first thing I did was start digging around on the Internet for pages and discussion groups on the subject (which is what I usually do with anything new I take an interest in). Among all the pages I found, three stood out above the rest: Icebike, Ken Kifer, and Sheldon Brown. The latter two individuals have probably had more impact on me as a cyclist than any other people who've ever lived.

Ken Kifer, by a tragic twist of fate, brought me together with Riin Gill. Despite the painful turn my relationship with her took, my time with her is still among my most precious memories. I'll always be grateful for the happiness he gave Riin during the all too short time they knew each other, and for the happiness she and I shared, however briefly, after his untimely passing. I wish I could have known him.

Sheldon Brown taught me most of what I know about gearing, braking technique and equipment though his humorous, down-to-earth style; I spent as much time on his pages as I spent on Ken Kifer's.

Sheldon Brown died this past Sunday of a massive heart attack; he was 63.

You know, I never actually contacted Sheldon. I always meant to; his pages were a truly invaluable reference to me. In fact his pages, in many ways, made possible the cyclist I am today. His explanations of gearing and gear ratios, technical enough to be thorough yet accessible enough for the math challenged (like myself) to follow, allowed me to make intelligent decisions about how to customize my 2004 Norco Screamer's gearing.

To this day, I rely on Sheldon's gear calculator when deciding what drivetrain components to choose when customizing a bike. I have a 2006 Norco VFR-3 now and I know from the feel of it that it doesn't have a low enough gear to pull Lisa's trailer up hills. However, the gear range on my previous bike, a 2004 Norco CRD-3, was perfect for that. Thanks to Sheldon, I have the tools and knowledge I need to find components that'll give the VFR-3 a comparable range.

I didn't even know the man, yet I can't help feel like I've lost a friend somehow.

I wish I'd taken the time to tell him, even if only in a brief note, how much his on-line references taught me. I guess, like many things in life, we don't take the time to appreciate what we have... until it's gone.

I don't know if there is a life beyond this one or, if there is, if those who have passed on can hear the living left behind; no one really knows. However, I prefer to believe that they can. With that in mind, I'd like to say:

Thank you, Sheldon. Thank you for everything you gave to me, and countless cyclists like me.

You'll be missed.

The Spiral Staircase

I just had the weirdest dream.

Since Lisa and I separated, I've been taking it easy for the first time in years. I've had difficulty sleeping for a long time and I thought I'd take the opportunity while she's away to catch up on it; so, I've been spending a fair amount of time in bed. Because I've been unable to sleep well, it's also been a while since I've had vivid dreams; lately, I've been having quite a few. Strangely, a lot of them have been about working on botched home renovations with Mike Holmes.

I think I've been having a lot of dreams about working with Mike because, watching Holmes on Homes and reading his book Make It Right (Lisa got me that for Christmas :)), I've learned a lot, not only about building, but about why today's homes are often not nearly as well built as homes built when I was little. Even before I knew what I know now, I noticed that modern homes just aren't as solid as older homes. I've always wondered why; now I know.

Anyway, that's how this dream started out; I was working on a site with Mike. It was this huge room with a concrete floor and a high ceiling, at least 12'. The ceiling was unfinished even when we first came in and the finishing that was there was pretty slipshod. I remember noting that the seams in the drywall were uneven and weren't taped. Mike and his crew were busily tearing down the drywall and Mike was complaining about how flimsy the structure was.

At one point, Mike calls me over to a wall he’s been pulling the drywall down from. The studs seem to have a layer of plywood on the cold (exterior) side and there's no vapor barrier. Mike is upset because, in addition to all that, there’s this huge gap in the wall around what looks like what used to be a door with a window above; there’s a huge draft coming in. He calls me over to check it out; I can feel the cold draft coming down. "That's not even insulated," I comment.

"I know," Mike replies. "That's why I wanted you to see this." He walks off, grumbling.

I turn to follow him. I wanted to ask him why he thinks someone would put up an exterior wall like that with no insulation whatsoever. As I'm walking, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn back and the entire section of wall we were just working on is falling in right towards me. I put up my hands to shield myself and hopefully catch the wall before it beans me. I brace myself.

