FarAwayLover
New member
Short version - My boyfriend from high school, Jacques, contacted me last fall, but we cut off contact to save his marriage. What I wanted was for Jacques’ wife Artemis to be OK with my being in touch with him, and maybe my being able to see him. To give him a real hug rather than a virtual one.
At this point she’s saying he would love to hear from me, and, while we haven’t discussed it, a visit seems like it’s not out of the question.
But the way we got there is that he has a tentative diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, or frontotemporal degeneration. I was instrumental in urging Artemis to please get some help for Jacques - that something was clearly wrong. He had been acting somewhat strangely, but the clue that something was really wrong was that he was telling her (and me) that he and I had had a child and that he had found her. He insisted in spite of my denials, and changed his story to say he had learned about her from my husband, Clyde. I wrote to Artemis and said to _please_ get Jacques some help.
So now, she says, she’s keeping me updated ‘since despite everything else, you are an old friend who cares about him (not to mention being the mother of his "child.”’ And ‘the Jacques you and I knew is gone, apparently never to return.’
And she told me he would love to hear from me.
So I got what I wished for, but certainly not in the way I was picturing it!
————————————————————————————————
Longer version -
Back last fall, my high school boyfriend, Jacques, got in touch with me after having been out of contact for 38 years. He’s been married for over 30 years, and at this point my husband, Clyde, and I have been married for 35 years. Jacques says he never stopped loving me, and I either fell back in love with him or decided that maybe I had never really stopped loving him. (If I’d known about polyamory in my 20’s, maybe my life would have been very different.)
This is described in more gory detail in what was an intro post, that got moved to the Relationships Corner.
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65281
I said that he had found our breakup traumatic. I didn’t actually think of it as a breakup - I just felt I had moved on. We were in different places geographically, and it was hard to keep up communication in the days before cell phones and e-mail. He lived with family, so calling after 11 pm wasn’t an option (the time of cheap phone calls). The last time I saw him, he came out to visit me in Boston in the spring of 1975. I had moved in with a boyfriend, but had a room in another apartment (to keep my parents happy). That’s where we stayed during his visit, and I apparently made him sleep on the floor. We definitely didn’t have sex, even though we had done so over Christmas break at home.
I hadn’t been looking for polyamory, so it wasn’t something Clyde and I had ever discussed. At least we had heard of it before, mostly through science fiction fandom circles. Clyde had to be reassured that loving Jacques didn’t mean I had any less love for him. And, since Jacques is on the opposite coast, he didn’t seem like much of a threat. On the other hand, Jacques’ wife, red-headed Artemis, flipped and threatened divorce. We cut off contact and they went into counseling. Last contact was in January.
Parenthetically, although Artemis goes my her middle name of Artemis, her first name is actually the same as mine. Scary! Particularly since Mandelbrot isn’t a very common name. I have no idea when Jacques found this out. It’s one of the many things I haven’t gotten around to asking
Fast forward to August. We had figured out last fall that Minneapolis was the place to see each other if we wanted to meet up. He doesn’t go back to our home town anymore, but both of us have family in Minneapolis. I had promised that I would let him know when we were traveling to there. It was hard getting our schedules straight, but Clyde and I finally settled on some dates, and I sent e-mail to that effect, giving a few week’s notice. In 4 directions - to me, Clyde, Jacques, and Artemis. Didn’t want any accusations of going behind someone’s back. Jacques said he’d check with relatives about staying with them, that he might get some blow-back from Artemis - he didn’t know how to defuse that. Clyde and I were, like WTF!? Hasn’t he learned that he needs to communicate with her?! I replied that it was good to hear from him, but I wasn’t hopeful given that Artemis didn’t seem to have been in on writing/discussing the reply. But I’d have my fingers crossed.
Got curt e-mail from Artemis saying I could uncross my fingers, they weren’t going to Minneapolis.
