Letter number 25: Hard truths

Dear Alexandra,

I snapped a little today, I feel bad that I have probably made you feel bad — but I think it needed to be done. I was blanking your message, as I talked about before — partly because I didn’t want to snap, partly I guess being petty. I was replicating how you treated me before I was forced to drive down to see you and intercept you in person in your room.

You waited 12 hours before following up with another ‘Are you ok?’ — I speculated you’d see a post of me out with my Mum on Facebook, which turned out to be true. Half an hour later you were getting snippy ‘Can’t you just answer me with a simple yes or no? I’ve been worrying about it all day’… I’ll be honest, it was like a role reversal of us just a few short weeks ago, me pleading for you to respond to me, getting nothing back but silence.

I thought about it, I wrestled with being ‘the bigger man’, I failed. I made the observation back to you — it doesn’t feel nice does it? I’m not proud of it.Of course the response was to close off, ‘fine, I won’t bother you any more’ — I didn’t let it lie, I said I was having a low day, I appreciated your concern, I wish you could have shown some when we were still technically a couple. I think it might have been necessary.

Even now I’ve been trying to protect you, I’ve hidden things on Facebook that might trigger you despite not being designed to. I let rip a little bit — I told you I knew about the bracelets, I told you how your betrayal made me feel. You referred to ‘the thing’ you did as stupid, I told you I knew you’d carried on with it from when I was still being Sherlock Bert — you didn’t say whether the betrayal, the cruelty or the actual act of the other relationship was the stupid thing. I didn’t press, you wouldn’t answer.

You fixated on yourself, that you are suffering and you deserve it. You dropped a ‘See you around, I guess’ message. I didn’t want to leave it like that, I told you to stop being a victim, that I didn’t particularly want you to suffer. I even apologised for blanking you. I’m not really all that sorry, although it’s not an impulse I had that I particularly like. You said you were in a dark place, that does worry me, but I do accept now it’s not my job to get you out of it.

I sent you a long reassuring message, I referenced the book I’ve been reading (I emailed you a copy of it, because I really think it could help you), I told you to be kind to yourself. I told you that in time I’ll come to forgive what happened, that in some ways I do already — because I know I can’t go back and change it — and if I can, then you can. I even posited that the chances are had this not happened, we’d end up in the same outcome perhaps without the drama, and it might be easier than if you’d moved up here already etc.

I tried to remind you that whatever is going on in your head stringing along some other poor bloke probably isn’t the answer. I can understand the appeal, you’re loathing yourself and feeling isolated, having someone dote on you and profess love must be a great comfort if you can suspend reality for a while and escape. It won’t be so good for him if that is the truth of the matter. I don’t bear him any malice whilst won’t be sending any Christmas cards any time soon.

I told you I want you to stop punishing yourself, focus on the present, find your happy self. The one I loved. The one I still love if I’m honest. She’s in there somewhere, she deserves to be happy — but as long as you tell yourself you’re in a dark place, that you’re a bad person, those feelings will perpetuate and feed off each other, you’ll find it difficult to right yourself and find the surface. Whatever abhorrent things you put me through, I don’t want you to deny yourself future happiness, whatever it is that brings that.

So in a way I feel like I’ve relapsed quite severely. In others I feel like I needed to get some of that off my chest for my benefit, and I think on some level you needed to hear my pain but also reasonableness. I don’t think it quite cut through your self-centred shield, but maybe it will in time. The difference for me is that whilst I do still want to see you recover, get better, be happy — I recognise that whilst I can offer guidance, care, forgiveness even to a degree, it’s not my responsibility beyond that any more.

I can accept that now. I found that difficult before, that letting go part. Only you can help yourself, and if I can help you to do that without compromising my own ongoing struggles, then I will. I realise some people might read this thinking I’m absolutely crazy. You’ve not responded to that latest message, it was probably a lot to take in. I’m not going to fixate on it, I just hope that it helps. Its tone was kind, concerned. If I can genuinely feel that for you, then there is no reason why you can’t feel that for yourself.

Just to complete the relapse I did update your Mum too, she remains frustrated at your dishonesty with her. I didn’t want to fuel that, I just wanted her to be aware that I’d snapped a little and there could be a detrimental impact on you — that she should keep an eye on you. I really think it would help you just to open up to her, but only you can really make that call. I didn’t want to tell you she knows more than you realise, because it could close off that avenue for you because you do seem to regret what you’ve done.

I don’t know whether you regret the outcome or the way you went about achieving it. Do you think ending us was a mistake? Or do you think the way you went about it was? A couple of weeks ago the distinction of those two questions would be torturing me. I’m still idly curious, of course, but I can accept that really the detail doesn’t make any difference to the outcome. We can’t be a couple again, I know that. So it doesn’t really matter whether that was your intention at the outset. If you even knew.

In the spirit of not feeling like I have to live my life constantly editing or shielding you I’ve changed my Facebook settings so that whatever I post is visible to you, including previous things. Obviously this area is private to anyone other than those I’ve explicitly shared it with, but I wrote another blog post about the medical dramas and shared it, you might see it, you might scroll back to earlier posts — you might be stalking my Facebook profile and find some of the other things newly visible to you.

It’s not healthy to hide things on what is supposed to be a public platform. So I’m not going to. I will keep my promise that I won’t compromise what happened between us except in private, but I can’t live my life constantly worrying at what innocuous nuances you might interpret as a slight, or worry that if I admit I am struggling you’ll derive guilt from it. You are already doing that yourself.

Just as I’m trying to frame my concern for you appropriately you need to do the same toward me. Of course you’ll worry, but just as it’s not my job to look after you any more, it’s not yours to look after me either. Latterly even when it was frankly, you weren’t very good at it so it’s a bit late now! I’d love for you to focus on some of those difficult truths you need to admit about yourself, overcome them, and move on from it and find your route to happiness. That’s what I’m working on for me, I’m mindful it will take a while.

I finished my last text to you reminding you that I do love you. And I do. I know I changed my sign off, but well, feelings don’t just disappear. I know we don’t have a future, I doubt that I’m in love with you, but well. Love is a good thing. If I can say that I love you, then you can love yourself. I hope you can learn that and feel it, because at the moment you’re wallowing and just getting drawn into distractions and diversions, through which you’ll never grow.

I hope you’re doing okay, Bert