I'm Sam, and this is my dilemma.
Robin is my wife. She is from another country - we met online 5 years ago and she moved to Australia to marry me. She's a great wife, but we have a 'simple' relationship. We get along fine, but do not truly share much in common. She really wants kids, and I do not.
Polly is the love of my life. We have been best friends for more than 10 years and have everything in common. We are both musicians/writers and work together on various projects. We record a podcast together, just for fun. We are honest and open with each other, and both regret never starting a relationship. Days ago, I asked Polly to kiss me once, just so I could feel closure and try to let her go.
Below is the letter I wrote the next day and gave to Polly. If you care to read it, it should explain the position I'm in, and what I want.
(names have been changed for anonymity)
Polly,
This is nothing I can't say to you directly - I'm typing it to help me process my feelings, but also just so that I can do something with my day - I can't stop thinking about you, Robin, and my whole situation which is both absurdly lucky and desperately sad.
This is also nothing definitive - I'm not thinking straight. In fact I'm going mad here, with heavy, life-changing thoughts flying around faster than I can make sense of them. When I catch one I'm going to type it in no particular order. If I owned a gun I wouldn't be safe right now - I'm in absolute turmoil, and need to calm down.
(*edit - I got better later - well, it's gone up and down - and this became a little more definitive.)
This is the hardest point of my life that I can remember. Over the last two weeks I had developed the idea that if I could finally just kiss you it would give me a sense of closure on our never-was relationship. It didn't. But part of me knew that it wouldn't. I just felt I had to do something real and true to myself and just see what I felt afterward. I felt amazing, elated, relieved beyond belief, scared out of my mind and deeply confused and regretful as to why this was happening now and not years earlier.
The eternity between when I asked and when we kissed was a skydive in the dark, with the ripcord in your hand. There was no backup - I hadn't even considered that you'd say no, which you almost did. I felt pure adrenaline, fear, and was instantly disappointed with myself for the evil I knew I'd brought into that car.
I opened a can of worms that for me, left unopened, was only going to get bigger and more rotten over time.
If only you could have known how cruel it was to demand that I ask my question while you were still driving - I was a nervous wreck - did you not see me hyperventilating and squirming in the passenger seat all the way from Main Street?
After I got home and said hi to Robin I went for a drive to the bottle shop, and as soon as the car started moving I started balling. I relived every blissful moment of that roller-coaster ride home, and considered every terrible implication it bore.
I couldn't look Robin in the face for too long this morning as I felt tears coming on. Because she's innocent, because I meant everything I said to you, and because she's a great person and deserves more love than I can give honestly.
High off the kiss and the ensuing conversation, I feel godlike - like I have a choice between two contrasting worlds - one where I live out my life as a professional husband as it has already been defined - discontent, unchallenged, and one where I can truly explore new meaning for my life, where I don't know what will happen but I know I will be intellectually challenged and excited, and more than anything, I will be free to define the rest of my life on my own terms without pressure. But to have one world I have to crush the other.
It's arrogant to even think I have a ‘choice' - to think you'd automatically accept me, given how complicated it would be in reality, but this is just what's going through my mind.
I feel like I could live my best life imaginable with you, but I would have to ruin hers first. And she would be RUINED - a mess that I am completely responsible for. And yet, I feel that in the long term, it would be absolutely the right thing to do. It's the only completely honest thing I could do, and may even be the only way I can truly find myself as a person; a thinker, a creator and a lover.
It's sad to say, but conversation with her is banal at best, and her idea of funny is a video of cats falling over.
A conversation with you is worth documenting and listening back to just to live the moment again. Worth turning around and getting a memory card for. Those are the kind of moments I know I should be living. I really do live for them. It's a strange kind of disappointment to be understood by someone so well at work, then go home and be largely misunderstood for the rest of the day - it's gutting.
When listening back to our podcast recordings, I hear a soft laugh of yours and I have to rewind, turn up the volume in the headphones and play it again - I have to take in every nuance until your breath fades - it makes me smile like you have never seen. At these moments I feel like I have to show Robin what I'm working on just so I don't start to feel too guilty, but she'd never know what was going through my mind at the time.
When you look at me in the corner of your eye and ask what I'm smirking at, I sometimes feel the right thing to do is not answer because you've seen too deep inside me. Having so much in common with someone doesn't come easy - I can't even think of someone who is a close second.
I have to be real and consider the possibility that my animal instincts are trying to get the better of me. As I said, a woman's mere existence can charm a content man into madness. Flirting with you is about as much fun as I've ever had, but flirting is also the most fun part, right? The next level may not be as glamorous or functional as it promises to be. We have loads of fun hanging out, then get to go home and take an extended break from each other. It's almost perfect, right? I really don't know. I have more to give you that I clearly can't now - more time, more patience, more affection, more love. I think about you just as you are and can see myself with you, living a more relaxed existence than you might imagine, but that's easy to just say.
As strongly as I feel about you, I'm also very much aware that my choices are about my life only, and you are in no way implicated or obligated to feel anything towards me. That's the whole POINT of this for me - to not be in a situation where I'm obligated to feel a certain way even when I don't (a marriage). I don't want to live on rails and watch my dreams fade away out of the window while I can't do anything about it. When you said, hypothetically, you would run away with me, I could have died happy in that moment, even if you were joking or placating me.