I barely even feel it when it hits. It turns out to be made, not of plywood as we first thought, but of thin, low-grade paneling, not even 1/8" thick. The whole thing is as light as a feather, and even flexes a bit when I catch it. Mike asks if I'm OK. "I'm fine," I say. "This wall's all paneling." So I set it down and Mike and I both turn to look at the hole left in the wall.

It wasn't an exterior wall at all, as we had thought. Through the hole was another, long room, maybe 24' across and 8' deep. We could see some kind of concrete pillar in the center, and the walls were made of concrete. We went in to investigate. On closer inspection, however, we realized the room wasn’t made of concrete at all; the gray substance was a thick layer of dust. What we thought was a concrete pillar was actually some kind of wooden spiral staircase.

I slowly started up the stairs; Mike followed me. I commented that it looked like the room had been sealed for like 70 years, like something right out of The Changeling. I didn’t know what to expect to find, but I had a weird feeling we were going to find a body up there. However, when we got to the top of the stairs, suddenly there was absolutely no dust. Everything was completely clean. It was like a complete little apartment.

As soon as I saw the clean apartment, my first thought was there must be some other entrance to this place than the stairway. I started to look around for one; Mike waited at the top of the stairs, looking around from his vantage point.

The stairs opened onto some kind of little living room. The structure of the room was unusual. The spiral railing of the staircase dominated the center of the room and the doors formed a circle around the staircase so you could look into them all right there from the top of the stairs The rooms and hallways beyond were conventionally shaped, but this room was round. The walls actually curved with doors to each room all around you.

There was a small TV, 1960s/70s style (looked a bit like this one but smaller, maybe 12"), turned on to some news program on a little stand against the wall at the top of the stairs. One door opened onto a tiny hall behind me. The first room on the left in that hall was a door opening onto a bedroom. There were children’s toys scattered about the room. I looked down the hall. Doors opened onto a couple of other rooms but there was no other entrance there.

So I turned right. More rooms. I couldn’t see into all of them well, but they all had light coming in as if from windows and the size of the rooms and the light suggested that they couldn’t have doors going anywhere, either. Even if they did, this stairway we’d just came up was wide open with this hard to miss spiral railing in the middle of the living room. Why didn’t whoever lives up here use them?

Then I looked into a bedroom just around the corner from the stairway. There was a man laying on the bed, maybe in his 40s or early 50s, balding. Something about the look on his face as he slept made him look child-like. I had the impression he was mentally handicapped. He was sound asleep so I thought, well this is apparently his place; I don’t want to disturb him. So, quietly, I tiptoed back down the stairs, Mike ahead of me.

When we got to the bottom, we both looked up the stairs. Like the apartment, they were suddenly clean. More than clean, they were beautiful, dark brown, stained, polished wood.

I started to turn to Mike to ask him if he was seeing what I was seeing when, as we watched, the dust slowly started to re-appear. Over about 10 seconds, we watched in amazement as the room around us went from clean and new to covered in dust, just as we found it except, in the dust on the stairs, Mike and I could see our footprints on the stairs and hand prints on the banister where we rubbed off the dust on our way up...

The last thing I remember is looking up the dusty stairs again, wondering if what we just saw was an image from the past, before the room was sealed. I started to think there might really be someone’s body up there, perhaps of the man we saw, but before I could suggest going back up there again to take a look, I woke up.

Strangely, I wasn't really scared when I woke up; I was more curious. I kept wondering what it all meant. Who was the man we found? Why was his room sealed up? The flimsy wall suggested it wasn't a contractor that put that wall up; it had the feel of something slapped together by the homeowner to hide... what? I wished the dream could have continued so Mike and I could've investigated the situation further.

Suddenly, I sat bolt upright in my bed, then ran out here, fired up the computer, launched AppleWorks and immediately pounded this dream into the keys while the memory was still fresh. That's one nice thing about Lisa not being here; in situations like this, I sometimes have to kick her off the computer quickly to get memories of a dream down before I lose them (I can't hand write them; my handwriting is often illegible even to me *BLUSH*).