I figure, OK, end of story. Then I get an e-mail from him the next Monday. Sounded _very_ weird. Claimed to have met a woman on the phone (in a phone call _he_ had initiated to U Penn) who is the 29-year old daughter of me and boyfriend. She has 2 kids, one named after me, one after him, both in private school. He’s all ready to fly out, meet the family, offer to pay the private school tuition, and buy her 29 years worth of birthday presents. WTF? I called and said someone was pulling a cruel hoax on either him or me (verifying that e-mail had indeed come from him).
The next day’s story was, no I was right, that 29-year old couldn’t be our daughter (the last time I saw him was 39 years ago, remember?) Instead, he and I have a 41-year old daughter with a different name, and he knows about her because Clyde told him about her. Right…
So I compose a draft to Artemis, saying that Jacques appears to have flipped Is he on some new meds? Please get him some help, and here are my phone numbers. Clyde and I both tell Artemis that there is no daughter. So then Artemis realizes that something is actually really wrong with Jacques, takes him to a psychologist and psychiatrist and his GP (the last visit was already scheduled). The psychiatrist immediately put him on a medical for 6 weeks.
Since then I have heard from Artemis that Jacques had an MRI that showed significant shrinkage of his frontal and temporal lobes. Combined with his behavioral and personality changes, the psychiatrist gave a tentative diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia.
And Jacques would love to hear from me.
I am apparently, at least for the time being, no longer the enemy.
So now she’s OK with my being in contact with him, but I would have _never_ wanted it to happen this way!
And I’m also thinking that it’s just chance that when I wrote to Jacques was around the time things started going really wonky in his brain. Or else maybe I would have never heard about Jacques being sick, because _Artemis_ certainly wouldn’t have gone out of her way to tell me if Jacques flipped in some way that didn’t involve me.
I’m guessing that maybe a blog would have been a better place to continue this, but I wanted to put this out there.
Thanks for “listening”.
FAL
--------------------------------
M - Me - Mandelbrot - female, 59 - _trying_ to figure out if I'm poly
Clyde (previously B) - 57 - my husband for over 35 years
Jacques (previously JP) - 59 - my high school boyfriend, newly appeared in the picture last fall after 38 years; very long distance; haven't actually seen him
Artemis (previously A) - 66? - Jacques' wife of over 32 years
At this point she’s saying he would love to hear from me, and, while we haven’t discussed it, a visit seems like it’s not out of the question.
But the way we got there is that he has a tentative diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, or frontotemporal degeneration. I was instrumental in urging Artemis to please get some help for Jacques - that something was clearly wrong. He had been acting somewhat strangely, but the clue that something was really wrong was that he was telling her (and me) that he and I had had a child and that he had found her. He insisted in spite of my denials, and changed his story to say he had learned about her from my husband, Clyde. I wrote to Artemis and said to _please_ get Jacques some help.
So now, she says, she’s keeping me updated ‘since despite everything else, you are an old friend who cares about him (not to mention being the mother of his "child.”’ And ‘the Jacques you and I knew is gone, apparently never to return.’
And she told me he would love to hear from me.
So I got what I wished for, but certainly not in the way I was picturing it!
————————————————————————————————
Longer version -
Back last fall, my high school boyfriend, Jacques, got in touch with me after having been out of contact for 38 years. He’s been married for over 30 years, and at this point my husband, Clyde, and I have been married for 35 years. Jacques says he never stopped loving me, and I either fell back in love with him or decided that maybe I had never really stopped loving him. (If I’d known about polyamory in my 20’s, maybe my life would have been very different.)
This is described in more gory detail in what was an intro post, that got moved to the Relationships Corner.
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65281
I said that he had found our breakup traumatic. I didn’t actually think of it as a breakup - I just felt I had moved on. We were in different places geographically, and it was hard to keep up communication in the days before cell phones and e-mail. He lived with family, so calling after 11 pm wasn’t an option (the time of cheap phone calls). The last time I saw him, he came out to visit me in Boston in the spring of 1975. I had moved in with a boyfriend, but had a room in another apartment (to keep my parents happy). That’s where we stayed during his visit, and I apparently made him sleep on the floor. We definitely didn’t have sex, even though we had done so over Christmas break at home.
