Ouch
posted by coyote
So we get to it, finally. M isn't asexual. Or gay. Just a rodent. I'm sad for you, Muse.
Certain guys of the male persuasion tend to think 'no harm, no foul' to themselves as long as there's no body contact below the belt. But our Muse is now experiencing, somewhat after the fact, the very concrete betrayal of an emotional affair -- unfortunately from the outside. Harm and foul.
M always kept one foot halfway out the door during the relationship. This J stuff was, in the rationalizing part of his mind, barely a foot-creep further. But for practical purposes, he was involved with someone else. And if he didn't tell ya about any of it, then in some more honest part of his mind, he knew he was in the wrong. I'm not going to go into any more about emotional affairs, because the information is out there already. Even Ann Landers and Dear Abby write about it.
What M does or says at this point, or any future one, is now immaterial. He's shafted the Muse. (And she's doubtless thinking "Duhhhh!" to herself at this point in the narrative...) Interestingly, her posts have shown a half-awareness, all along, that M has not been there for her. That awareness only started becoming conscious a couple of months back.
The Muse's next move may be to wonder whether she herself was passive-aggressively manipulated into pulling the plug, made to do the work so that M didn't have to emotionally dirty his hands. Which would pretty much follow the pattern of the entire relationship. The next after that may be be to wonder if M. has had even more contact with J than he has so far admitted, and is hoping to use the old "she dumped me" gambit to get reinvolved with her.
I'm gonna suggest not descending into that particular endless circle of hell... In my pungeant (stolen) phrase of a coupla days back, 'that way lies rump of skunk and madness'.
To the Muse, I'd say, forget him now. Do what you need to heal. Make sure it is about you, and not about M. Get on with the business of getting past him and whatever he's done or is doing, and seeing to your self. If that involves feeling crappy for awhile, do it. But don't get stuck there. See friends. Move on. You've got a life.
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13 comments:
This is awesome, I read the Muse all the time. But it is like a car wreck, no matter how terrible it is I just can't look away. I am glad someone else feels the same way I do.
Cheers
With all due respect Coyote, I think the night flash on that Rocky Mountain Cam may have blinded your usually acute critical faculties. I'm not sure we should get into paw-pointing (or, in my case, telescope-pointing).
But if we were to do that, have you forgotten the 5M's apparent dalliance with the lcp, of which we are admittedly still learning the facts?
I shall take the liberty, then, of distilling your views into the style so beloved by the former Chair:
(A 5M interlude with the lcp) + (M sharing a call and a few e-mails with the ex) + (a relationship between the 5M and M that was about as stable as Courtney Love on a good day) = M is a rat who should be strung up and have his ankles gnawed by famished woodland creatures.
I'm not so sure.
My point is there was a lot going on between the 5M and M that led to the relationship's demise. And I suspect very little of it had anything to do with either the Trois-Rivieres Chick or the lcp. These episodes were merely symptoms of the malady. From the tip of the iceberg I see in my spyglass, I suspect it came down to the fact the 5M wanted a full-fledged commitment from M, while he, as you so aptly put it, had one emotional foot out the door.
While M's behaviour won't win him the July Boyfriend of the Month contest, let's keep it in perspective.
IO, y'beat me to the punch. But Coyote and 5M will say it's not about the phone call, it's about the lying.
But if it's not about the phone call, why did M feel the need to lie about it?
Coyote, that was one long post for a message that boils down to "forget M".
For millennia humans and dwarfs have wondered what are the canines saying when they howl at the moon. Now we know. "Forget the sun," they are howling, "you two will never get together." Yet the sun and the moon continue their dance ignoring the wee puppies and their useless message.
And 5M has learned about getting Dooced. Worthy of a whole new posting and comment thread.
And I s'pose you'll give it to us, Dwarf.
IO, it was either that flashgun or fermented mountain ash berries. I forget, and now I have a headache. You make good points, IO. And their relationship -- any relationship -- complicates exponentally the further it greases down the tubes. But I believe the Muse & M were at least semi-officially broken up during the lcp episode. Having a typical canine medium-term memory, and the lousy sense of chronology that goes with it, I cannot speak to whether M. was carrying on his emotional affair during this hiatus, or any other.
