The Ugly, Painful Truth: Love, Insecurity and Psycho Bitches

I’m walking slightly lighter at the moment, but am still carrying quite a lot of unnecessary baggage with me. Things have been okay this week, but the cyclical surge of hormones has caused its usual mischief of worsening my low moods, increasing my sense of insecurity while decreasing my sense of rationality and making me feel incomprehensibly irritable to the point of mild violence. I jest not! Oh, to be a man sometimes.

A couple of years ago, Samson was involved with a girl at work, who wasn’t based in our department, but had some involvement in it. At the time I was with NY Guy and didn’t really know Samson that well, other than chit-chat we’d have in the kitchen or passing in the office. But my Aussie Mrs RV was working in the same team as him and was friends with him, and I remember her telling me that he really liked this girl. One of the few times I went out with my the workmates for drinks, me and Mrs RV ended up having a heart-to-heart in the corner and didn’t end up talking much with the others.We were sat in a quiet corner that was near the toilets, and I remember Samson walking past us on his way to them when he stopped and tried to convince us to come over and sit with them. Looking back since we’ve got together, I’ve always wondered if things might have been different if I had taken that opportunity and maybe got to know him a little better. I seem to remember this girl being there that evening and Mrs RV telling me that Samson liked her but that she had a boyfriend, who she was also living with. I remember feeling a bit reluctant to go over, but I don’t know why. In any case, it was a fleeting thought as me and Mrs RV were having a really good chat and never got around to going over to sit with the rest of them.

As it turned out, Samson did get involved with this girl, while she was still living with her boyfriend. I think I must have heard tell of this from Mrs RV or just from floating office gossip, because I remember being vaguely aware of their involvement and feeling slightly disapproving of it, I suppose. I never really thought badly of him as such because he didn’t seem like a player and I think I felt that since she was the one already attached and living with someone else (which in my mind made it worse), that she was more culpable in the situation. I never really found out what happened and I suppose I didn’t really care because it wasn’t my business and I had relationship problems of my own.

When several months or more went by and Shoulders told me that I had an admirer in the office (Mrs RV had returned home to Aus by this time), I had a vague inkling that it might be Samson, but wasn’t consciously thinking about it because NY Guy and I were still in touch, even though we weren’t really together. But subconsciously, I remember becoming more and more aware of him at work, more on the lookout in case he came down my end of the office, and bizarrely more aware of the girl that he had been involved in. I didn’t know her to say hello to, only knew her face and name and vague job title, and only saw her very occasionally, say in the meeting room near the communal kitchen or in the canteen. But I suppose the more interested I became in Samson, the more interested I became in her.

When I like someone, I don’t actively try to find out about their ex-girlfriends or past relationship details. But if the information is there (e.g. NY Guy had a photo of him and his ex up on his MySpace page when we first started talking and for a while after we first got together) then I will analyse it. I suppose it’s information I use to gain a sense of who they are, the kind of person they are attracted to and what they are like in relationships. Admittedly, I also use it to know what I’m up against, to give myself a petty way of making myself feel better by convincing myself I’m prettier or nicer than her. I can’t explain my insecurity about this, but I’ve never been good with being able to deal with a person’s most recent or significant past relationship. I’ve never liked feeling that I was a second choice or the thought of being compared with someone else, which inevitably happens, even if it is favourably so. I very nearly broke up with NY Guy after he'd told me how many people he'd slept with (admittedly only after I asked). It was a number I considered to be extremely high, at least relative to the people I know and in terms of what I could cope with accepting. I know that's my problem, and I admit it was a hard thing to accept because of my own insecurities. I'm just not good with people's relationship histories.

I wish I could be, but I just don’t seem to have the self-confidence or security or whatever other character traits it takes to feel like, “If you loved her, then she must be a cool person.” I just want to demonise ex-flames, probably because it makes me feel better. Unless the person is expressing negative views about his ex, I feel there must still be some feeling there, even though I know that’s not how it works and that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. I don’t know if it’s something I got used to with The Ex. He was slightly irrational with anyone he knew I had liked in the past or had been out with. To be honest, he was pretty irrational with any male I was in contact with unless they were family or one of his friends (and even then, still slightly guarded). I suppose I started to see that as normal, that the jealousy and possessiveness he would express (usually in an aggressive or negative way) was how people reacted when they were in a relationship and felt threatened. He also had a way of making negative comments about other girls in general as a sort of way of boosting me up, rather than just being positive about me. When we got back in touch a couple of years ago and we briefly got involved again, he told me he had been with another girl on and off for about a year. He explained the reasons for it ending by criticising her, I suppose in a twisted way of trying to reassure me she wasn’t a threat. But it just made me question why he had been with her at all. I reached a new low when I looked at his phone once while he was sleeping and read all the texts between the two of them. It was a weird compulsion that overtook me, but bizarrely I didn’t feel upset or jealous, more just curious. Although I never told him I did that, realising that I sisn't feel jealous or bothered by it was one of the many things that made it clear to me I no longer loved him or wanted to be with him.