Anyway, I'd really like to get some comments from people on this. What do you think it means? It was quite vivid; I figure it must mean something; dreams often do.

20/20 Hindsight

I did something recently I should have done a very long time ago: I've taken the first steps towards ending my relationship with Lisa.

Her parents have known for a long time that we're in trouble and they've offered, in the past, to help me if I ever needed it. With that in mind, I decided to write them a letter telling them all about how abusive Lisa has been these past 11 years. They got the letter five days ago so, now, there's no turning back. My relationship with Lisa, as it was, officially ended the moment they read it.

I'm not going to publish the entire letter here. There are some parts which it would serve no useful purpose to publish. However, abusive behavior flourishes in secrecy so I would like to publish the parts about the abuse (which is, for the most part, what prompted this):

January 1, 2008


Dear ***** & ***,

I need help, and I have no idea where to begin.

You yourselves have noticed the way Lisa often behaves towards me, and have even chastised her for it from time to time. Unfortunately, what you observe is only the tip of the iceberg; she gets a lot nastier with me here at home than she ever would in front of you. It’s come to the point now where I realize I simply cannot live with this and, after 11 years of trying, it doesn’t look to me like there’s any hope of reconciling.

It’s not that Lisa hasn’t improved somewhat. She’s more honest with me than she used to be. She doesn’t tend to lie outright like she used to in the beginning, though promises still mean nothing to her. Also . . . she’s a lot more willing to do chores around the apartment than she used to be.

The problem is, though, these are small improvements in the grand scheme, particularly considering that these are pretty much the only significant improvements in her since we started going together over a decade ago. Unfortunately, one thing that has not improved at all is the way Lisa treats the people she “loves.” She admits herself that, when upset, she will do whatever she can to hurt someone as much as she can.

Whenever you brought up the idea of us getting a house, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I tend to evade the idea; now you know why. It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help; it’s simply that getting a house is a major step that, I’m sure you’ll agree, should only be taken by a couple who are absolutely committed to staying together. Therein lies the problem; I’m not confident that Lisa and I will be together.

When we first got together, I was inexperienced. Lisa was my first real relationship. I recognized that she did things sometimes that made me feel like crap, but I didn’t fully appreciate how abusive some of her behavior was. I lacked the experience to recognize the “red flags.” I didn't really begin to understand just how abusive Lisa was until we moved in together.

Now that we've been together for 11 years, I don't think I could sum up everything that's happened in one letter so, instead of trying to do that, I'm going to tell you about the most recent incident . . . After that, I’ll talk about some other things Lisa has done on more than one occasion other nights.

She and I were planning on going to [a] Christmas party, which we do every year. She wasn't enthusiastic about it this year, but I bought the tickets anyway because, frequently, she'll say she doesn't really want to go somewhere then, when we don't go, she gets upset. So, instead, I just told her, if she doesn't want to go, to tell me before the weekend of the event so I can return the tickets.

On the night of the event, literally less than an hour before it started, then she says she doesn't want to go. This is not the first time she's done this. In fact, this is something she seems to do almost every time we go somewhere. The thing is, no matter how I try to handle it, it makes it worse. If I say “OK, we won't go,” she complains I don't take her anywhere. If I try to push her into going, she just keeps screaming “I don't want to go!”

We did ultimately go (though we arrived late), but I was so upset I couldn't enjoy myself at first. It wasn't until I finally got some support from some of my friends, who could see there was something wrong, that I came out of it enough to enjoy myself somewhat, though I spent most of the night wishing I could just go home; of course, I also dreaded going home because “home” means being stuck all alone with an abusive Lisa.

By the end of the party, we felt a little better. I was still shaken up and knew I had to do something about this problem eventually but, for the time being, we were stable. On the way home, I was hungry and was thinking about going to get something to eat, though I wasn't sure; I really just wanted to go straight home.

