My Ex-Husband Told Me This About Dating
And all I could think of was the irony
It’s late and I receive a text.
“I think you mean to be texting another woman,” I reply.
“Nope,” says the sender. “I know exactly who I’m texting.”
“Seriously? Have you lost your mind?” I reply.
I’m a year and a half out of my never-ending five-year divorce. It’s my ex-husband who somehow mysteriously thinks I may still be attracted to him. As if I would be interested in the type of offer he’s extending.
He’s quiet for a few months.
I receive another text.
“I’ll even make you dinner,” he says.
“Again,” I text back. “You are out of your ever-loving mind! Never gonna happen.”
He doesn’t stop there. He begins corresponding like I’m one of his buddies. He explains he’s on a dating site now and sends me a pic and information of a woman he’s communicating with.
What he says next both annoys me and leaves me in disbelief. If there could be any more shock than soliciting your ex-wife to keep you company. Especially one you bullied and wouldn’t let go for five long years.
“I’m lonely,” He says.
I don’t respond back with what I’m truly feeling.
I’m thinking of a phrase my Irish Catholic mother often said.
“Isn’t that a bite in the ass?”
When I was first unhappy, I went to my husband and told him, “It’s lonely being married to you. I dream about meeting someone who will really care about me one day.”
He could have cared less that I felt lonely.
In marriage counseling, he told our therapist my words were a betrayal. The counselor explained they were actually me attempting to communicate my feelings.
I was emotionally lonely.
My ex-husband was now physically lonely.
There’s a great irony to that. The words that made me want to leave him, he would resent, and one day utter himself. The counselor saw my husband and put him through some tests and diagnosed him with a lack of empathy.
Hence, why I felt so alone.
We parallel-played. We lived in the same house together and went out together. We were roommates. He didn’t have the ability to go deep. His lack of empathy prevented it. When we were the young party extroverts it was less noticeable.
As I got older, I needed more.
It’s been about two years since that text exchange.
My ex-husband is now remarried. It reminds me of a conversation someone in his family and I once had. We were discussing an older relative who was widowed and how quickly he moved on with another woman.
“Does that bother you?” I asked the older relative.
“No,” she said. “Men don’t last long.”
Of course, you can’t speak in absolutes. Some men do last. They don’t jump into another relationship or marriage for the sake of sex or loneliness. They are looking for more than a warm body or any old woman who comes along.
They’re looking to fill a void deeper than loneliness.
I passed on the dinner invite, let alone the other offer. What my ex mysteriously felt was a golden ticket sweetened by a meal.
I’m not lonely anymore.
Let alone lonely for him.
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