When Samson and I got together, I did ask him about her at some point, because I wasn’t sure how much they had been involved or for how long, and how serious it might have been. He gave me minimal information, which was probably best, explaining that in the end she broke things off because she decided to give things a try with the guy she was living with. Not too long afterwards, he saw her somewhere at work with a guy that she seemed to be involved with, who wasn’t the boyfriend she was living with. I got the sense that he had really liked her and that he had been hurt when it ended and what had subsequently transpired, but he said that he’d never felt he could completely be himself because of the fact that she was still ‘with’ her boyfriend. I found it an odd situation and although it didn’t really make me think less of him, it did make me feel negatively about her, partly in Samson’s defence. By that time, I had already seen what a sweet, genuine guy he seemed to be and I was angry that she'd treated him that way. I got the feeling that he must have really felt something for her to overlook the fact she was pretty much cheating on her boyfriend with him. It made me think less of her, but also made her more of a threat in my eyes: if Samson was willing to be ‘with’ her in that situation, then his feelings for her must have been pretty strong.

One evening a few months ago, we were talking on our way back to Samson’s after work and he said he had something to tell me. The girl had emailed him to say that she was going to be working on our floor again and wanted to warn him because she didn’t want things to be awkward if they bumped into each other. I didn’t really think much of it, but was glad he told me. It turns out she is working at my end of the office, on the other side of it to me, but not far from some filing cabinets I have to use almost daily. I wasn’t completely sure she would even know who I was, but word travels so quickly in this place, that it would be unlikely she didn’t know, or at least wouldn’t do for long. I used to occasionally feel threatened by her, but usually only when I was feeling especially insecure and emotionally low. But somehow, the constant reminder of her by her literal, visual presence, seems to have made it worse. I worry about how I look and how I will be perceived. I wonder about what she thinks of me. I used to dislike the fact that Samson's friends in the office knew about his relationship with her. I feel threatened by the fact that she has a better job than me. I hate that Samson liked her first and that things ended on her terms. I occasionally worry that her knowing Samson is with someone else will cause jealousy on her part and reignite the feelings she had for him. I suppose my biggest fear is this would happen, she would tell him she wanted him back and he would gladly accept.

I used to have an unwritten rule for myself that I would never tell a man I loved him before he had said he loved me. My Mum has always drummed it into me that a lady should let the man do the chasing, because when a man is truly interested, he will chase relentlessly. I have only ever felt I loved two people and very nearly fell in love with a third. But even so, I still doubt I really experienced true reciprocated love for real. Samson has been my only exception to this rule. For months and months all he would ever say in terms of his feelings was that he “really liked” me or “really cared for” me. At first it was nice taking things slowly and I liked the fact that things were different to anything I’d ever experienced before. But after a while, my feelings for him because so strong that it was almost getting uncomfortable, similar to how it gets uncomfortable when I don’t express negative emotion and keep it inside. I realised that he had told me he "really liked" me, but had used those same words when he told me how he felt about her.

Initially, I didn’t mind, because I never really doubted that Samson felt strongly for me, even if he didn’t say it that often. I knew he cared because he showed me he did, in practical ways. He was extremely patient, never raised his voice, would keep me company when I was having a low day and didn’t want to go home. He did lots of little, some might think insignificant, things. Cumulatively, to me they added up to mean a whole lot. He didn’t let me down or put me down. He was considerate, thoughtful, caring, kind and loyal. Everything he did told me he really cared for, even loved me. Everything except the actual words. I knew that he had been hurt before and that to an extent he was cautious and guarded about his deepest emotions. But I thought that after we had been together for a little while, a year perhaps, that he might feel trusting and sure enough to be more expressive verbally. But it didn’t happen. Nothing in his actions changed to make me think he felt differently, but after a while I gradually started to question what his feelings were. I couldn't see how he felt about me was any different to how he might have felt about her. I much prefer that he shows me he loves me but doesn’t say it, rather than says it freely but doesn’t really show it. But I admit, I do like to hear it, even if it’s only now and then.

