It occurred to me the other day after writing the post on Mother’s Day, that in it I talked about my ex and that I have mentioned him more than once when I’ve talked about relationships. I don’t think about him at all in my day to day life, when I’m just living my life with my girls, but when I sit down to write here, especially when I want to write about relationships and all that comes along with that, it is inevitable that my thoughts will sometimes go to him and to the life that we shared for a time ten years ago.
I always find it odd when people whitewash a previous relationship and make it all bad, a terrible time that they regret wholeheartedly. I don’t do that, the relationship I had was good until it was bad and bad sometimes amongst the good. I can, hand on heart, say that it was the wrong relationship for me, and indeed he was the wrong man for me, but I want to look back, when I occasionally do, fondly. Because that’s surely better, isn’t it? J is is the same, I don’t mind at all if he mentions his ex, she was a vegetarian funnily enough, and as we begin to go meat free, he has mentioned her a lot, telling me what she found was good to eat, how she cooked certain things and it’s fine, she was a huge part of his life for a long time and she shaped him, in part, to who he is now. It would feel wholly wrong if he never mentioned her at all.
We met very young, just out of our teens, and we were friends for a long time. I used to go back to his flat after we went clubbing and I’d sleep there, platonically and we’d have dinner a couple of nights a week. Mates. I dated a friend of his for a while, that was , retrospectively, awkward but hey, we were young. We nearly became more than friends a couple of times and then he embarked on a long relationship with someone else and we drifted apart, naturally and with little animosity. Nothing was said even, it just happened.
Then one night, I met him out unexpectedly. He was single, as was I and that was largely that. The next day, a Sunday, he picked me up and we went to his auntie’s house for lunch, which was bizarre but strangely nice, I still remember their kitchen and their funny yappy dogs. We moved in together after a little while, and then four or so years later we split up.
He contacted me once, a few years ago, to tell me that I should have worked harder at the end of our relationship and that if I had, we might still be together. He was wrong. But it struck me then, that perhaps, I did mean more to him than I thought I did at the time. And maybe he regrets things. We don’t speak now, a friend of his watches my instastories sometimes and that amuses me, my little life maybe being relayed back but other than that, it’s done.
He was, though, the story of my twenties. And I don’t think that I should erase him from my brain and from my memories because nothing that he did hurts me anymore or even invokes any sort of reaction. It’s just history. Factual history.
J and I had a row last night, about things that I can’t go into here, but all was quickly well and I am so thankful for him. For this frustrating, kind, funny man who I spend my life with. Our relationship isn’t perfect, but I don’t find myself whispering to his sleeping back in the dark because I’m too scared to say it out loud, I don’t find myself second best to almost everyone, taken for granted at every turn.
So by talking about my ex, it doesn’t mean that I’m harbouring any feelings for him, hoping that he reads here and well, I don’t know really. I don’t. I hope that he’s happy, of course, and I hope that the person he’s with now fulfils him in a way that I didn’t and that they are both happy.
Cos I am.
Fairy Lights and Fear 