During a recent visit with my doctor, she inquired about my general stress levels, and we spoke a little about relationship related woes.  I mentioned that Rock doesn’t make contact very much anymore, but he does seem to surface every couple of weeks or so.  He’s struggling.  He wants to rewind time and have (another) do-over.  I told her that I’ve chosen to remain friends and be kind.  She says that it’s not my job to help him, and that any counselor or therapist would say the same.  She also says that sometimes it’s just too difficult to remain friends.  I understand this.

Most recently he’s acknowledged that he has too much time on his hands and left to his own devices, he hasn’t been making the best choices with regard to filling his time, so he asked if he can come over and work on the property.  He wants to hack away at the brush and brambles and make paths through the forested areas.  It gives him something to do that gives him a physical outlet, it makes him feel good for doing a good deed for another, and it gives him a sense of accomplishment when he sees the results of his labor.  I don’t mind, in general, but I take this with a grain of salt.  Invariably, he will want to interact more, and if I don’t respond in accordance with his hopes, he will get upset and leave.  I may or may not hear from him again.  For a couple of weeks, anyway.  This seems to be the pattern so far, from the beginning of the first breakup last September.  A line is drawn, the line gets blurred.  The line is re-established, and again erodes.

So he’s come over a few days this week, and has indeed hacked down a terrific amount of brush and brambles.  I invited him to stay for dinner one night, and he was very cordial.  Today he called and asked if I wanted him to bring burgers for the kids, but I declined — we had errands and wouldn’t be home right away.  When we got home, he was out back with the machete, hacking away.  He stopped and we talked for a few minutes and he asked about weekend plans.  I said that I’m working on plans, but don’t have anything solidified.  He said he didn’t have anything to do and would like to go to the movies or hang out or do something, if we had time and if we wanted to be with him.  I don’t remember how he worded it, but it felt like one of those word traps in which the only answer that wouldn’t result in hurt feelings would be if I agreed and committed to do something, but I couldn’t rummage through the possible kind and non-committal phrases quickly enough and ended up saying that likely we’ll be doing something Saturday, but I don’t know about the rest of the weekend.  I don’t remember what he said after that, but he walked off, presumably into the trees, and the next thing I heard was the sound of his car driving away.

And that was the moment when I wanted to scream.  Because this is what he does.  He gets upset, feels hurt, angry, or who knows precisely what, but the response is the same.  He leaves in a spin.  Literally.  Not to mention, my 4 year old heard the car and went running toward it, so I had to shout and restrain him, which only added to the burst of cortisol that was already flooding my bloodstream.

I don’t mean to hurt him and I don’t want him to hurt.

I don’t want to make plans with him.  I’m not ready.  I don’t have the emotional energy to maintain the necessary vigilance with him and my children, concurrently.  Whatever emotional energy I do have, I have to focus on my children.  I also don’t want the line to become blurry again.  So I have no choice.  If he were able to stand up emotionally and honor the boundary, it would be another story, but it’s not.

My immediate reaction is visceral, and I want to scream.  I want to cry.  I want to sob and shout and scream and weep.  But I can’t.  My kids are here.  I have to swallow it all and hope that they don’t see or feel any of this.

Will he be back?  I don’t know.  Like my doctor says, I should just let it go.  Let it all go.  He’s a big boy.  He needs to find his own way.  I have to take care of myself and I have to take care of my kids.

But I still want to scream.

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Updated.  Lest I forget.  Which I always do.  He is an emotional vampire and I am an emotional sponge, the combination of which is toxic (to me).