I was still trying to decide when I had to push Lisa's wheelchair off the sidewalk and onto the road (it was late and there was no traffic) to avoid a huge puddle. She asked me why I did that. I said “I'm sick of my feet being wet.” So she called me a wimp. At that point, I decided I did not want to go anywhere to eat with this woman and, when we got to the intersection, turned away from the restaurants and towards home.

At this point, Lisa said I had promised to take her to eat (I hadn't) and that I was “starving her” and that she was going to call you and tell you I was starving her. She kept at me, name calling and threatening me all the way home until we got to the building. To get through the door, I need her help; all she has to do is hold the door briefly at one point in the process. Well, she just sat there and wouldn't hold the door.

When I realized she wasn't going to help, I backed her away from the door and only then did she reach out and try to grab it. When I confronted her about it, she tried to claim she intended to hold the door from the beginning; it took two minutes of arguing before she finally admitted that she was, to use her own words, “trying to make trouble.” I asked her why; she was unwilling, or unable, to provide an answer.

Eventually, when we went inside, she kept after me the entire night, ordering me around like a servant. Actually, up to this point, everything I've described is stuff she's done before; this trying to order me around thing never happened before the night of the party, and it took me by surprise. I just said, “I'm not a servant.” Her response: “Yes, you are!” I had no idea how to respond to that.

In desperation for a way to get through to her, I changed her password on the computer so she couldn't access it (we each have our own separate account) whereupon she threatened to keep me up all night making noise. When I ignored that, she proceeded to threaten to throw the computer, our TV, our DVR and anything else she could get her hands on out the window.

Throughout all of this I just kept telling her, if she wants me to cooperate with her, all she has to do is treat me with respect and ask politely. The more I asked her to treat me with respect, the nastier she became. I finally decided I wanted to go visit a friend the next day to get away from her and clear my head. She denied me even that, turning off my alarm clock so I'd oversleep and miss the bus.

The above is actually a fairly mild example of Lisa’s behavior. She has, for example, punched me in the face more than once. I'm not a violent person, but one thing I cannot abide is being struck; it makes me angry beyond reason. I did strike back, though not as hard with an open hand on her arm. That's all I could bring myself to do and, even that, I regret. I don’t like being pushed to the edge like that (I suppose no one would).

I’ve since trained myself not to strike back but I’ve discovered, the hard way, that simply getting away from her is not wise, either. One time she punched me, I stood up and walked away; she turned and punched the screen of this computer. Ultimately, I had to go over and hold her arms until she calmed down to keep her from damaging anything; that’s the way I always have to deal with her now, when she turns violent.

The problem is, once Lisa gets upset, there is absolutely no reasoning with her, and there’s no action you can take that’ll make things better.

If I try to leave to let things cool off, she refuses to keep the door locked so I’ll be worried about her safety. If she’s yelling, even late at night when people are trying to sleep, she refuses to be quiet; if you try to tell her to be, she’ll literally scream back, “No, I won’t!” If I try to ignore her, she’ll threaten to break things or keep me awake all night (as in the above incident).

The only thing that occasionally works is to threaten to call you, and even then it only works if I physically pick up the phone and start dialing (I’m sure you guys still remember one time I did this; the phone dialed out, I didn’t realize it had, and you overheard the whole mess). Even when this works, Lisa has to get in the last word under her breath. “Asshole” is what she most frequently mutters.

She also has no respect for my personal space, both physically and emotionally. If I’m on the phone, for example, Lisa resents it if I go down to the bedroom to talk privately; if she overhears anything, she often comments which sometimes makes my friends uncomfortable, particularly if they’re talking about personal problems. She seems to take my close friendships, male and female alike, as a threat to our relationship.

Honestly, at this point, I just can’t conceive that things between Lisa and I are going to work out. It’s not that I don’t still love Lisa; I do. It’s just that I can’t live like this.

Still, breaking up with Lisa frightens me for a number of reasons.