I hadn’t been looking for polyamory, so it wasn’t something Clyde and I had ever discussed. At least we had heard of it before, mostly through science fiction fandom circles. Clyde had to be reassured that loving Jacques didn’t mean I had any less love for him. And, since Jacques is on the opposite coast, he didn’t seem like much of a threat. On the other hand, Jacques’ wife, red-headed Artemis, flipped and threatened divorce. We cut off contact and they went into counseling. Last contact was in January.
Parenthetically, although Artemis goes my her middle name of Artemis, her first name is actually the same as mine. Scary! Particularly since Mandelbrot isn’t a very common name. I have no idea when Jacques found this out. It’s one of the many things I haven’t gotten around to asking
Fast forward to August. We had figured out last fall that Minneapolis was the place to see each other if we wanted to meet up. He doesn’t go back to our home town anymore, but both of us have family in Minneapolis. I had promised that I would let him know when we were traveling to there. It was hard getting our schedules straight, but Clyde and I finally settled on some dates, and I sent e-mail to that effect, giving a few week’s notice. In 4 directions - to me, Clyde, Jacques, and Artemis. Didn’t want any accusations of going behind someone’s back. Jacques said he’d check with relatives about staying with them, that he might get some blow-back from Artemis - he didn’t know how to defuse that. Clyde and I were, like WTF!? Hasn’t he learned that he needs to communicate with her?! I replied that it was good to hear from him, but I wasn’t hopeful given that Artemis didn’t seem to have been in on writing/discussing the reply. But I’d have my fingers crossed.
Got curt e-mail from Artemis saying I could uncross my fingers, they weren’t going to Minneapolis.
I figure, OK, end of story. Then I get an e-mail from him the next Monday. Sounded _very_ weird. Claimed to have met a woman on the phone (in a phone call _he_ had initiated to U Penn) who is the 29-year old daughter of me and boyfriend. She has 2 kids, one named after me, one after him, both in private school. He’s all ready to fly out, meet the family, offer to pay the private school tuition, and buy her 29 years worth of birthday presents. WTF? I called and said someone was pulling a cruel hoax on either him or me (verifying that e-mail had indeed come from him).
The next day’s story was, no I was right, that 29-year old couldn’t be our daughter (the last time I saw him was 39 years ago, remember?) Instead, he and I have a 41-year old daughter with a different name, and he knows about her because Clyde told him about her. Right…
So I compose a draft to Artemis, saying that Jacques appears to have flipped Is he on some new meds? Please get him some help, and here are my phone numbers. Clyde and I both tell Artemis that there is no daughter. So then Artemis realizes that something is actually really wrong with Jacques, takes him to a psychologist and psychiatrist and his GP (the last visit was already scheduled). The psychiatrist immediately put him on a medical for 6 weeks.
Since then I have heard from Artemis that Jacques had an MRI that showed significant shrinkage of his frontal and temporal lobes. Combined with his behavioral and personality changes, the psychiatrist gave a tentative diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia.
And Jacques would love to hear from me.
I am apparently, at least for the time being, no longer the enemy.
So now she’s OK with my being in contact with him, but I would have _never_ wanted it to happen this way!
And I’m also thinking that it’s just chance that when I wrote to Jacques was around the time things started going really wonky in his brain. Or else maybe I would have never heard about Jacques being sick, because _Artemis_ certainly wouldn’t have gone out of her way to tell me if Jacques flipped in some way that didn’t involve me.
I’m guessing that maybe a blog would have been a better place to continue this, but I wanted to put this out there.
Thanks for “listening”.
FAL
--------------------------------
M - Me - Mandelbrot - female, 59 - _trying_ to figure out if I'm poly
Clyde (previously B) - 57 - my husband for over 35 years
Jacques (previously JP) - 59 - my high school boyfriend, newly appeared in the picture last fall after 38 years; very long distance; haven't actually seen him
Artemis (previously A) - 66? - Jacques' wife of over 32 years
