Thursday, July 16, 2009

"I want you to be my friend..."



The day after X emailed me that she wanted to end our marriage (yes emailed), we agreed to meet in a park to talk about why. I was surprisingly calm and level headed, considering I'm not always a calm and level headed person...I think it was because I was in shock about my marriage of 5 months had been ended via the interwebs.

As I strolled through the park with X holding hands and she named off the reasons that I systematically ruined her life and she continuously denied that there was nobody else (even though I already knew there was), I said to her "I would rather have you in my life as my friend then not at all. You're my best friend. You're more than my best friend, you're my family." I did believe it at the time. Then, weeks after parting with her in the park, I got a clue.

I have friends, many wonderful friends who contribute to so many wonderful facets of my life. I have Lisa, who I can laugh with til I turn blue in the face. I have Jen who I can have deep soul baring conversations with. I have Robb, who calls me on my bullshit. I have Peter who is my girliest girlfriend. I have Casey, who knows me better than I know myself, my fellow Taurus who is as painfully hard headed as I am and I can bump heads with and still love at the end of the night. I have Cecily, my oldest childhood friend. All these people are such a part of my life. My friends and my family. I can turn to them and count on them. They're not perfect, neither am I, but as friends we forgive and carry on.

Where does X fall in my friendships? Well X was my wife, my best friend, confidant, comerade, companion, my family...was being the key word. So what happens when that person who embodies all of those descriptives fails you and harms you so deeply? I can say without any shadow of a doubt that all of my friends listed above have never hurt me the way X hurt me. Why oh why oh WHY would I want someone in my life who lied to me, cheated on me, kicked me out of my own home and changed the locks as a friend? Is that something a friend would do to someone else? I would certainly hope not.

I think what's most important is forgiveness. I'm not there yet. I'm still angry, but someday I want to forgive her. Not for her but for myself. I can't continue to walk in this rut of anger, otherwise it's going to rule me. However, it doesn't mean that when I do forgive her that I would be ready to skip off into the sunset with X holding hands on our way to the nearest Starbucks to gab about who we're dating and how we love each other's shoes.

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