First, I know that, if I leave her, some part of Lisa will be convinced I left her because of the wheelchair. I’ve had many intimate conversations with Lisa and she honestly believes that her chair is the reason for the collapse of all of her relationships in life. I don’t want her to feel that way. Her chair has nothing to do with this; it’s the way she treats me. I just feel like I deserve to be treated better.

Second, I know Lisa wasn’t very happy living out there . . . She didn’t like being so far away from town . . . Besides, from my observations, it seems that you and Lisa tend to rub each other the wrong way when you all live under the same roof for any length of time. I don’t want to see you and Lisa go back to that but, if I were to leave, I really don’t know where else Lisa would go.

Then, there’s the issue of where I would go. A little under a year ago, I’ll admit that I had a friendship that had definite romantic possibilities, and I had entertained the idea of leaving Lisa for this other woman. She’d even considered moving here (she was from Michigan). Unfortunately due, in part, to the turmoil between Lisa and I, that friendship collapsed completely; going with her is no longer an option.

For now, I could probably move in with my sister for a while. Trouble is, I have no idea what I’d do in the long term . . . there’s no way I could move in with Mom or [my uncle]. Mom is more abusive than Lisa, emotionally speaking; [my uncle] is too protective of his personal space to abide living with someone . . .

You’ve said before that my family doesn’t do much for me and, in some ways, you’re absolutely right. It’s not that they don’t love me; they do. It’s just that they have a tendency to get into ruts in their daily routines, and the idea of disrupting those ruts terrifies them. Having me move in with any of them would represent a dramatic change in their life routines, and that is why I can’t go to them.

I can’t go to my closest friends, either, because most of them don’t live here. One lives in Port Hastings; the other in Sackville. Even if I could move that far, the Port Hastings friend lives in too small a place to share. My Sackville friend has space, but he’s married; I couldn’t very well move in with him and his wife (I don’t get along that well with his wife anyway so, even if they were willing, I’m not sure I would be).

Even if I figure out where to go, living here with Lisa has been my life for over eight years. Leaving this now would turn my entire life upside down. I know I need to get out of this but still, as the old saying goes, it’s easier to deal with the devil you know rather than the devil you don’t know. My life may be miserable, but at least it’s secure and predictable. I’m in a deep rut. I’m afraid, if I try to steer out of it, I’ll fall.

Lisa doesn’t know about this letter. I’ve tried to send letters like this before; as soon as she found out about them, she would talk me out of them, or make my life so miserable that I’d be unable to compose them. I wrote this in parts while Lisa was in bed, then printed it in the morning as I was preparing to go to work. The file on the computer is also in my private documents folder which Lisa can’t access without my password.

I feel helpless. I don’t know what to do but one thing I do know is, whatever I do, I can’t do it alone; I need help. You two have been really good to me over the years. You, and your family, are the only ones I feel I can go to about this who might actually be able to help me.

The problem is, I feel kind of awkward asking for your help because I feel like I’m letting you down somehow. Like I should be stronger and stand by Lisa; but I don’t think I can. I don’t like the person I become when I’m with Lisa. I’ve tried for 11 years to make this work. I just don’t think I have any strength left to keep trying.

I’ve got to get out of this. Somehow.

They got the letter January 7th. While I was at work, they took Lisa out to their home under the pretext of working on her hair; the true reason they took her out there wasn't revealed to her until the next night. I've asked them to keep her out there for a couple of weeks while I straighten out my head.

Taking these steps is something I thought I would never do. However, I've learned a lot in this past year; the problem is, I didn't absorb the lessons until now. Anger, misguided loyalty and stubborn pride conspired to keep me from seeing the truth. It took the events of the Christmas party to blast through my obduracy and force me to face it. I imagine Riin faced a similar crossroads when she decided to leave me; now I understand.

Looking back on everything that's happened since Riin broke up with me in light of recent events, I've come to realize that, while I feel I have some legitimate frustrations with her, my anger was way out of proportion. I realize now that most of that anger wasn't at her; it was at Lisa. The problem was, I couldn't express my anger with Lisa because, even when I tried, she simply didn't understand it, or didn't care; so, I ended up taking it out on Riin.

