Great weekend. Apple picking, my brother got engaged, made the Remix a key for the pad--ok, so the key didn't fit, but it was good anyway. The Remix and I spent one of those largely perfect weekends together again, doing couple stuff, going out to eat, staying in bed an extra hour in the morning, the usual. One little hiccup, though. Totally my fault, and totally preventable.
So we're talking, our normal meta-relationship sort of talk, and we stumble on the always lovely topic of exes. If you read the archives here, you can see how perfectly I pull a Chasing Amy on these things, so you can imagine how this went. She revealed a completely run of the mill and unsalacious to the point of being ordinary detail from her own history, and I flipped out, as usual.
OK, not totally "as usual." I opened my mouth before my brain caught up, and mistakenly lead her to believe that I was judging her past, well, judgments. Even as I was doing it, consciously trying to make her feel bad so that I could switch my focus off of my own problem and onto hers, I knew I was fucking it up. See, here's the thing. There's always a thing. I don't care, really. I don't care about who she's slept with, who she's been in love with--she's doing both with me now, and the hell with the past. I have my own history, and just like her I'll own the good decisions and the possible mistakes without apologizing. The sex isn't the issue.
What killed me, and what I was thankfully able to explain to her the next morning, before any lasting damage was done, is much more complicated than sex. See, when we did this the first time, sex was important to her. Not in the "I'm saving myself for marriage," holier-than-thou way, just a very poignant and emotional part of the relationship. When we were talking about this Friday night, what set me off was her explaining that sex wasn't as important to her as it was, that it wasn't such a big deal. I tend to agree with her, but. But, but, but, but, but...
What makes me mad, and sad, and more than a little guilty is knowing that I had a part in that. I helped take something that was important to her, and devalue it to the point that it became no big deal. I didn't do it alone, and I didn't do it completely, but I broke her heart, and put her in a position where it couldn't be that important.
Now, more clarification. I don't want her to be more innocent or more virginal. I don't want her to feel bad about any of the decisions she's made--on the contrary, I hope she's got no regrets, and I hope those guys between the first time and this time made her happy when I couldn't. I wouldn't change anything, either. Whatever heartbreaks and true loves she had in between then and now have made this re-dating experiment a wild success. I wouldn't change any of it. I wouldn't change anything about her. I just wish it hadn't happened the way it did. I wish I hadn't been a part of whatever changed her in such a fundamental way, regardless of the fact that the change is nothing that I'd undo. I love her, and even five years after the fact, I just wish I'd been better than I was.
So I managed to explain all this to her, probably better than I did here. I couldn't stand for her to think that I was judging her--that would be both hypocritical and cruel, and not my style. And like I said, the original issue is no issue at all. I'm still learning, god help me, and I hope I can get it all figured out before I fuck up something I can't fix.
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