I have been wanting to send my ex boy a copy of my book. After all, it is mostly about him, he was key in encouraging me to put my writing out into the world: It exists in no small part because of and for him.
It is a selfish thing, though, this desire. It is probably kinder of me to leave him alone. But I am often not kind. My wanting to share it is about… well, in truth, I’m not even really sure what it’s about.
“This, sweetheart, is for you” or “Thank you” or “It’s us, baby” or “You made this possible” or any number of things that I can’t quite nail down, but which involve knocking on a door that is firmly closed. I am not wanting to reopen it, I am wanting to drop it on his doorstep and flee. I don’t even want to hide around the corner to watch him pick it up, puzzled and confused. I will be far away by then.
We aren’t in touch any more and I don’t know how receiving such a thing will hit him. It has been a long while, but I imagine that he won’t receive it easily, that opening such a package from me, being reminded of all of these intimacies we shared, knowing that I thought to send it to him, reading a little note from me, much less reading the content would not be a gentle sweetness for him.
Part of that is pure ego, of course. It could be that he smiles quietly, thinks ‘Good for you’, slots the book into his bookshelf, and then goes about his day. But I don’t believe that. He won’t. I know he won’t. He will twist and pace and his stomach will knot and he will feel… disturbed, disquiet, turmoil, the uncomfortable pull on old wounds.
It would be kinder, probably, not to send it. The book has been out 6 months. I haven’t done it yet. But I can’t seem to let go of the desire to do so.
28 comments
I think many people can relate to this.
I often completely obliterate people whom I’ve has some closeness with from my life, not because I’m angry but simply to keep me from sharing harbored emotion. I look at it as doing them the ultimate kindness.
*nod* Yes.
I am really bad at it, at cutting people off, but have been with partners who were really good at it. They cut the ties like chopping off a limb, and were gone, for real. Mostly, as you said, it’s not anger: it’s hurt and self (or mutual) protection.
I think they are stronger than me for that because I often think it’s the right thing to do (for both of us), but I’m still not one who can do it.
Ferns
I’ve only had one relationship (the latest one) that didn’t end in completely stopping communication. I think there were times it was painful for both of us keeping in touch, but I also think it was good for both of us.
That’s a good outcome.
The three partners I said ‘I love you’ to are still in my life in some capacity (including my first love from my teens). I let so very few people in, so once they are in, they tend to have a place there forever.
Ferns
Send it! You know that is what you want to do.
The other side of that is then wondering how he received it….another dilemma! ;) Can you live with the unknowing of that?
~ Vista
I DO want to do it, yes *smile*.
And yes, I am (oddly) totally fine with not knowing how it was received. My desire is in *sending it* more than anything else.
Ferns
It sounds like you need to send it to have final closure on a relationship you long thought closed. Sometimes our subconsciousness doesn’t get the message that “yes, we had closure on that…no, really, we did!”.
It’s going to keep tickling that part of your brain until you do it. So do it in the name of final closure and be done with it.
Then it (and he) can be out of your mind for good.
I will have a think about this: my knee jerk reaction is to say ‘nope’.
I feel like I well and truly had closure with this final heartbreaking act (look how long ago that was, my god!). Seriously, I feel like it’s closed.
But there is obviously a ‘reaching out’ thing going on here and my motivation for it is cloudy. I feel as if the ‘why’ has to be crystal clear if I’m going to do it, and I can’t quite get there and THAT’S why I’m dithering. I don’t quite know WHY I want to do it.
Maybe I just want to reiterate the impact he had on me in some solid way, so he can feel the weight of it, and *know* it.
Also, honestly, he will never be out of my mind for good. Not really. My exes live in special heavy and ornately decorated drawers in there, to be opened on special occasions and revelled in.
Ferns
Geez, I only just realized how long I’ve been following this blog! O__O I started when you were still with him and the heartbreak-post is already that old.
Time, whew, crazy shit.
I KNOW!!! *whoosh* Gone!
Ferns
Send it and be damned or is it publish and be damned ?
Anyway you know you want to
Go on dooooooooooooooooooooo it
doooooooooooooooooo it
Coug (dressed in a rather fetching Devil costume)
Sent Via your shoulder
I published already!!
“Coug (dressed in a rather fetching Devil costume)
Sent Via your shoulder”
*laugh* Hey you are really light up there, have you lost weight? :P
Ferns
Hmm, I wouldn’t. Shrug
I suspect you aren’t the only one.
Ferns
I would send it. I agree w/ the other poster that said it’s a form of closure. I also think that he should have a copy of it just because a lot of the writing is about him. I would want to read something that was about me.
How he reacts, what he does…well, that ball is in his court. Besides he may really enjoy reading about those memories from your perspective, perhaps not. If not, he does have the choice of just shelving the book or not keeping it at all.
You’re right of course that ‘what he does with it is up to him’, and your thoughts on it are useful for me because the reaction I imagine it might elicit from him IS pure ego.
Truth is of course that I don’t know him any more, and he might receive it as an oddity and an irrelevance (this thought hurts my heart even as I know it’s true).
I appreciate your perspective, thank you.
Ferns
Yes, for to him receive it as odd and irrelevant would hurt a lot…I’ve always wondered how someone that can be the world to us for a period of time, becomes a stranger…
You’re welcome, Ferns… :)
I can only speak for myself here, but were I to receive such a thing from a former relationship that I was no longer communicating with I think I know how I would feel.
First, there would be a wistful looking back on all the lovely times, and the jogging of those memories would make me smile.
