I thought I was ready. Long distance, no problem! Yes distance is hard, but that's to be expected. For Luke and I things were decent until I went to visit him for Christmas. I started noticing more tension between us. We didn't fight, yell, or get overly upset, but there was an air of frustration throughout our relationship. I was frustrated because my needs weren't being met and he was frustrated because he felt like a failure for not fulfilling those needs. A few things often discussed were him working too hard, not following through, and not being interested in spirituality. He had all the right intentions but something was different.
I would often get emotional because of the underlying tension and confusion. I told myself we were just going through a phase and that our problems were situational: he had a new job, wanted to work more to save money, we were long distance half the time, etc. I acknowledged our problems, but I thought they'd go away when he went back to school. Also I had a lot more free time than he did. I am a Nutritionist and I travel around giving health seminars and cooking classes. Because I'm starting out, I often have quite a bit of time between gigs. I try to fill that time with productivity, but (frankly) the fact is I have a lot of free time. Because of this I told myself he didn't have the time I had to invest in our relationship. I told myself not to be too hard on him because I had an unfair advantage. However, I still had needs that weren't being met so this coupled with my attempt at not being too hard on him created a passive agressive monster inside me. Luke had a cute name for being passive aggressive "Pass Ag," but it wasn't cute. He didn't think so either.
After my Christmas visit to Florida I was very busy during and communication between was sparse. Thing were hard enough when just trying to find time to talk, but then this zinger came my way: One day Luke called to tell me his supervisor Cathy (who was also his age and married) had confessed she had feelings for him. He was sad because he didn't know how do deal with her and scared things would be awkward at work. I freaked out! I tried to handle the news like an adult, but I just felt like there was something off about the whole thing.
From then on, I was paranoid. I couldn't believe him when he'd say she was just innocently telling him her feelings. I know what women do; they get their way on the sly. This girl was smart, and into women's rights so she wasn't about to wait for the guy she wanted to make a move, she'd make it first if she had to.
For two months I lived in Florida before another stint of travel. I wanted to spend some time with him before things got busy again. I was looking forward to exploring the beaches and the seeing the sights. I was hoping for romance! However, instead I got two months of living in a crappy apartment with a random I found on craigslist and being paranoid because I felt like there was more to the Cathy story. There was a lot of good. I knew he loved me but the tension was still there. He worked a lot, I was alone a lot.
I left again. Things were hard. I visited for two weeks between gigs and it was pretty horrible. At this point there was so much tension between us and disappointment on my part that there was no avoiding that something needed to be changed. I couldn't make anymore excuses. Before I left we decided to go on a break. My stupid suggestion... The plan was we'd get our lives back on track spiritually and recenter ourselves before being together again when he returned to school (I was planning on settling down in the area and not traveling as far and wide). It seemed like a good plan.
During our break I talked to God. I really did become closer to Him. I presented my relationship before God and I felt like he was still leading me to stay in it. During this time God led me to forgive Cathy for her stupidity and inappropriate forwardness which caused me so much paranoia. He also led me to forgive Luke for being stupid enough to leave the door open wide enough for someone to be comfortable enough to say something like that. I also let go of my paranoia. A while back I had started a list of "fishy" things that I thought could be possible pieces of evidence of infidelity. During this time I deleted it. I really let go and I told God "I'm paranoid. I don't know what's going on but I feel like there might be something more than just a friendship between them. Something just doesn't seem right God. Please reveal it to me. But until that time you reveal it let me be happy." I really let go.
If I could do it differently, I would have broken up with him right after Christmas when things started going south. I think that would have been the wake up call he needed to see that he was headed down a bad path, but I stuck to it. I loved him! Maybe it was for the best that we stayed together through all this. I don't know yet.
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