But you're bang on about the lcp and 3RC, (or J, if you like) being symptoms, perhaps smokescreens, and possibly cause for misdirected mutual recrimination. The real issues were always between the Muse and M.
Re: Dooced...all I can reiterate, in the most positive of warning modes I can muster, is: let us all watch ourselves, our words, and our potential lawsuits. Bad enough to lose a job, but how about getting sued for defamation, on top of that, and losing your bank account, home, etc?
What about freedom of speech and imagination? All these warnings are really getting me down. Get over it. Dooce is much better off now than she was before.
Coyote, upon reading today's post, I assumed that M had admitted an ongoing affair. I go to 5M's site, and learn it's only about a phonecall and some email. I'm sorry, but to my mind, 5M is showing that she's been way too controlling. What would her reaction have been if M admitted communicating with TRC while she and M were still dating? Hurt, sadness, pain, anger, silent treatment, interrogation?
But I do wonder, what else isn't M saying, what did those stolen communications say? You know, when something is forbidden, it is often regarded with more longing. Regardless, lets try to move forward.
Welcome back SIREN! Will you find us a song?
Hey 5M, exactly, freedom of speech and imagination. We're such an afraid society -- I think that's why we like you, because you're not afraid to express your inner thoughts and fears and desires.
Oh and ... it wasn't about the phonecall, emails, whatever ... it was, as Dwarf suggested, about honesty. How can we truly love one another if we are all pretending to be something we're not? All I've ever asked for was the truth; unfortunately, M knew that if he was still in touch with J, I would have bailed, so he didn't tell me.
So yeah, Dwarf, it wasn't about the phone call, but about the lying.
As for freedom of speech, and imagination: yes, Dooce has a wicked funny sense of humour, writes a better story than I could hope to, and is far better off now than before. The asterisk, though, is that she felt terrible guilt when she was outed, and stayed drunk and unemployed for a year after she was fired. These are avoidable life experiences. Some would regard them as not entirely positive. But hey, I'm just howling at the moon. Same old song as ever...
Oh, and can we attribute that last 'anonymous' to me, the quadruped with fur between his toes? Slip of the claw. Sorry.
Controlling? If love is supposedly about trust, then one doesn't interrogate one's partner. If one loves another, does the thrill of interrogation come over like "the smell of blood?" If these are the components of a relationship, what is that relationship really about? Control? Love? Something else?
If you ask yourself these questions, and answer them honestly, what is revealed about love, or trust, or oneself? But you must be honest...
Everyone may of course choose to ignore whatever advice I regurgitate. I put it up there for my friends, because I care about what happens to all of them. I'd hate to see any of us get into the kind of thing which possibly may flow from the actionable printed word.
While we have freedom of speech in this country, it's always been countered with reasonable controls, like laws banning hate-mongering, and malicious defamation. These began as ancient common-law rules, not the product of a politically-correct modern society.
The freedom to malign others must necessarily be balanced against the others' rights, no?
It is a challenge to communicate in positive ways. It is relatively easy to gossip, or lash out, or talk slanderously. Take the challenge to use your freedom of speech in ways that advance your cause, without stepping off into the soft parts on the edge of the road.
There are two sides to every story, at the least. So whenever I read stuff like that which got Dooce fired, I think about people I've known who surprised everyone around them with hidden talents, kindnesses or keen inner takes on life. To think of others in generalized terms like "the guy who says something stupid every time he opens his mouth," doesn't represent freedom of speech to me. It may represent a narrow, biased view of that person. At the very least, it's somewhat unkind.
If only I could summon a song right now that would say it all ...I may have to go through my down-and-out-country-and-western repertoire. That's bad, low-down, even. Now I'm feeling the mood...
something about the road of life, a journey, a revelation, an adventure, blah, blah, blah...
Waggie,
It's like our friend Francis came up with this cartoon just for you.
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