How Sad, Part II

I will spare you the details of the eleven years I knew Marc and Stephanie. That I will save for other places. Suffice it to say, the three of us were rarely friends with each other at the same time. Marc and I had a two/three year gap of not speaking to each other while he and Stephanie had a five year gap of not speaking. For clarification, I was friends with Stephanie the whole time. I stopped speaking with Marc during my last year of being friends with Stephanie.

My purpose here is to respond to Marc's email. Jami was so incensed by it that she felt compelled to write him one of her own. It is too funny and, I think, shows that I cannot be the evil bitch or him the long suffering martyr that Marc paints:

"How dare you act so uppity and righteous...I read your email to Lynn and I realized how stupid you are!!!! A person who has an affair, such as you and Stephanie have, certainly do not have cause to judge someone like Lynn. I knew you and Stephanie were assholes, but I had not realized the girth of your anal cavaties.
Your old friend
Jami
P.S. Stephanie has not told you the truth about why Lynn stopped talking to you or why she and Stephanie have stopped speaking..."

I nearly died laughing when she read it to me. I'm touched. I just realized that it gives you a little more info into the whole thing too. Ah, well, the whole story will out in some form or another.

Anyway, back to the hurtful email. And yes, it did sting for a little bit. But I have only myself to blame for setting myself up for pain. But it didn't last long. One reason was because I asked myself why I would let him hurt me again. The second was because Jami had me laughing too hard. Still, words have power and thus I will add my own so that I can be done with this.

I was going to address the Stephanie stuff first but. . .

Ummm. . .I haven't spoken to Steph since 2004 and him since 2003. So, there are no "actions" etc. from the past few years. If he means before that, well, ok, I guess he means: going to his wedding and being a supportive friend (despite being in love with him myself -- Stephanie refused to go and that explains their long silence), helping pay for his honeymoon (for which he still owes me a lot of money), listening to his endless rants about how xyz sucked with his life, helping him become friends with Stephanie again (that's what I get for being an idealist who just wants everyone to get along), lending him my car for a few months while I was in France because his had died and he and Adrienne had no money for one, and numerous other little things that I could list all in the name of friendship. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not a martyr. He was there for me when my father was ill (and I love Adrienne dearly for being there too). In fact, he was more there for me than Stephanie. He was a decent friend. He seemed to care and we had fun together. But. . .well, though I shut down the romantic feelings, I couldn't shut down the pain of knowing that no matter what, I was not good enough for him. . .even as a friend. That no matter how I tried, he just didn't care about me. Truly care. Marc once told me that he was a cold hearted s.o.b. who didn't really have any feelings. I didn't believe that at the time but I thing it was a foreshadowing. I've seen him be cruel but I have also seen him be kind. In the end, there was nothing but confusion and drama. I don't know who's "sexual tension" he was talking about -- his and mine or his and Steph's -- but I do know that when I returned from France, I no longer had any of the old feelings left for him. It threw me off balance. If he's talking about him and Steph, well, it's pure denial. I don't know that they ever had a physical affair but, mentally, they were all over each other. And I got to hear both ends so I know. He can deny it, but there you have it. He was a married man with a child who was making those he supposedly loved miserable with his indecision. He was trying to balance it all and failing. I didn't help matters any. I know that. I had actually tried to sever ties with him right after he starting speaking with Stephanie again. That time I actually wrote to him about why. But he talked me into staying his friend. So, I tried. It just didn't work. And I was bone tired from the drama and I didn't like who I was around him. He'd trod on me long enough and I needed to take care of me.

I know, you're going to ask why I would try and contact him again if that's how I felt. Why? Because I hated just walking away quietly. It just didn't feel final enough. I knew he wouldn't try and make contact with me. So, I was unsurprised when I never heard from him. I asked Steph not to talk about him to me for a while and I think that is what really started our own decline. Funny, but she had asked the same of me years before. Wonder if she remembers that. Probably not cause I know she hated being asked not to talk about him. Eventually she had to because he became too much a part of her life. And I didn't say a word when she started to talk about him. I was ok with it.

I am not surprised that Steph doesn't want to be in contact. She is the one who stopped talking to me. I wish that her last letter to me wasn't packed away but I do remember some of it. She admonished me for telling her some personal things -- which, if she was my best friend, I should have been able to tell her -- because she found the conversation repulsive. Ok, one of the things was probably over the top but it was also part of our jokes and I seem to recall her telling me some of the same things in the past. But I guess what was ok for her was not ok for me. And she kept censuring even "normal" topics like crushes on guys. At the time, I could see where she was coming from because it must have always seemed like I was enamored of someone or pining away for a guy but there were no options. I can see that getting tiresome. Of course, whenever she was fixated, I heard endless talk about it so it wasn't just me. Problem was, she hadn't had a man in her life for quite a while. Then she starts speaking with Marc -- a friend she had fallen in love with years before -- and so there was going to be no one else. But that was just one of the topics. Steph didn't want to hear about my classes or teaching or anything like that. I tried hard to find conversations for us to talk about to try and cheer her up but she just didn't care. Part of that was due to depression and pain. I tried to help her find solutions but she didn't want to hear that either. What was I to do? She also made a life choice that I could not comment on at all for fear it would start a fight. Our relationship deteriorated rapidly. Despite what Marc says in his email, I did care greatly about her. And I did try and help. But it was like walking on eggshells around her. After a while, I gave up trying. And our conversations stopped being just that. There was so much dead silence that the calls became painful. But there was another reason that I gave up trying. . .she told me flat out that the only person who could help her was Marc. That he was the only person she needed. Stephanie shut me out. Then she wrote me this letter which basically told me that I either do xyz and become an automaton, or we were going to be over. She ended the letter with an expectation of me calling her. I sent her a reply card instead that was very simple. Why? Because I didn't know what else to say. She had told me she didn't need anyone but Marc so when I gave her space, she got mad at me. Was I suppose to fight? Beg? Plead? I didn't know what she wanted from me. I continued sending her ecards, etc. but eventually she blocked me. I was very hurt when she did that but I didn't try and call her because I assumed that she would just ignore me. So, she can be pissed and hurt and all that but I am not the one who walked away. I miss our long conversations and stuff -- from the time when I was in France to before. I want only what is best for her. If she sees my not being her friend as a good thing, then what else can I do?

Yes, maybe Marc was right in his barb, "Intelligent and rational people learn from their mistakes. We have. Neither one of us is doomed to let history repeat itself." I suppose I am not an intelligent and rational person because I was setting myself up to let history repeat itself. I had no idea that they harbored such hatred for me. Hurt, yes. Even anger. But such malice? They hurt each other so much -- did things to each other that are so far above anything I did -- yet they can forgive. But I think I understand. . .in their warped sense of betrayal over me, they can have another common thread. Jami called it triangulation. And you know what? That's always been the pattern for Marc. He's always had at least two women vying for his attention at any given time. I don't know why. He feeds off of it. I don't know what us women get. Well, at least some things never change. The truth gets buried beneath more lies and pride wins out.

Let them wallow in whatever they have found. I really do hope that they have found happiness and less pain. If Stephanie ever wanted to talk again, I would do so with her. As for Marc, I said years ago that I had wasted too many years on him. I will waste no more.