Letter number 23: Resolve

Dear Alexandra,

I meant to mention this in my last letter and it slipped my mind. Another thing that happened yesterday was L. messaged looking to arrange what had become a traditional birthday gathering for M. It was a group thread on Messenger, so it would’ve been easy to have a glance through the included folk and procrastinate about what the best thing to do in responding was.

Happy to say I didn’t do that — L., N., M and E are wonderful friends to both of us — they really are a fabulous family, and it’s always great to spend time with them. So in the spirit of putting my own welfare first I replied in the affirmative, I’d be delighted to be part of the celebrations. Others contributed date selections, we have one agreed now and it’s in my calendar.

Your Dad replied with his traditional “I don’t do socialising” message — but he loves the P. family, and generally does make an appearance for these occasions. I could see thanks to Messenger that you were seeing the messages but you’ve been quiet, biding your time, unsure what to say? I’m not sure. If I’d let myself think about it for too long I would have probably been similar, I’m glad I jumped in with both feet. I want to go, therefore I’m going to. If you decide to as well, that’s a bridge we’ll have to cross later.

I wouldn’t tell the P.’s what happened, they are close with you and I wouldn’t want to compromise that. L. was one of the people I reached out to ask to stay in touch with you to make sure you were okay. I sent them a direct message before the public Facebook post went out because they have been, and are, special friends to both of us. Should you want to confide in them then that’s up to you, but I’m happy to maintain the facade with them in the interest of — I was going to say fairness, it’s not really fairness — protecting your relationship with them, because I know it’s one that means a lot to you.

When August comes I’m not sure how I’ll feel if I go down there and you’re there — I like to think by then the situation will be a lot less raw, that it won’t cause any problems. I don’t think it will — of course your coming would really be contingent on your Dad coming, and his modus operandi would be arriving late and leaving early, whereas I tend to be opposite at both ends of those scales. Of course if he decided not to go, I’m sure the P.’s would probably arrange to get you there and back, because they’re lovely like that.

Part of me hopes you do go, because whatever impact it has on me it will be positive for you to be amongst real folk and it’ll at least be an evening where you’re not staring at a screen. Part of me thinks it would be easier if you didn’t — but that’s me thinking with today’s attitude on, I’d like to think in a few months time I’ll think differently. Whilst I have had a bit of a step change with the old rose-tinted glasses in regard to you, it would be nice to think we can co-exist in the same environments on occasion.

Obviously the whole Hamilton episode showed me I’m swerving away from the idea of us going to things together — but bigger gatherings with mutual friends? Why not. None of the people who I’ve confided more in would be likely to be included in this gathering based on previous ones, they’re all very far away from the P.’s, unless your Mum comes but again, she hasn’t in the past. There’d be nobody who knows anything other than the very diplomatic post we put on Facebook. A safe space.

I decided I was being overly silly in trying to protect you from upset by revealing I’d shaved my beard off yesterday — I posted a picture of K. and I whilst we were out walking and didn’t hide it from you, and also a post on Sonic’s page with a video of us being silly so you might have seen that too. I’ve also changed my profile picture. You loved the beard, and I liked it too but must admit wasn’t that committed to it, a big part of me having it was because you loved it, so it was quite nicely symbolic to remove it.

Some things I have hidden from you still — I hid a picture of the glass charm K. and J. gave me, because I worried it might evoke feelings of guilt or feel like some kind of accusation to you. The posts I made on my blog which, whilst not giving anything away, do betray quite how much I’ve been suffering, I kept from you. Whilst I’m consciously trying to limit quite how much headspace I give to worrying about you (well, trying to eliminate it, to be honest), I do want to be mindful of not providing any catalysts that might set you back.

I’ve realised I’ve actually done quite well at keeping myself busy — next weekend I’ve got plans for both days to spend time with folk, I was trying to find a spot to organise a walk in the Peaks with A., but we’re now going for Bank Holiday weekend instead. It’s really helped me, you don’t really have that ability with lack of transport/local friends — so I hope you’re spending time with family to make up for that, because we all know what the alternative is.

