The Love Files No.24 // The Borderliner
Imagine that! You get intimate with someone you basically just recently met, actually a lot more and a lot faster than you ever intended - because you believe in getting to know each other before getting sexually intimate.
Well, that in the end did not work out well due to strong chemistry or whatever and boom, it just happens. You end up having sex. The night started out great with good conversations, laughing a lot, drinking wine together and just having a good time. Cool beans, right! Who does not want that!
He is supposed to be happy about it because it is exactly what he wanted ever since the first time he first met you. But then something very awkward happens! You might expect that after sex all you wanna do is cuddle and enjoy the closeness after physically bonding. Right, that is what you would expect. But no, this is not what happens - instead he is going bat shit crazy and you get the feeling that the man in your bedroom is another man than the man who was just in your bed before with you.
So, the blaming game and devaluation game from his side starts and you have a full-blown drama after a physical act that should have actually brought you closer together - that is what you thought but the total opposite happens. He gets very personal, current politics come into the game and how that divides society into ‘them and us’. Afterwards he’s making it very personal and you are told ‘hey girl, you need therapy’ and then the continuation is as odd as everything that has happened in the bizarre minutes before.
There is a funk of jealousy because you have not really ended it with the man ,who causes you a lot of stress, yet even though this is also a ‘relationship’ leading nowhere and we were on the edge of having called it the end before. OK, here I understand him freaking out but I would have wished for some support after he had known that this ‘relationship’ has some very abusive forms. And no it does not stop here because this is something deeper than just this relationship and his and my current status quo. It is again where politics and cultural conflicts are involved - this is not just about relationships, it is about cultural clashes that are taking place in a microcosmos here. Now it is about cultural differences, history, religions. It is a total disaster.
Him going bat-shit crazy continues. First it gets worse before it gets better. Here I am, in my bed, naked and about to cry. I don’t want him to leave, I don’t want to feel rejected and abandoned - this is bringing up lots of my old issues and I start to suffer and feel that I am about to go bat-shit crazy as well. I can’t take it, it hurts my soul. I am in pain. I am so in pain, I can barely breathe.
He is noticing it for sure but he does not care at all, he’s cold as ice. Oh well, I guess that is what more of a decade of military service in a high-conflict area does to you. We are at where PTSD kicks in. Oh, only to make everything even worse. Even worse than how horrible it already is. So much unresolved trauma. And there is lots of trauma involved because of what my country had done to his ancestors and family and after all the atrocities a new country was established that is constantly under attack. The country where he is from. This conflict between us is about much more than just ‘being between us’ - it’s a conflict touching family trauma and collective trauma and survivor’s guilt. It’s an untold story of trauma and now enfolding as drama between two people who most probably were not ready for whatever happened in this bizarre and painful night. Triggers, there were lots of triggers. For him. For me.
So here is the borderline experience. From appreciation and closeness he went into full-blown distance and humiliation. That is what intimacy did. I was in utter shock. I did not understand what is going on. I was triggered whenever he said he’s leaving and that he’s never coming back. I was so triggered. I tried talking to him but my mind was not clear and I was led by emotions that came up through these triggers. It was a full-blown catastrophe for me. Before he left he was a little less distant - I was in shock, I tried to get more of the ‘closeness’ we had before but he resisted and only wanted to get out. Apparently it felt like a trap so getting out was the only option.
How will it unfold? I think everything got destroyed before it could even start to flourish and prosper. Maybe we were naive, too fast, too intense. What should I say? I feel confused and very hurt. I gotta confess, as corny as it sounds, I had bit illusions. Maybe that is the biggest problems, once you have big illusions and expectations, it’ll never work out the way you wished with personal relationships. Very corny, I know. But I already saw a doorbell sign in my head with our Polish last names. I know, totally naive and stupid of me but well, I am just a human being - a very sensitive one - and we thrive on hope.
Was it supposed to be another lesson? A lesson for him and for me to resolve old issues? Was it faith that this happened and we both got so screwed up? Was it a message from the Universe? Will we never speak again and just leave it like it is - as ugly as it is? I am always one seeking closure but very often we won’t get closure with another person because the other one is apparently not seeking it. Closure sounds so high-brow in this case considering we were not even at a stage where ‘closure’ should be a topic. But yes, you always meet people in order to teach you lessons in life that you have not mastered yet. And I really believe that this conflict is about a lot more than just the personal conflict between us. It’s a conflict on a higher level and maybe that is exactly what makes it so much more complicated. I suffer. I suffered the next day a lot. I don’t know him well enough to know if he suffers or not. Probably not suffering regarding his military past and being so cold. Or probably suffering especially because of that. Who knows.
What will he do? Probably just moving on to someone else and never contacting me again. Strong chemistry actually is a red flag. It covers up everything else that is missing. I have always had the best sex with the most incompatible men and yes, there always was that super strong chemistry. But when it came to shared morals, values, goals - all of that was never existent. I am masochist, I am addicted to this strong chemistry even though I know how self-destructive it is and how destructive these relationships are. I tried the boring relationship without the strong chemistry but it made no difference, there I was left for a random stranger. Maybe in the end it makes no difference, when you are not compatible with someone then you are not. End of the story. Strong chemistry or not, not being compatible is just the major problem.
I am not denying my own borderline tendencies - but at least I am aware of them while I think that my significant other is not aware of his own borderline traits. I am still in pain but I will just move on. There is this saying that you always see each other twice in life. Let’s see.