There is absolutely no certainty that things would even work out between you and I, but I feel that even if we tried and failed, I'd still be happier than to have stayed where I am in the long run. That said, I couldn't give up what I've got now for anyone else. No-one makes me feel like you.
If you meet someone you really love, tell me and I will be happy for you forever. If you honestly have a deep-down desire to move to NY and find your Jew, let me know and I will forever hold my peace, as I don't want you to feel influenced to change your plans or goals. If you have any misgivings about me AT ALL, please tell me, as it will help me put you into perspective. I'm sure there are more things about me that you should know, and there are more things about you that I want to know.
This is not a plan for action! Again, these are just my thoughts. Your honesty and willingness to listen to me is the most amazing thing in my life right now. I don't have anything near this with Robin right now - one of the reasons why it's so difficult.
There's so much at stake, especially for Robin. She may even be the perfect ‘wife', but I've known for some time (even before we got married) that that's not truly what I wanted. We got married when we did because of her visa - we got engaged and once she'd moved here there was a limited amount of time to do it before she simply had to go back home. I don't regret our marriage - it felt right at the time - but I coasted into it, not having a better idea at the time. I would have done it differently if I had more control over the situation.
Things have changed, and I know what I want now; because of the things I've seen and the people I've met, my life has become an involuntary intellectual pursuit of the infinite creative possibilities, yet I can foresee a plain, uneventful existence in my future.
I think about the life that I've built with Robin; what she's had to do to get here, what she's had to give up and what we've lost and gained together. The mere thought of kicking the legs from under that is soul-crushing. I can't do it. I can't do it. It's wrong. I mustn't.
Yet I can't have a baby with her. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I just can't! No.
I'll be damned if I'm going to voluntarily lobotomise myself and dedicate the remaining portion, the BEST portion of my life to raising children who don't even exist yet, and to whom I may not even be able to provide a decent living for, unless I make some drastic lifestyle changes. What happened to the life I was working on up until a few years ago? I've done amazing things in all kinds of directions and feel no signs of slowing, but I feel I'm going to have to put it all on the back-burner against my will because of a few rushed choices. Maybe I've tried to take too much from life and am now paying for it dearly.
It feels like it boils down to a simple binary choice - being good and fair to her and owning up to what I promised that fateful day, or being true to myself, breaking free and taking a GIANT hit for it. I think in hindsight the latter will seem like the easiest choice in the world, but being on this side of the event, it's not looking pretty. It's dark and painful and heavy, and it's only just a thought at this point. It would be the most selfish and cruel thing I've ever done, yet it may be crucial to my happiness (and indeed hers).
Life doesn't always go perfectly - opportunities and special moments pass us by every day in life without our knowing, and we can't regret what we don't know about. I regret not pursuing you because I DID know I loved you, and I didn't do anything about it. I think I hesitated because I didn't identify with your self-image obsession, and still don't, but I understand it now. It's a big part of your persona but it doesn't phase me anymore. When I look at you and talk to you I feel like I'm seeing through all that bullshit, though I'm not naive enough to think I could talk you out of it. Your natural beauty, in and out, owns me.
As for where to go from here - I feel stuck but I'm also optimistic. I'm not going to do anything drastic or dishonest or rushed, but I'm thinking about steps I can take to get into a better position. I might move in with a friend for a month just to take a break from her, I might even move back home by myself, and possibly even talk to my mum about the situation. She may be the only one who can help, after all.
I don't know what I'm going to do, but I like having this feeling. I'm scared sh*tless but it actually beats believing that I'm definitely on a track going somewhere I don't 100% like. For now, I'm going to take a deep breath and try getting on with my old life with all of this in the back of my mind, then try and slowly assimilate these thoughts into a realistic, natural, workable reality.
The best that could happen is that I make my dreams come true and I get to live the life I've always wanted to.
The worst that could happen is I stay with my great wife and live a simpler, happily-compromised home life in Australia, which is more than most people could ever ask for.
But there will always be a sadness, a dark place that only you could bring light to.
What a lucky, picky, gifted, entitled, vaguely fat white idiot I am.
I have some questions for you:
Could you feel any signs of my discontent before or does it seem to come out of nowhere? If so, for how long?
You said you were going to write me an email a little while ago - what was it about?
You said in the car you've been thinking about us too - what do you think?
- Do you think I could actually make a good partner for you, all things considered?
Am I absolutely crazy to think in these terms at all? Is it reasonable or absurdly narcissistic to you?
Thank you for reading this - it means everything to me. You're probably a little shocked, and so am I. It's amazing how quickly this all came out of me, but as much as it hurts, it feels great to be honest about this finally.
Please feel free to reply or not reply at all - it's my problem to deal with but I'll listen to you, obviously.
If you feel you have to convince me to not throw my marriage away, it's ok - I really do understand the gravity of the situation. I want to hear how you feel, not what you think is the right thing to say.
Thanks P
Love,
Sam
Thanks for reading! I can't believe you made it. Any thoughts at all would be welcome.
Cheers,
Sam