There’s an element of almost feeling pressured to spend time with folk — L. invited me over a couple of weeks ago, but I know she’ll be fishing for gossip (which obviously she wouldn’t get), so I’ve been non-committal. D. (who was trying to set me up with his friend 3 days after we broke up, haha!) has been trying to get me out too but I’m not quite ready for that intensity. N. invited me down for a weekend with her and D. too (wow these initials are getting repetitive aren’t they? I know who they are though!), it’d be great to catch up with those guys, so I’ll sort something out. They were out camping like half the world seemed to be this weekend anyway!

It’s made me realise I’m really loved — my family have been a little more subtle but often remind me, that’s their nature (not a criticism, I’m similar!), J. invited me down for lunch today but I already had food plans and was resolved to try to make a point of spending the afternoon at home and enjoying it, rather than constantly seeking ways of escaping. With some degree of success I might add! It sounds ungrateful, and maybe as well as feeling generally down it could be a lockdown hangover but it can feel a little overwhelming having so many invitations. And it’s not like it’s been that many! At our festivalling and gigging peak we often used to get brain fug from our many commitments!

I also wanted to circle back to the use of the term abuse. It’s a strong term, not to be used lightly. I don’t think you set out to be abusive, I don’t necessarily think you were consciously thinking “I know, I’ll mentally torture Bert” — it’s back to the old impact felt, impact intended conversation we’ve had so many times. You must, however, have been aware on some level what the likely impact of your behaviour (I don’t mean the cheating, necessarily, although that’s part of it — the ghosting, the blanking, the avoidance, the withholding of affection/intimacy) on my mental wellbeing against the backdrop of lockdown, the struggles I was having that I talked to you earnestly about because you said — quite reasonably — I never opened up.

Opening up in our case really didn’t help, did it?

And that probably held me back three weeks ago. Opening up had proven to be a disaster — it made everything worse, as bad as it could possibly be. Well, maybe not, but that’s how it felt at the time. My initial reaction was to close right back up — that probably drove Reasonable Bert’s resolve to present an amicable split to the world, I still don’t disagree with that stance, but I’m pleased I’ve been able to talk to trusted friends — because in that case opening up didn’t elicit avoidance, judgement, ill-feeling. It’s given me support, concern, kindness. The things I really needed from you.

I think you always found conversations like that accusatory, or that you needed to do something — but that wasn’t it, you just had to listen, understand, care. And you just couldn’t do it. None of my friends have been able to materially change anything that happened, it’s impossible, but they’ve let me talk, they’ve given me the gift of their time. I never expected you to be able to fix everything, and I don’t think my use of language suggested that — I crafted my words so carefully through fear of you taking things to heart — just a bit of acknowledgement and consideration.

But this isn’t supposed to sound like a character assassination. The way out of this for you was so much easier than you made it. It’s clear that for whatever reason your feelings toward me had shifted — you knew this, you probably struggled with it because I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I understand that can happen, I’ve experienced it before from both sides. It’s difficult, it’s painful — but you have to be able to articulate it, talk to people. Even when I asked you if your feelings had changed, gave you a blatant opportunity — more than once — you reassured me that wasn’t the case.

Even when I presented you with what I’d found out your response was denial of it, and that your feelings for me hadn’t changed. That dishonesty so ingrained, that I do genuinely think it had taken hold with your own mind, let alone to others. That’s a terribly sad state of affairs.

That’s the main thing I hope you take from this sorry episode, that in the future you’re able to be more honest with yourself and whoever it is you’re close to rather than digging yourself into an impossible hole. If you’d simply said earlier in March that you didn’t feel the same, you’d been developing feelings for someone else, you think that it was over for us as a couple of course, I would have been devastated and gutted — but not with the layers of deceit, cruelty, abuse and having to find out for myself. There’s the lesson for you, in a nutshell.

As I’ve consciously spent the afternoon giving myself a break from too much ‘brain stuff’, not reading through my book, mindless things on TV that’s probably why I’ve found myself slipping into thinking more about what happened. I know it’s futile, I’m repeating things I’ve written before and nothing has changed as a result, I think on some level I’m pausing a little on my attempts to limit my processing in the knowledge that I’m going to start talking to professionals tomorrow — and they’ll hopefully be able to provide a little clarity on an appropriate way to muddle through.

Who knows? It’s frustrating for me to feel like I’ve relapsed to some extent, but well, from where I’ve been I’m still a lot further ahead so that’s my focus for now.

I hope you’re okay, Bert