Dostoyevsky On “Friends-With-Benefits”:

You Waited Twenty Years — To Tell Me This?

“The hideous idea — revolting as a spider — of vice, which, without love, grossly and shamelessly begins where true love finds its consummation.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Tales from Underground”

Hello Amber,

I thought it was about time that I told you.

When we broke up, those many years ago, it was primarily because I had started taking more and more sleeping pills and nerve pills. This took off some time after my son died.

I didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it at the time and I just couldn’t get myself to tell you what I was going through and what I was doing. I was ashamed of myself. Cowardly way for me to act of course.

I was completely in the wrong. I have always wished that I could have been a better person. Sometimes I have been able to stand up and be counted, so to speak.

But when we were together unfortunately, I was at one of the lowest ebbs in my life and some of my actions at that time, were selfish and cowardly.

That’s no excuse though.

You certainly deserved better.

I’m very sorry for any discomfort that my behavior may have caused you at the time and hope that you may understand how weak and tortured I was then.

You are such a fine woman.

All the best of luck and good wishes from me.

R

I found your message in my message box a few days ago. It has languished in my message-requests inbox for about a year, unread until recently.

“About time”… ’92? ’93? Or was it ’94? More than 20 years.

Hmmm I don’t remember what happened all that well.

What I do remember is that we never broke up.

You got your daughter to give me the brush-off a couple of times in a row.

I felt dreadful when I realized that not only were you avoiding my calls, you were using your own daughter to say that you weren’t home.

I don’t know for sure if you were home or not but it sounded like you were.

I remember sitting in my office one afternoon after your daughter had told me (again) that you weren’t home. I almost couldn’t believe it. I felt dismayed and frustrated. I got the message. I felt used. I felt taken advantage of and mistreated.

You were evasive and extremely rude. You said it yourself, cowardly. I lost respect for you, what little respect I had had for you up to that point. I was quite horrified when I once overheard you say that you had a relationship after your son died but that it was just for sex. And in that moment I realized that there hadn’t even been friendship. Maybe you meant the other affair you’d had, but in any case, your pronouncement was crass, at best. I felt publicly humiliated. Several people were present who knew we’d been together.

I was mortified.

You disrespected me.

You treated me, not like a person with feelings and sensitivities but as something, some object, to assuage your sorrow.

And I allowed you to behave that way and played along with it.

I choose to ignore that fact that I was not valued.

I put myself in the role of the comforter and not of the beloved. I made a terrible mistake getting involved with you. I have deeply regretted it and felt ashamed about it for many years afterwards.

Because I once felt that you were my friend, I allowed my lust, horniness and loneliness to involve me with someone that I really didn’t feel much of a connection with. I was dishonest.

I didn’t realize at the time how demeaning it was. It was also wrong of me to get involved with you while you were still married.

I wasn’t doing the lying or cheating myself but I was supporting a situation in which you were encouraged to do so.

I feel deeply ashamed of my behavior, not least towards your wife.

I let you speak disparagingly about her and run her down to me behind her back.

I conspired with you against her.

Once you attended an event with her, I think it was a sermon, not on the mount but at the lakes, and you sat with her.

I knew what was going on, you knew what was going on but she knew nothing and she looked terribly unhappy.

I let her down and I let myself down.

I also had a regular double standard: I wouldn’t mind having an affair with a married man but I would never consider such a person as a serious partner. For obvious reasons.

When I shared my whole story for the first time with another human being it was also a hurdle to tell about our affair. I was sure she would think less of me if she knew I’d been involved with you.

You betrayed me by your subterfuges, your lies and your dishonesty. I was truly horrified when the truth sank in.

I couldn’t bring myself to speak to you or to acknowledge you after that.

I suggest you read Jonathan Wallace’s essay on lies. Lying — The ethical spectacle. After reading it, I vowed to tell the truth.

Well, there it is. Frankly, I can really see no purpose in the message you sent. It has only reawakened irritation and impatience with the abyss of neediness and selfishness that I experience as who you are.

I never felt a need to know “why”.

I suppose I ought to express some gratitude that you have written to me after all these years — but I feel none.

I could gush and praise you and wish you all the best — but I am done with such insincerity.

You ought to know by now that the drugs and the alcohol don’t create the problem, they intensify the problem that is already there.

Do refrain from patronizing me by telling me that I am “a fine woman” or attempting to judge me.

What on earth do you know about what I “deserve” or my “discomfort”?

Get real.

A

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