Leavetaking – Part I

“You won’t leave until you can’t stay.”

My counselor used to say this to me while I was going through my broken engagement. I never realized it until last summer, but it’s true that I will not leave a situation until I am absolutely broken and beaten down enough that I cannot bear up under the circumstances any longer.

“You won’t leave until you can’t stay.”

I may have finally gotten to that place with Bryan.
(And there was much cheering from the peanut gallery.)

It takes a lot for someone to spark my attention, gain my trust and earn my respect. But once they do, I’m all in. Even when my ex-fiance told me I was so “Type A” I would likely drive to him to have an affair, I continued to love him and progress toward our marriage. I have found that I am faithful and loyal, almost to a fault.

“You won’t leave until you can’t stay.”

Bryan and I have stayed in touch in the months since our breakup. He called me when he broke his arm mountain biking in Utah, sent me beautiful photos from a hynotherapy course in Sedona, Arizona, and he kept up with me during my London trip, even going so far as to talk about how he’d like to take me back to London someday; show me his old neighborhood and what his life was like there.

I hadn’t physically seen him in three weeks or had a real conversation with him in two weeks when I sent Bryan a “Good morning!” text message last Wednesday. He just bought a new property in a nearby town and had mentioned wanting to take me to see it. I’d felt like we were headed toward rekindling our romance and reached out Wednesday morning with the intent of asking if he’d like to road trip there during the long holiday weekend. But I didn’t hear back from him all day. And when he did finally reply, it wasn’t at all the conversation I expected to have.

Hi there

Hey Bryan! Life is good, I presume?

Always.
Had an interesting talk with my buddy Russ last night…

Really?
Want to talk about your talk?

You tell me

…?
I would be interested to hear if you want to share

I think you know more than I.
It was about a talk that you had with him

Ah that. How’d it go?

A bit upsetting

I’m sorry

You keep saying that
…and then doing things to reinforce it

I had that conversation with Russ in March or April

After the one with Toby
& Chris
& Marcia
& my sister
& before Andie

Bryan’s texts came in such rapid succession that his anger was unmistakable. I had only seen Bryan this angry one other time – when he confronted me about sending a Facebook message to his sister; an event I thought we had already addressed. Even over text messaging, I felt my blood pressure rising in response to the hatred I read in his words. “You tell me.”

I have known for a while that Bryan is a private person. When he took me to Cirque du Soleil for Valentine’s Day, I posted a photo of us together on Facebook. He promptly untagged himself. Hurt, I’d asked why. He explained that a coworker had asked him to go, and he’d turned them down to take me. Bryan said he didn’t want to upset his coworker, so he didn’t want me posting photos of us at the event. Considering I was his Valentine’s date, and we’d been dating for three months by that time, this didn’t make sense to me, but I didn’t push it.

Similarly, Bryan asked me not to post any photos from our sailing trip together, stating that he didn’t want to make his friends jealous of all his travel adventures. But that same logic apparently didn’t apply to his trips to Argentina, Colombia or Canada with friends over the same time period. It would seem his requirement for privacy is specific to matters of the heart.

None of Bryan’s friends knew we were dating until the eve of our sailing trip in March – four months into the relationship – and, even then, I was the one who Toby approached to probe deeper. Toby walked me to my car one evening after bible study when Bryan was out of town. Once at my car, he asked, “So what’s the deal with you and Bryan? Are you guys dating or what?” I remember laughing and replying, “Great question! I wish I knew the answer!”

Chris was a friend who’d stopped by Bryan’s house once early in our relationship. I was still getting to know Bryan and hadn’t met many of his friends at that point, so – like I think many women would do – I’d tilted my head to the side and asked with a wink and a smile, “So how long have you known Bryan? Is he a good guy?” Apparently Chris had told him about it later and thought it was weird that I’d asked. I thought it was weird that he thought it was weird.

I’m an open book. I always have been. In high school, my choir director said to me, “You’re the real deal. With you, what you see is what you get.” Bryan knew this about me from day one. On our very first date, I told Bryan that I’m still a virgin. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I have nothing to hide. I am who I am.

So when Marcia and Andie – two female friends of Bryan’s – asked me what was going on with us, I was happy to tell them. We were like little girls at a slumber party, talking about the boys we have crushes on. It was a compliment to Bryan that we talked about him. But he obviously didn’t see it that way.

So what I am hearing is you saying all my friends are calling and asking you for all this...?

Toby asked. He approached me.

Just like Russ did

He’s the one who suggested I talk to Russ.
Marcia asked me.
Andie asked me.
I was the one to reach out to your sister, but I owned that.

Uhhh ok

I sensed the downward spiral starting. Bryan was irate and not accepting or even absorbing anything I was saying, so I asked:

Would you rather talk about this on the phone?
Or are you too upset to talk?

I received no response.

Or are you finished talking?

His reply was immediate:

I would hate for that to be a topic of future conversations behind my back.

Shaking my head – heart in my throat – I dialed his number and waited for the phone to ring.