Once Lovers Never Friends

When my ex lover and I broke up he said, "how has our relationship grown this past year?"

The problem with that question was we weren't ever in a relationship according to him. He was someone who was very controlling.  He didn't want to be in a relationship, because he had more women friends than myself.  He separated himself from me, by being in those relationships. He did so because he was in love with me and wanted to be with me. But he liked his independence.  He didn't know himself.

I met him coming off of my 10 years of loneliness and walling myself off from the world.  I was vulnerable and unconscious of many things.  He was an angry,  manipulative man. He was a know-it-all. He was charming and sweet when he wanted to be. He was a child. He didn't want to fall in love, but did, but that was his journey.  He said all his past loves, were his friends who he talked to regularly.

The whole year, I tried getting away from him, because I knew the outcome would be a broken heart. He would pull me close when I tried distancing myself and when I started to get too close he would push me away.  When I met him I was very controlling and angry and vulnerable.  I was a know-it-all and a child. We related in almost everything I was interested in.  We were reflections of each other. I fell instantly in love.

The part of me that fell instantly in love, was the me, based in the past. That's because I lived in the past. What attracted me was who he was.  He was everyone in my family and my ex husband.  That's because,  that's who I was too. I was everyone but myself. He asked me to change and accept him for the person he was,  so I did. I learned to LOVE him unconditionally and without expectations.

When he asked that question,  I knew he meant to never talk to me again.  Up until the question, we talked every day ranging from times of 3-6 hours.  I fit my life around his schedule talking to me.  I filled my life with him and sacrificed my art to be available for him.  He was a trucker and that's why we talked on the phone so much.  He controlled the amount of actual physical time we spent with one another, but couldn't take himself away from me completely,  because he was holding onto me in case he wanted me.

I was just one of the cards he was playing. I see so clearly now because all illusion is gone. When he asked that question, I said 'I don't want to talk to you anymore.' I said that because the entire year, he was saying we weren't in a relationship, but he then asked me about it.  He thought he held all the cards. But changing myself to love unconditionally and without expectations, also gave me strength. 

I was also at fault.  I attracted this man.  In October we started drifting because he either met someone new or he decided to start separating from me because he chose who he wanted to be with, but didn't tell me.  For a while he stopped calling so much or wouldn't answer his phone. At one point I couldn't get a hold of him and got worried.  I contacted his best friend on Facebook and we started talking.  It turned out he was just like me as well. 

His friend was going through depression and anxiety and couldn't function in society.  He was angry and manipulative, and charming and intelligent and a child. We started talking at a time my ex lover wasn't talking to me.  We got to be friends and he showed me how unrealistic my thoughts were.  Spending so much time talking to a person can be like being in a relationship. My ex lover and I were in a relationship, we just weren't together.

Initially I was attracted to the person who represented all of my hurt inside. As I learned to LOVE unconditionally and without expectations,  I was able to SEE the man. His friend showed me how I thought of my ex lover.  That I thought it was more of a relationship than it was.  His friend and I attracted each other at the perfect moment.  We were each other when we attracted each other.  I needed love and attention I wasn't getting from my ex.  And he needed it because he wasn't getting attention from a woman but was a human being who needed companionship and compassion.  We fell in LOVE. 

This angered my ex lover, my new friend encouraged me to be the person my ex lover wanted,  so I changed even more. At this time I hadn't had sex with my ex for 6 months, his friend couldn't understand that because when my ex lover talked about me, he talked like I was more than just a lover.

Looking at my thinking patterns I realized how unrealistic and childish the love was. My ex lover knew I was talking to his friend and called it entanglement,  he looked down upon it, because he knew we loved each other.  It was also unrealistic because he lived in Long Island and I lived 2 thousand miles away and I knew I'd never SEE him, because he knew that would jeopardize his relationship with his friend. It seems I found myself in a love triangle.

By the time of that question, I had thrown his friend under the bus. To save what was left of my so called relationship with my ex lover.  I thought again in the end, that somehow I would be with one of them and tried getting closer to his friend again.  His friend manipulated me by acting like our relationship was something more than it was.  He too was speaking to someone new because he in no way would jeopardize his relationship with his best friend.

In the end both had played me, by having someone else to fall back on. I suppose I played them too, but badly.  I loved two men I would never see or be with. I loved them both unconditionally and without expectations. When my ex lover asked that question, and I answered,  I knew that was a moment of no return.  My HEART broke open,  because I had changed myself for a man but not for myself.  At that moment it was the start of me starting to LOVE MYSELF.

Once Lovers never friends, is what my ex lover said to me.  Implying that I wouldn't be able to take being friends with him. At that time it was true.  I had to learn to LOVE MYSELF unconditionally and without expectations.  I needed to bring LIGHT to all of my shadow, my anger and sadness.  I needed to forgive myself and others.  I needed to learn how to accept myself and others.  I needed to tear down the facade of ego and rid myself of everyone I wasn't.  I needed to find MYSELF.  But now I realize 'once lovers never friends' wasn't what I believed,  it had nothing to do with me. He was telling me,  he couldn't take being friends with me, since once we were once lovers.