Free At Last. Again.

Recovering Alcoholic was fired from his job last week, and I lost interest in sleeping with him.  The two weren't related at all except for being unfortunately timed in the dark days of late November in Seattle.  I had been planning on transitioning the physical intimacy out of our relationship, and then he told me he lost his job.  Fuck.  I felt a sense of responsibility to a man who I specifically never wanted to be responsible for, an absurd obligation to have sex with him to make him happier.

I was busy and he was busy and our schedules didn't align until yesterday.  He texted me and said he wanted to spend the night.  I reluctantly agreed.  Then he sent the following text:

"Get me whiskey.  I am over it tonight."

"Um," I replied, "that's a joke, right?"

"Nope.  Too much.  I need a break.  Been smoking too.  Being sober doesn't help.  Same mistakes, more hurt.  Not worth it."

Any microspore of sexual desire I had left, any miniscule shred of wanting to be intimate with him completely dissipated, and I became afraid.  He was, for the first time since I'd known him, having a breakdown.

I called him immediately.  "Hey, I feel really bad and I want to be supportive, but you need to calm down.  I don't think that it's a good idea for you to come over."

"So we can't just hang out and have sex?"

"No.  You're not in your right state of mind.  I don't feel comfortable in this situation. I think we should meet in a public place...  Let's get tea."

He sighed, apologized, and agreed.

Let me say, first of all, that this man was given a shitty lot in life.  No one asks to be born into an abusive family, to have to relive a childhood of trauma in your mind daily and go to therapy just to try and function as a normal human being with a job and friendships and a sense of self-worth.  Considering the horrible upbringing he had, I think he's accomplished a lot.

I listened to him pour over his emotions for half an hour.  He slept with a coworker, he said, and he got attached to her.  He knew she was in an open relationship, but he stupidly thought it would develop into something more.  She called it off, wrote "we're just not physically compatible" in an email, and he became distracted at work, wasn't doing his job, and got fired.

"I'm not good at anything.  I should just move back to the Midwest and drink all day and have shitty sex with a woman I don't love and have kids that I don't care about and beat my wife...  Everyone hates me."

And this, blog readers who work outside of medicine or mental health, is a classic example of borderline personality disorder.

"I want to be clear," I said, "I don't hate you.  I want to be your friend, and I want to be supportive, but this relationship is going to change.  We shouldn't be having sex."

"Yeah, that's fine" he replied.  "I'm so fucked up with sex, I shouldn't be having sex either."

Great!  Everyone was in agreement.

I continued, "I'll be around if you need someone to talk to, but it won't be as much as before.  I'm going to need a lot more space."

He said he got it.

I officially ended the relationship I was never in.