My dear Jil,
You must know when to pull the plug on a relationship – lest you waste your youth. If time were static, or we lived in the days of Methuselah, I’d say luxuriate with the spring of your life. But you’re not getting younger, and he seems unable to make up his mind – your boyfriend I mean.
You’re now thirty-two. You’ve been dating this guy for how long? Ten years? If after ten years he can’t make up his mind about marriage, you better make up your mind. I won’t want you to become bitter, wondering how you wasted your desires on a present continuous hope. I know you’ve made significant investment in the relationship – in years and unprintable more. But sometimes in life it’s best to cut one’s losses. In the Army they call it “tactical manoeuvre.” And he’s not getting younger either. He’s thirty-seven. When is he going to settle down, if he ever wants to settle down? In another three years he’ll be forty. When are you going start having those babies you speak about? In his old age? At this rate he’ll be sixty when your first-born graduates from university!
He has a good job, is fairly comfortable, so money is not a preventive factor. My fear really is, you may be up against a psychological factor, and that’s another thing entirely. Yes, I know his parents were divorced. Yes, I know a girl broke his heart before he met you, but… One can’t hold on to the past in desperation. It’s a false life buoy in the present tense of life’s stormy sea.
This perpetuity of spinsterhood is at variance with your deep-seated desire to walk down the aisle. You’ve been ready for marriage now for eight years. His laconic taciturnity is making you miserable. You’re consternated with inner grief each morning. You suffer from the numbness of a deep, humiliating and silent pain. And we keep making and creating one excuse or the other for him. If there’s nothing I’ve learnt in life, it is that you don’t create and invent excuses for condemnable behavior. The man or woman we keep making excuses for is coming to hurt us someday not too far into the future.
I think it’s time you wake up from your somniferous state and face up to facts about this guy. He wants to have you perpetually in his life but he’s unwilling to formalise your relationship. He won’t marry you and will allow no one to marry you. Kind of reminds one of those religious leaders in the days of Jesus. Pharisees they were called. They wouldn’t enter the kingdom of God and they wouldn’t allow others to enter. It’s a difficult mentality to understand and you better wisen up.
If you stay you’re going to pay the equitable price of unfulfilled desire and receding dreams. How many times have you walked out of the relationship? Two times? And he keeps begging you back. Each time you leave he comes swearing fealty and devotion. But those are not the issues, marriage is. He is afraid of being alone, and he’s afraid of trying out a new relationship. It would take a lot to condition the new woman. And she may not be as pliant as you are. He doesn’t want to go through putting a new partner through a programme of orientation. But you’ve got to think of yourself. He’s only thinking about himself. Your life is in a state of suspended animation.
If you ever get to marry this guy it will be because life dragged him kicking and cursing to the altar. Some people are like that. They’ve DECIDED they WON’T commit. And it’s some form of stubborn anger. There’s some kind of vengefulness against you for loving him still, like he’s trying to punish you. The physicality of sex is a violent disrespect, a mindful spiritual desecration of your temple. He’ll keep pushing the boundaries of physical intimacy. He’s working out his psychosis, “purging” himself with rigour. Unfortunately, your emotional needfulness enslaves you to the bizarrerie of his wants and lusts. You know it’s pain but you’ve invested too much; you don’t want to lose your investment. So you’re hoping against hope – hoping for the gambler’s miracle.
But after he’s “finished you” he’ll move on, seek to distance himself from this past by marrying someone benign. He’ll seek purity. You’re a desanctified vessel of dishonor. He’ll seek innocence. The new woman won’t know the side of him you know. Can’t know. He has dual personality, remember. But even after his marriage he won’t leave you alone. He’ll tell you he owns you – that you belong to him. That you understand each other, and were made for each other’s destruction. That no one can understand you like him. And you may succumb in obeisance from the conditioning of deviant passion. Memories will remind you of pleasures of pain. This concept of “relationship” is from the world of “abuse” porn. Sadomasochism.
Right now you feel used – your self-esteem is so low. And that’s the point. Unfortunately, feeling used can create bitterness. There are hints already. You feel you paid a high price for nothing. If care is not taken you may end up hating men. Satan will lock you down. You can’t move. Sex will become impersonal. You’ll become detached, hardened. And so you become your abuser. There’s something about life. One day you’re young, the next you’re wondering where the years have gone! And life has time allotments for different stages of our lives. Isn’t that what the Preacher was talking about… That there’s a right time for everything:
“A right time to destroy and another to construct.
A right time to cry and another to laugh.
A right time to lament and another to cheer.
A right time to make love and another to abstain.
A right time to embrace and another to part.
A right time to search and another to count your losses.
A right time to hold on and another to let go.
A right time to rip out and another to mend.
A right time to shut up and another to speak up.
A right time to love and another to hate.”
Jil, your watch is telling you it’s time to rend, to destroy, to abstain, to let go. Move on I beseech you. Run!
Your mentor, LA
© Leke Alder | talk2me@lekealder.com