Then there would be the happiness in knowing that if nothing else, I remain in your heart and thoughts. After all, why else would you have sent it? That means that I counted for something in your life. I came, I saw, I left my mark.
I would read myself into your writings and look for all those places where I could say: “Yeah, I remember that. This one is about me” and ego might rear it’s ugly head a bit.
Finally, there would be a twinge of regret. Even if I were perfectly ensconced in a happy relationship. I would think about “what if” and I suppose there might even be a whiff of jealousy because I was obviously not the last one you were with.
I don’t know if I would decide to start communicating again, but I would certainly revisit those little cracks that remain in my heart and know that just as I remain in your thoughts and heart, you do in mine.
That sounds like a sweetness and I would like it to be something like that, but in my mind, I risk it being something like Fatal outlined below.
And I know that risking that is a selfishness.
Ferns
Am I the first one advising you against sending it?
If he is still interested in you (whatever form that interest takes, maybe just curiosity about what the ex is doing … I have that about all my exes even though there aren’t feelings left) … he already knows about the book. You haven’t kept it a secret or anything. Your blog is public and you’re on fetlife. If he’s interested, he’s picked up a copy. And he knows it’s about him. He knows the stories and the stories behind the stories. I don’t think you need to actually present it to him.
But we all know you’re gonna send it anyways, right? ;)
I’m also curious if he knows of your blog. If so, then I say he knows about it. Or at the very least, has the means to know about it.
I can relate to your urge to share it with him, but I would consider if I knew his current relationship status. If he were still with someone else, I would respect the relationship and let him find his own way to the book. This situation would have the potential to be easily misinterpreted.
I’m the sort who would poke a dead bug to make sure it’s dead. And I don’t like letting go of people in my world. I, like you, don’t let many into the inner circle… but if I’m not the one who encouraged a ‘firmly closed’ door, I wouldn’t be the one to knock on it either. Is it a pride thing? I don’t’ know. I just know I’m far more into people wanting me at the door in the first place.
@Sweets: I don’t think he reads anything of mine anymore. There’s no way to be sure, but I feel like he wouldn’t.
I’m not sure of his relationship status though I’m assuming that things are solid with the woman he was with after me. I don’t at all imagine that he is pining away and lonely and unhappy – if I thought that, then this wouldn’t even be a thing I would consider.
“I wouldn’t be the one to knock on it either. Is it a pride thing? I don’t’ know. I just know I’m far more into people wanting me at the door in the first place.”
Ahhh… interesting.
I’m the sort who figures out what I want, then I evaluate the cost of it (for me and for anyone else), and I try to be fearless in going after it if I decide the cost is worth it. I often fail at the ‘being fearless’ part, but I try.
For me, pride isn’t a consideration here and nor is ‘him wanting me there’ since the contact is glancing at best. I do see where you are coming from in both though.
Thanks for giving me more to think about.
Ferns
@Sprinkles: I think Jake up there was espousing a ‘no’ without actually giving the advice *smile*.
“If he is still interested in you (whatever form that interest takes, maybe just curiosity about what the ex is doing … I have that about all my exes even though there aren’t feelings left) … he already knows about the book.”
I think when he cut me off, he did it cleanly and completely, so I don’t think he reads my blog, knows about the book, or has been on Fetlife since we split up.
And I think the desire comes less from telling him about it or the content of it and more about me acknowledging his part in it. I’m still a bit unclear on that.
I think I am influenced by the fact that he said his next book would be dedicated to me. It won’t be, I know that, but for me it would be incredibly sweet if he sent me a copy of it with a note just to say ‘you were there at the beginning…’.
“But we all know you’re gonna send it anyways, right? ;)”
*laugh* Maybe. But if I wasn’t tossing it over in my head, I’d have done it already.
Ferns
Having been in both your and your ex’s position, I have mixed feelings (not that *my* feelings matter in the least).
But… I feel like sending the book to your ex would have a negative effect on him if he is still in that relationship with that person he was with way back when you sent him that heartfelt letter. I know whenever a certain ex of mine traipses back into my life (because the relationship was so intense, so intimate, and so heartbreaking at the end), I cannot breathe at the sight and sound of him, and for weeks afterward, I feel a little lost and a little unsure about everything.
But… having been in your place… god, do I know the urge, the desire, to share with them, to remind them of me and of us. To let them know that I’m still out here, and that they had such an impact and I am thankful for having had a piece of them.
Meh.
Hope you’re well.
xoxo
@Fatal: I think you hit both sides right on the head.
The reaction you describe is exactly what I fear it might be like for him, and that would undo any goodness that might have been in my intent.
And your description of the urge to do it is spot on, even if I’m really not quite sure WHY I want to do that.
I do wonder if it’s partly because there are so few people in my ‘real life’ that I can tell (I’ve told one person. ONE PERSON!) and even fewer who will ‘get it’. Even if I got nothing back (I wouldn’t), I *know* that he would SO ‘get it’.
More to think about.
Thanks so much for your input.
Ferns
I can understand the desire to share your book with him, it’s completion and publication must be bitter sweet as there’s so much of the both of you in there. I guess, once a relationship is over, it’s tough for both parties to be reminded of intimacies shared, memories created….part of healing after a split is putting those memories in a box until you feel it’s safe to open and remember with a degree of fondness…..sending him the book would force that box open, so I think you did the right thing not sending it
Flip x
*smile* Well, I haven’t sent it *yet* anyway.
Enough time has passed that his receiving it would not be ripping open a fresh and tender wound, but yes, I share your concern about any negative impact it *might* have. I have no way of knowing. I appreciate your perspective.
Ferns