I'm not angry with Riin; not anymore. It's weird but, when I stood there in front of the mailbox with that letter, I was thinking of her. The moment I dropped that letter into the box, I could feel my anger dissolve away, like clouds suddenly parting to admit the sun. Not that I felt good per se; I felt frightened and sad over what I was doing but still, for the first time in almost a year, I felt totally without anger. That was a nice feeling.

Although people are responsible for their own actions, it's true that the people you choose to have in your life do influence you. I've never liked myself when I was with Lisa. Then, Riin came along and, for a brief shining moment, I became the man I've always wanted to be. I should have let Lisa go right there, but I still loved her and didn't want to abandon her. Eventually, she started to drag me back down into being someone I hated to be.

Harassing someone is, for example, not something I usually do. Now, I think I understand why I did it. I knew I had become the man I wanted to be when I was with Riin. When she left, a part of me felt like my only hope to be that man was leaving with her. It's akin to a drowning man grabbing onto his rescuer to pull himself out of the water and succeeding only in drowning the rescuer, too.

I'd fallen into the trap of believing I needed Riin to find the man I want to be; I think that's why I was so desperate to reach her. I realize now that the man I want to be is inside me whether Riin is here or not. It's true I'd find him more easily with her help, but I can find him even without it.

However, with or without her, I knew I'd never be able to find him if I don't get away from Lisa. Since she went to her parents', I've been feeling much better about myself. Not as good as when I was with Riin, but better than I have in a very long time. It's obvious to me now that this has to end, one way or another.

I don't blame Riin anymore for being afraid I would hurt her. I wouldn't hurt her, but I can see why she'd think that given things that have happened between Lisa and I. That's part of what I mean about my becoming someone I don't want to be when I'm with her. Away from Lisa, I don't even want to harm a bug. With her, I get so deeply frustrated that I can't contain my temper. She, and my mother, are the only people in the world who can bring that out in me.

Riin fell in love with the man I would have been had I let Lisa go. That man is still a part of me. However, I cannot be that man so long as I stay in this relationship. I have to get out; I only hope I'm strong enough.

I wish Riin was here. It would be so much easier to do this if she was; at least I'd have a place to go and someone to help me keep my resolve. However, with or without her, I have to do this. I don't want to be this man anymore. I want to be the man Riin fell in love with. I want to be that man whether or not Riin ever loes me again because I have to be that man if I'm ever going to love myself. Right now, I don't; unless I do this, I probably never will.

I wish there was something I could do to make up for the mess I've made. I wasn't trying to hurt Riin but, in my stubborn arrogance, I thought I could make everything work. I hate to admit it but I can see now that, under the circumstances, Riin did the right thing getting out. If it had just been her and I, we would have worked. The three of us together, however, would never have worked; we all would have ended up hurting each other.

Of course, it's not going to be as easy for me to leave Lisa as it was for Riin to leave me. Riin lives 2500 km away; she didn't even have to move. Lisa and I live in the same municipality; it won't be so easy for me. It's going to take me some time to figure out if I'm going to have to move and, if so, where I'm going to live and how I'm going to afford it. This gives Lisa an advantage I didn't have: she has a "grace period" of sorts while I try to sort all this out.

I've spoken to Lisa once since the letter. What she had to say was encouraging. However, she has promised to "change her ways" in the past; every time, she let me down. No way I am trusting her blindly again. At the same time, however, I know she loves me; she just doesn't know how to negotiate for her wants and needs without resorting to abuse. That's something she has to learn if she's going to make any relationship work.

Since I need time to evaluate the ramifications of separating, anyway, I'm going to give Lisa until the end of March to prove that all of the "promises" she made are true. If things haven't changed significantly by then, we separate permanently. That's the perfect deadline because, if I determine I need to move, I can give my 30 days notice to move out by end of April; it's easier to move in spring weather.

