Hello, it's me again, as usual only stopping by when there's something going wrong and I need to work my way through it.
So, I told Flame shortly after we turned our friendship into a long-distance relationship that I wanted to know if he intended to start seeing anyone else. Which is pretty much the same in all of my relationships, giving me head's up that something else is going on so that I can put reigns on my insecurity and anxiety. I even read back through here to make sure I hadn't mistakenly thought I told him this when we first got together, in case I might have had that conversation with the rest of my partners but not him for whatever reason. Nope. We had that conversation in April 2018. So I know I didn't imagine that we had had it when we hadn't. And I knew he was thinking about looking in a general sense, but he hadn't mentioned to me that he intended to start seeing anyone else.
Back to the present. It had been since early July since I'd heard from him, around when I'd usually take our July trip, which was canceled with covid and all. I was kind of grieving that, and I'd thrown myself into work with NaNoWriMo, which I'm volunteering with, running the summer camp version since nobody else had the drive or energy to. Pretty much working myself to exhaustion to have something positive to do. Anyway, it didn't seem like there was something wrong with not hearing from him for a couple weeks. It happens sometimes when we both get busy or when I'm depressed and he's busy or when he's depressed and I'm busy. I was actually worried I was neglecting him.
So I sent him the usual I love you, how are you message. He let me know that things for him had been going really really good, an old friend invited him to a career seminar, offered to pay for the hotel, he flew over there to see her, they were really connected but it had all happened in the span of two weeks so he was wrapping his head around it still, and he thought she might be the one, he was trying not to put his chickens before his eggs by planning for the future with her, etc.
It all happened in the span of two weeks. Except... two weeks before now, we were still talking. He didn't mention this to me at all, even though he usually tells me about his travel plans with friends. He said it was short notice and spur of the moment, and then he told me that he only told two of his close personal friends and three of his internet friends it was happening, and then the rest of his personal friends the day he left. But... he told all these friends and didn't tell me?
I think he expected it to be a romantic trip and specifically didn't tell me about it.
When I asked him why he'd waited to tell me, he said he didn't want to upset me. He said he was worried that I would break down? Which would make both of us feel awful? And then he apologized for not realizing I was stronger? Which in my experience is the usual cop-out for not wanting to have a hard conversation, even though it wouldn't have been hard on my end. With a compliment thrown in there, so that's nice I suppose.
But even if not telling me wasn't a cop-out for avoiding a hard conversation, it really isn't a communication style I can handle in a relationship. He essentially hid this from me, under circumstances where he otherwise wouldn't have hid it from me, where he didn't hide it from his other friends. Dishonestly isn't something that I can have in my relationships. It pushes a lot of deeply buried buttons to a very dark time in my life.
My first response was to be legitimately excited for him and happy that he was doing so well, though I was worried that he'd been flying around with covid. I did tell him he hurt my feelings by not telling me about it, and he responded with something about how he knew he'd upset me and he would have to not beat himself up about that (beating himself up too much for small things is one of his traits). He was sorry he wasn't more forthright with me. I guess that's something. I mean, I know that's something, but that doesn't change that he wasn't, and that he hurt my feelings.
My REAL upsetness didn't really settle in until later in the night. I was having flashbacks to all those times my first fiance hid things from me 'for my own good' and 'because he didn't want to upset me.' That behavior really does not abide in my good places. And then I had nightmares all night about him and my exfiance all in a relationship together and them both gaslighting me while we were trying to fight our way out of these armies that were trying to pin us down and get back to space, where there was something really important going on. Hooray nonsensical dream sequences! But it definitely bothered me a bunch if I was dreaming about it.
On the other hand, I've had to wonder if part of this isn't some form of jealousy? Even though I keep prodding that place, and I all feel is legitimately happy for him that he might be finding someone who can be closer with him, even if it would mean the end of our more intimate relationship, which I would miss. I'm happy he's so excited. I'm happy he might find someone who can be closer to him and be the monogamous relationship he really wants and deserves because he wants it. All of the sore spots around this are around him lying to me by omission and then blaming his decision to do that on a consideration for my feelings. I know what jealousy feels like, and this doesn't feel like jealousy. Other than the raw spot with the lying, I'm all compersion.
The other thing is, I'm not sure what to do about it. Our relationship may be ending of its own accord if things work out for him with this person, who I'm dubbing Conference. Between a 'hey, this upset me' conversation, and just letting things take that course, I'm leaning toward letting things just take their course. Having that conversation wouldn't matter because our relationship would end anyway, making the whole thing moot. It would just be dragging out my upsetness, and for what? I don't expect that level of honesty from friends, just from lovers. This is literally a decision I reached while writing this, because that was really the dilemma for me. Whether to have that conversation, or let things take whatever course they take and have the conversation after, if necessary.
I guess we'll see whether things work out for him with Conference. If they do, it'll be a decision between whether I want to have that conversation, whether I think he'd change, or whether this hiding something from me thing has so seriously breached my trust that I wouldn't want an intimate relationship anyway. At least it sounds like I'll have some time to process that.