Hopefully The End Of It-
For a month my former crush talked to an attractive female client in the hallway every Tuesday for an hour.
I had no right to care. We’re both married. He wasn’t mine and had never been mine. I had no claim to him; yet it cut to the depths of my soul to see him talk to her the same way he used to talk to me when our crush was mutual.
For weeks I seethed in silence before things came crashing down.
I was having a legitimate meeting with a client, and he stood talking to this woman not three feet away from my office. I couldn’t escape, and the longer the meeting drug on the more convinced I was he was deliberately trying to get a reaction from me.
After all, the day before he had come in my office looking for something he knew was unlikely to be there, and last week he came to my office to tell me one of my clients had arrived. This was even though the secretary had already informed me. I felt like he was trying to gauge my reaction to his new found love affair. I hadn’t reacted yet, so he took it one step further and started flirting with her right in front of my office.
My anger went from simmering to boiling.
Finally, when the session was over and my emotions felt like they had been brutally scraped over hot coal, I’d had enough. I had worked myself up to such a fever pitch and could think of nothing but rage. I walked past him, looked him straight in the eyes and shot him the look of death.
I went back to my office feeling justified, got through one more meeting and cried all the way home.
I cried because I realized was he didn’t look defiant when I locked eyes with him. Instead he looked guilty. In fact, he looked like a dog caught digging a bed of prize petunias. He wasn’t trying to make me jealous like I had imagined; he had legitimately moved on and was maybe even sorry he hurt my feelings.
Once I made the realization, the fact that my adoration wasn’t returned came crashing down on me. He had not only moved on, but was pulling the same moves on a new woman, and didn’t care about me. They would have the same intense emotional relationship for awhile, but he’d never sleep with her because of his wife. History was repeating itself.
I spent a few days wondering endlessly what I should do. I asked a friend who knew the situation what her opinion was and talked to my sister. My friend advised me to write a nasty letter telling him how unprofessional it was to flirt at work and how inconsiderate he was of my feelings. My sister thought I should try to communicate with him over coffee, but I didn’t feel either way was the best way to handle it.
Three days later I wrote him an e-mail apologizing for my immature behavior. I shouldn’t have glared at him. He’s an adult who can do what he wants. Nothing ever happened between us. I had an all encompassing crush that never went anywhere and that was it. I know in my soul the feelings were mutual for a time, but because nothing ever came of it, I didn’t have any justification at all for my behavior. That’s why I decided write a short apology and pledge to be more professional in the future.
I’m pretty sure he understood why I reacted the way I did without my spelling it out. I’m obviously not the moral police and we did have a relationship of sorts for a time, so I doubt he would think the reaction was on behalf of his wife. Raw jealousy was my motivation and I think he knows that. I was jealous he wasn’t paying attention to me. That he was seemingly willing to cheat on his wife with a client, but not with me—even if I’m not entirely sure I wanted things to go that far.
He never did reply to my e-mail, but sought me out at work and I apologized in person. I said basically the same thing I had written out. “I’m sorry I glared at you the other day. It was wrong of me and I shouldn’t have done it.”
He accepted my apology, with a look in his eyes that showed me he cared. He knew exactly why I was upset. I almost think he would have told me he was sorry too, but I didn’t give him the opportunity. I was humiliated both that I had feelings and that I acted on them and the fight or flight response kicked in. “Maybe I was having a bad day, I don’t know.” I said just wanting to get it over with. “Again I apologize profusely.” I said and walked out.
It’s been two weeks and he has stopped talking to the new lady in the hallway. I have no idea if he is seeing her outside of work, but at least this new relationship is no longer right in front of me. I didn’t explicitly point it out to him that I wanted him to stop, but I got what I wanted. I wish I was happy about it, but I don’t know that I am.
It’s just that he has become a comforting thought for far too long and even now it’s hard not to think about him when life gets hard. Whenever the world comes crashing down on me, I think of him and my problems retreat to the back burner. When my son does badly in school, I think of him. If I have a difficult day, the thought of this other man I never speak to anymore gives me comfort. When I had a miscarriage, he was there in my mind to whisk me away. He’s a fantasy, not a reality, and I’ve been using him as a crutch for far too long.
I hope this is the end of it and I can move on.
Pieces of Me 