After a while, I couldn’t suppress it anymore and told him I was in love with him. Admittedly, I did it in written form via message, but his silence on the matter had made me even more scared of admitting it, so that felt a slightly safer option than doing it in person. I can find it hard to express myself emotionally when it comes to negative emotions, but this experience has shown me that with love, I get to point where I feel the need to express it verbally and can no longer hold it back. It felt wrong not telling him, especially when this whole past year I’ve finally recognised that I have a tendency to bottle emotions up and have been making a conscious effort to try and change this. In his response, he sort of expressed feeling the same way; he didn’t say the three little words, but words to that effect. Either way, he said some lovely things and I felt glad I had finally told him exactly how I feel. I thought that he would probably get more comfortable expressing his feelings after a while, especially now that I had said it.

I was wrong. A few months have gone by and things are pretty much the same. While I still know that he cares for me and wants to be with me, the uncertainty of how serious of this is means that now and then I start to doubt it. I don’t know why it takes the actual word ‘love’ for me to believe that someone’s feelings are truly significant, but I suppose that denotes the strongest form of positive emotion. If you can’t tell your ‘significant other’ you love them, then who can you tell?

Anyway, my insecurities about Samson not feeling strongly enough for me to overcome his fear of opening up have been compounded by my monthly emotional low and the fact that I have to see this girl almost every day. The whole thing has started to bother me, irrationally. Why won’t he tell me he loves me? He must not love me. Why doesn’t he love me? What’s wrong with me? Did he love her? Does he still love her? What does she have that I don’t have? Aaaaaaaaand the thoughts had officially spiralled out of control. This week it got particularly acute and I reached a point where it was bothering me to the point of painful curiosity. I typed an email.

Me: Did you love her?

Him: I felt very strongly for her, and it hurt very much when it ended. I cared for her a lot, I don’t know if it was love, I haven’t thought about it in a long long time, I don’t think about it now. Why do you ask?

For me, with the irrational insecurity-and-hormone-induced rage coursing through me, the conversation probably sounded a little more like this:

Me: Did you love her?

Him: Yes. And I still do.

Okay, that's not entirely accurate. I probably heard it more like this:

Me: Did you love her?

Him: I'm not sure I loved her, but I felt very strongly for her. And I'd probably still be with her if she hadn't broken up with me. So any threat you feel is probably somewhat justified because if there is a bar of emotional attachment I've felt that has been set, it was set by her, so she's the one to beat. And I'm not sure I love you either, so I suppose you're sort of equal at the moment?

Hmm, okay, I admit that doesn't really sound any better or less irrational than the first one. But it is the truth, as ashamed as I am to admit it. The ugly, painful truth. I don't know why I get so insecure and threatened. I know I don't always feel this way. I don't want to roll out the old chestnut, "I've got PMS!" but I know from my own experience that it has a very obvious and significant effect on my emotions for a few days before Aunt Erma comes to visit (check out the original The IT Crowd, series 1, episode 6: Aunt Erma Visits for this reference - hilarious). I know it doesn't cause it completely, but the insecurities, doubts and irritants I already have are totally exacerbated by it.

But aside from that, I wish I could just be, "You've loved before, that's great, it shows you are capable of a loving committed relationship," or at a push, "You've made love before, copiously, that's great, it shows you are capable of being good at it (or at least should be)." I don't know which I'd find harder, or which should be easier to accept! I know I have issues. There is something about insecurity, jealousy, uncertainty in a relationship and a lack of self-confidence that brings out the ugliest parts of our characters. Not all women are psycho bitches when it comes to matters of the heart. I'm not a psycho bitch when it comes down to it, honest - you wouldn't see me torching some guy's car for cheating or ripping out some girl's weave because she tried to sex-text my man (I've been watching too much Maury). But things do get pretty intense inside my head. And that's what I'm working on. Perhaps I need to continue trying to trust Samson's feelings, even if he is reluctant to admit them. Maybe I should trust his actions rather than what past experience has told me and take the risk despite the battering my heart has taken in the past. But maybe Samson needs to take a risk too. And hopefully, the ugly, painful truth of love that manifests when insecurity, envy, heartache and fear get in the way, will eventually become the beautiful, edifying truth of love, that is only revealed and experienced when built on security, trust, encouragement and strength.