the spiral path 4
daddy issues, the descent, blonde ben, goodbye (again)
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I realize I already told you that the relationship ended. But I didn’t tell you all the pieces of how it fell apart.
Memory is not chronological. The story is not linear. It is, you guessed it, a spiral. Coming around and back, around and back.
In May of 2022, when my ex told me he had a crush on his coach, I did not feel threatened by her. I thought it was pathetic of him, clearly a product of wounding. She lived on the other side of the country. They had never met in person. She has two kids – one is a teenager. I was more worried about opening our relationship up, and his desire to see other people, in general.
Our relationship actually got a little better for a moment after this happened. Though it was hard to hear he might want to be with other people, something was changing in him. He was becoming more honest, authentic. And I liked that.
And, at this time, our sex got really kinky.
* * * omitted erotic confessions * * *
But when we were in the car, driving home 6 hours from visiting my family in Southern California in June, I suggested that I work with the coach, too. I thought she was a professional, and would not entertain his affections. And I thought it would be a profound form of shadow work, for both of us.
I think I was also testing him by making this suggestion.
His body became rigid. He stuttered a bit, and said, “Well, I don’t know if she would be comfortable with that. I don’t know how she feels about me.”
I don’t know exactly what I said. But I remember screaming, thrashing my body, and kicking and hitting the dashboard so hard I thought I would set off the airbag. I felt violated - what did he mean he didn’t know how she felt about him? She was his coach. It shouldn’t be a question.
I demanded that he clarify the nature of their relationship and her feelings for him.
It was the longest drive home in my life.
I never asked him to stop working with her. I knew that he would just be doing it to make me happy. If he were to stop working with her, I wanted it to be his choice.
But a couple of days later I stood at the door of our bedroom and eavesdropped on his call with her. It reminds me of when I was little and I would listen through the walls to hear what my parents were saying when they were fighting. Listening to see if Dad was going to leave again.
I heard him beat around the bush and not actually ask her straightforwardly - how do you feel about me? But he did say, “I just know my girlfriend would be really upset if she saw our text messages.”
So naturally, being the Scorpio that I am, I went straight to the shared computer in our office, logged into his account and read all of their text messages.
It turns out I wasn’t the only one calling him Daddy. That was her nickname for him, and she was his Whore, his Muse. He sent her poems gushing with adoration and immature sexual innuendos. And she praised him with flames and bitten lip emojis. I scrolled through weeks of text message exchanges between them, and my blood rushed like cold rivers under my skin.
In a blinded fury, I grabbed my keys, went out to my car, started it, and drove down the street. I will never forget the way my voice ripped through the silence. It sounded as if someone died.
It was the relationship that died, right then and there, though I wouldn’t let go yet. Because it wasn’t just his stupid, little boy crush.
It was an affair.
And any illusion of trust we had between us, was broken.
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From June to the end of August, my ex and I try to work on things. We go to therapy, couples coaching. He denies the validity of his feelings for the coach, acknowledging how unrealistic any future is with her.
And I deny the validity of my attraction to the two new men in my life - Married Ben and Blonde Ben.
I technically met Blonde Ben before I met Married Ben. But they were in the same era of “making-friends-on-Tinder” and “maybe-we’re-opening-our-relationship.”
Blonde Ben was the opposite of Married Ben in some ways. He was, well, Blonde for one, though both had long flowing hair, like my ex.
Married Ben is older, practices tantra and seems to be tuned in spiritually, but he is from money, privilege - an ex frat-boy from Virginia who used to work for Facebook and makes over 500k a year.
You can tell Blonde Ben was raised in the Bay Area by hippie parents. He is a couple years younger than me. Liberal, social justice-oriented, somewhat gender queer. He’s a chef, a writer, a musician, storyteller, and a ritualist. He’s painfully self-aware of his status as a white male in today’s world and seems to be trying to compensate for that inherent flaw. He wears flowy blouses, accessorized with a floral scarf tied around his neck, and little star-shaped studs in his ears.
I’m really into him. Both of them. My ex says “he’s committed to working on it” while I feel him pull away, and my psyche fills in the empty space with him. Them. Ben. My Lovers. My Twins. The Ben’s.
I knew I was “rebounding.” It was like I had 1,000 invisible hands outstretched from my arms, my heart, my womb, my pussy. Grasping. Reaching. My body literally didn’t know how to survive without another body. I had been single, without a love-interest lined up, for maybe 6 months of my entire adult life. I am 31 years old at this time.
