Why Do They Insist on Keeping in Touch?

[whaywardj]

misombra: I don't know what the first thing was, but apologise if I said anything to offend you. It wasn't intentional. If it ever is intentional, I won't apologise.

[misombra]

and i apologize if i sounded condescending toward you, that was untintentional.

see, communication.

btw, the first one was "no shit, misombra..."

[whaywardj]

misombra: Congratulations. You just made my ignore list.

[misombra]

hahaha. well you're not the first and i'm sure you won't be the last.

[shh!]

omigod! Is this a joke? It must be...

[indigosoul]

Et al (all of you):

What I DIDN'T say was that I and the woman I was referring to are together now. Not living together because of a few practicalities we have to spend some time re-arranging, but both wholly committed to working together in concert to make that happen.

Yes, it hurt me like hell and took me a hell of a lot time, effort and thought to process the great range of intense emotions I was going through in order to manage them in a way to accomplish only two things: respect her position as person; and not disrespect my position. By a similar token, she went through her own inner-turmoils upon realizing what she was doing. Once she processed her stuff, she came to what was, for both of us, a happy decision.

I can't speak for her, but I imagine seeing me making an effort to accept her for herself, rather than trying to make her into who I wanted, or having a melt-down around the fact she WASN'T BEING who I wanted, was more important to her than what she thought she was after elsewhere. I KNOW it was important for me to look beyond the narrow confines of who I WANTED her to be to know who she WAS so I could live up to one of my standards: respecting another person's individuality.

Yeah, she quit with the "I just want to be friends" shit real quick; and started with the commitment work in a deeper way than would have been possible if all the other HADN"T happened.

Whole thing took about five years to reach fruition. I've got shoes older than that.

Roll with the punches, folks. Roll with the punches. "Just smile and wave, boys."

Oh, holy sh*t, W. I'm glad I didn't take off right away. This makes a difference. And yes, I read Nomas' message too.

Are you being straight w/us?? Yes, of course you are. I know this already...

::blows out cheeks::

[whaywardj]

Indi: I"m 55 years-old. She's 51. We don't spend a lot of time joking around with such things.

[indigosoul]

Indi: I"m 55 years-old. She's 51. We don't spend a lot of time joking around with such things.

Well, here's to the power of the internet (for passing along rare experience) and the power of honesty & stick-to-it-ness. Well done W, you deserve your happiness. Definitely worked hard enough for it! A toast to you & your lady!

[artyemi]

oh god! i'm lost. i haven't checked this thread for a few minutes and you guys are giving hope, and talking about ignore list. i feel left out, dammit!!!!

about this thread, i was hoping to get the perspective of those of you who have done it to people. it seems i'm still getting the perspective of those it has been done to.

i'll post again later, as i am heading out for dinner with the person who's done this to me as well. (yeah, crazy, huh?)

but, we're working it out. he's sorting out his feelings, even though i don't know what they are. he stopped by while i was doing laundry yesterday.

we'll see.. we'll see..

[nomas]

...about this thread, i was hoping to get the perspective of those of you who have done it to people. it seems i'm still getting the perspective of those it has been done to...

Yeah, your first post made it clear that you're the one doing it in this case, but the TITLE of the thread kind of threw me off because if your situation was where I think it is, it should be: Why do I or we insist on keeping in touch.

Unless I'm all twisted on this..

[whaywardj]

Again. I grasp the wrong end of the stick. This is how it went with me: She (she tells me) wanted to maintain a friendship because being able to maintain friendships with ex-lovers was an important part of her identity. It was important for her to feel as if everything was "okay" with the spurned partner; that any damage that may have been done either way was forgiven on both sides. And one or two other things along those lines. These things were important because they represented a successful shift from love to friendship. Successfully making that shift indentified her to herself. It confirmed that she was kind, an honest communicator, caring, considerate and so on. After all, she was still friends with all her ex-lovers (and ex-husband) to one degree or another. Didn't that prove she was all those good things? Otherwise, they couldn't maintain friendships, could they?

What she'd overlooked all those years, though, was that ALL those ex-lovers had two qualities in common: they didn't love HER. They loved what they SAW in her. It was easy for them to shift gears. They had no investment in HER. They had only invested in what they wanted to see in her. When that changed, it didn't really have a big impact on either party. Everybody was chasing shadows anyway. Which brings me to the second thing her ex-lovers had in common: They weren't friends. They were acquaintances. Carrying on in the role of an acquaintance is a very easy thing to do when you never loved the person in the first place.

She saw that her ex-lover/friends were less than what friends should be. She saw that the love they'd shared was less than the love she'd sought. It was a jaw dropper for her. When these and similar realizations hit her, she took a look around, saw me still standing there, unimpressed and untroubled, and the lights came on. She had to do a serious re-evaluation of what love and friendship actually meant to her.

My reasons for still being there were addressed at meeting a different standard.

*whew*

[artyemi]

you're right. i'm the confused one. god, i'm so busy, i don't even know what the heck i'm doing.

anyway, this thread was inspired by someone's posting in another thread, when he said he's still in touch with his ex...

[indigosoul]

I'm confused too. Can you rephrase the question correctly... sorry to be so pedantic.

[artyemi]

the question is as it stand.. what i'm asking is this: you are with someone. a friend of yours with whom you are very close admits to you that he/she is completely in love with you. therefore, he/she can't see you anymore because of these feelings.
you insist that you keep in touch. why?

[whaywardj]

if you missed it, scroll up a few to see her reasons why she wanted to hold on as friends