WHAT MY HEART, BRAIN AND GUT WERE SCREAMING AT ME TO TELL HER:
Yeah, that’s what I said. The new guy.
I don’t care how long you’ve been with him. I don’t need you to remind me how many times you’ve told me his name. Get pissed at me all you want, but unless you can give me one good reason I should afford him any more privilege of person or identity than that, then that’s all he is as far as I’m concerned. The new guy.
I understand that we’re over, I do. We had our time, and it’s behind us now, and I get that. I don’t like it, and, no, I still don’t agree with it, but I get it. I’ve had to work long and hard at getting that. I’ve had to endure night after night of lying there, alone, seeing nothing but your face when I close my eyes, hearing the phantom of your sigh every time I’m on the merciful verge of forgetting about you and getting one minute of honest to God rest. Feeling nothing but the empty hollow of the bed, cold and overwhelmingly vacant where you’re not lying against me anymore. I get it, because my only options were to get it or go crazy from it. So don’t tell me that we’re over, sweetheart, because, I promise you, I don’t require a reminder. I’m living with it. I didn’t forget.
But maybe he forgot. Maybe he has forgotten who he is with. Maybe he could use a reminder of the fact that he’s had well over a thousand days with you. Far more than a thousand days for him to decide that you’re the one. Far more than a thousand chances to let you know that you are an amazing woman, and would make an amazing wife and mother, and that you would give him an amazing life if he would just let you. Over a thousand chances to give you a ring, or a promise, or any god damn thing that might somehow, in some way, let you know that he recognizes that he is lucky enough to be with the greatest woman in the world.
But he hasn’t.
He’s done none of those things.
So don’t tell me, the guy who DOES know those things about you, who DOES want that life, and who never had the luxury of those chances, that I should afford him any more respect than I already have. Because that’s asking more than I can give. He’s squandered days, years, making you wait for absolutely nothing at all. Keeping you on a string while I have listened to the excuses and justifications you have made for him. Feeling my heart break for you as he slowly breaks yours. Refusing, out of selfishness and stupidity, to live the life with you that I pictured for us. He’s had so much time. Time I would have filled with a home and children and warmth and love and a life for us. Time I would have given anything to have with you. He’s had so much time… and he’s wasted it.
So, yes, no matter how long you’ve been with him, no matter that I know what his name is, no matter how angry it makes you, to me he’s the new guy. No name. No acknowledgement. Nothing earned, nothing given. The new guy. That’s all he gets from me.
WHAT I ACTUALLY TYPED IN THE CHAT:
yeah, him.