In some ways, it felt like because I “knew” what I was doing, then I should have been able to choose differently. That the awareness should have been enough to break the pattern, to choose myself.
But that is not always so. Especially when you’re a love addict.
A part of the spiral path is about choosing the descent sometimes. Knowing that what goes up must come down. Making a conscious choice to hit rock bottom. Choosing to take the poison, to learn things the hard way.
Sometimes we need to fuck up. We learn through the body. Through experience.
We are all saints. And we are all sinners.
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The first time we hung out, Blonde Ben and I took a hike in the hills between Oakland and Berkeley. And, we felt mostly like friends. I don’t think I had opened to the reality that my relationship was actually ending just yet, so I wasn’t really receptive, or open to his energy. I was guarded. Holding onto the fantasy of things getting better.
I did notice his beauty though. He was 6’3” and like a golden god. Legs for miles. His eyes shined green, skin was warm and glowing. He swung on a tree branch like Tarzan. He was the exact opposite of me in some ways - 5’3” with dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin, and curves for days.
When we meet up a second time near Lake Merritt, it feels like I am more aware of the possibility that my relationship is ending. Or I at least know that I need co-regulation - the absence of my ex tolls on my body - and I am open to more physical affection with him. Married Ben and I are hanging out during this time, too.
He brings us a picnic blanket and snacks - a vegan chocolate pudding and strawberries, with iced green tea in jars.
We talk about art. We are passionate about storytelling and music in a similar way. He is a Gemini, and my Mars is in Gemini. Gemini’s are weavers of words. We mirror this in each other, and our conversations are mutable, erratic, exciting. We talk about spending creative time together, writing poetry or singing. He has a gorgeous baritone voice.
There is a part of me that really conflates creative energy with sexual energy, feels them as the same thing really. My ex and I had a band together. Which was one of the hardest parts of our relationship to let go. And I feel this spark my attraction to him.
We moan and lick spoons and laugh together. I take a huge hit of the dopamine from being close to him. I feel happy, high.
It’s an average Bay Area day, where the fog suddenly rolls in and it becomes cold out of nowhere. He asks if we can cuddle and get closer.
His limbs are so long. He wraps them around me like a spider and I feel safe under the weight of his arms and legs. I close my eyes and surrender to my breath. It feels good to be held.
He asks me if we can look into each other’s eyes and I say yes, but suddenly I’m encountered by the penetration of his gaze. His eyes are icy, piercing. I have a hard time maintaining eye contact, relaxing. My body tenses up. He feels steady. Present. My pulse quickens. I feel a little nervous, but I like the sensation. Like butterflies.
He notices my body language. He suggests we take deep breaths together. ***Omitted minor erotic details***
We break the eye contact and bury our faces in each other’s necks and hair. But it never goes farther than a full body embrace. We lay there for some time, quiet, intertwined with each other, in the chill of a cool lake breeze.
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Come September, my ex and I have broken up, but it doesn’t seem like he is leaving me for her yet. It doesn’t seem like he is replacing me. It feels like he is choosing himself, like he told me on the couch at his friend’s house.
I actually cheated on my first boyfriend. I knew how sometimes an affair can just bring us closer to ourselves.
We continue to sleep in the same bed though we are no longer together. It’s hard to let go completely. I have plans to attend to help assist an embodiment retreat in Portugal with my mentor. He is planning on moving out when I get back from my trip.
Things aren’t perfect between us, but it feels like we might be able to maintain some sort of connection.
We also continue to have sex. ***Omitted minor erotic details*** It feels like we’re watching a car crash about to happen.
My flight gets all fucked up the day I’m supposed to leave for Portugal, and I make sudden adjustments to my travel plans. I have almost no emotional response. It’s as if my nervous system is completely fried and can’t react to anything anymore.
But I ask my ex to drive me to the airport, so that I don’t have to figure out how to get there. He says yes.
The drive is surreal, another goodbye, in a string of goodbyes. We spent a lot of time at airports in our relationship. We were long-distance for the first 1.5 years we were together, he in Oakland and I in LA. There were many joyful embraces, and tearful departures at the curb of the terminal.
He helps me take my luggage out, we kiss each other goodbye, tell each other we love each other, and then I sob in the airport on the phone to my mom until boarding, telling her yes it’s done, it’s really done.
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