If only Riin knew what was happening. I doubt she'd believe it even if she did. I always told her I'd never leave Lisa and that she'd have to accept her if she wanted to be with me. I have to admit, the way things are right now, if Riin was to come back tomorrow and say, "I'll give you another chance, but only if you leave Lisa right now," I'd do it.

Why?

Because that's probably what I should have done in the first place.

---

On January 12, 2008 10:58:01 AM AST, Anonymous wrote:

I have followed this saga for sometime now and you have said that in your OPEN relationship that all partners are equal. Looking at this now it looks as thou that was not the case, it looks as thou you loved Riin more then Lisa...why did you lie about this in past? Why were you not honest?

This has nothing to do with my beliefs on the dynamics of polyamorous relationships. It's also a much more complex question than simply whether I was honest or not.

While I do believe polyamorous relationships must be based on equal love, you can't make them be equal love. That was my mistake. I thought that Riin's love would help amplify my love for Lisa and that, in time, they all would be equal. Actually, in the beginning, they felt like they were. Riin helped pull Lisa and I back together, and I felt stronger love for Lisa than I had in ages thanks to her support.

Looking back on that in hindsight now, though, this was probably an illusion. I was so determined to prove that polyamory works that I, in effect, became infatuated with Lisa all over again, just as I was in the first days. The strength of this infatuation allowed me to fool myself into believing my love for Lisa was equal to mine for Riin. I do love Lisa, but I don't think that love was ever as strong as what I feel for Riin; I just thought it was.

Being dishonest means to say something you know isn't true. I wasn't dishonest; I actually believed what I was saying, and I still do believe in the dynamics of a healthy polyamorous relationship. The problem was I couldn't admit that this one was not healthy because I tend to be a martyr. I didn't want to abandon Lisa even though my relationship with her was not healthy, and never was, polyamorous or not.

This has nothing to do with polyamory; this has to do specifically with how I feel about Lisa. You're right; I do love Riin more. If she gave me another chance tomorrow, I'd take it. Even Lisa's parents told me, if my relationship with Riin ever re-ignited, to tell them and they'd help me separate from Lisa. They don't want to see that happen, but they also don't think it would be fair to me, or to her, for me to stay when I had a chance at real happiness.

I do still love Lisa. The question I have to ask myself now is do I love her enough to give her another chance, or is it time to get out?

Maybe, without something better to go to and no prospects for anything better, I'm just afraid to admit this is over and end up alone.

That's what I need these next few months to figure out.

On January 12, 2008 5:33:25 PM AST, Anonymous wrote:

Is it better to be with someone abusive or to be alone??

You know, I asked a friend in a similar situation the same question. The answer is obvious; alone is better. The only problem is that, at that time, I hadn't experienced things from the dumpee's point of view; now I have. It's just so hard to think of putting Lisa through that.

Of course, OTOH, even if I do end up leaving her, I'm not going to do to her what Riin did to me. Even if I do ultimately decide to leave, I'll always be her friend and she'll always be welcome to call and talk to me. I truly don't think it's fair to take anyone who loves you and cut them out of your life completely. I just can't do that to anyone, particularly someone I love and, all questions aside of how much I love her, I do love her.

My feelings on all this are just too complicated; I need time to sort this out. That's why I'm writing about this here, actually; anything I'm having trouble sorting out tends to end up in this blog.

Get a dog, they are great companians, they only bite sometimes. ;)

:) That gave me a chuckle; thanks.

Bouclé

It's interesting. When Riin was actually around, yammering on about yarn and knitting, I used to find it dreadfully boring (of course, poor Riin used to be subjected to my yammering about Titanic from time to time, so I guess I earned that :P). Now that she's gone, to my surprise, I actually miss it. I didn't realize how much I missed it, however, until today.

I was at work, walking through the cafeteria. There was someone sitting there knitting. I glanced at the fiber they were working with. When I saw the distinctive loops in the fiber, I muttered to myself, "Bouclé."

A few steps further, I realized what I'd said. My next thought was, "I can't believe I actually know that..."

Yeah, OK, I admit it; I miss the knitting. :(