Reversal

"All women let men down one way or another," comes the loathsome and painfully familiar phrase.

"Oh, no! Not again!," I murmur.

"Don't you not-again-me!," he raises his voice.

"What's the matter with you?," I pretend to be bewildered although I know what is to follow.

"You know!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on, Miss Innocence, you pretty well know what I'm talking about."

"Well, if I knew, I wouldn't be asking you, would I? Just let the cat out of the bag!"

"How did you get home?," he asks.

"The way I always do - by bus." I'm still trying to be patient.

"Oh, really? I didn't see any bus passing.

"Well, then you either didn't watch or you are blind."

"Is that so? Don't you dare talk to me like that! I want to know who took you home."

"Nobody! I came back ALONE ON THE BUS!"

"Yeah, right..."

♦

That was how almost all our arguments began. They had become so frequent that I almost knew the exact words he was going to use. And the quarrels were always about unreasonable things born in his imagination. Sometimes it was the bus, sometimes it was a glance from a stranger, sometimes it was a phone call. At one point I started feeling as if we were acting in a play, which was performed over and over and over again.

Thoughts of ending the relationship started creeping in my mind and after every argument we had, I resolved that the next one would be the last one. I had thought it over in my mind many a time what exactly I would say and how I would say it. But every time an opportunity presented itself, something stopped me and I couldn't utter a single word. Perhaps deep down inside me I was still hoping that things could be like they were at the beginning. We were so happy together - it felt as if nothing could tear us apart, as if we were living in a fairy-tale. Until his sense of possession got so strong that I started feeling suffocated. Gradually I realized I had lost all my friends in my attempts to please him and avoid scenes of jealousy. Of course, he wouldn't admit that. On the contrary - he would claim that he WANTED me to see them! But the fact was that if I went out with a friend, an argument was sure to follow about my actually secretly meeting some guy and lying about seeing my friend.

I had spent many sleepless nights wondering why he was so afraid he would lose me. Was I really giving him reasons to think that? Or was his self-esteem so low? Or maybe all the women in his life had hurt him and he was afraid it would happen again? Finally, it occurred to me that maybe HE was the one who had hurt people before and now he felt vulnerable should he himself be hurt for a change.This thought took permanent residence in my mind and little by little it became the only reason for his behaviour I could think of. From then on, my feelings towards him started to cool off and there came the day when I decided I couldn't;t bear this any longer and should immediately put an end to it before love could turn into hatred. So I gathered all my strength and broke it out to him...

I had to cope with threats of suicide, kidnapping and things of that sort, but in the end, after being forced to promise there was still some chance I would go back to him, he let me go. Or at least I thought so!

He started calling me during the nights. He appeared in all kinds of places during the day. He spent countless hours sitting in his car in front of my house and my office building. It was as if I was haunted.

So I took a two-week vacation and disappeared. That didn't help either. He found me again the very first day I came back.

Several months passed. I had a new man in my life. Nevertheless, he didn't quit bothering me. He even got so far as to introduce me to his new girlfriend and shout in front of her how much he loved me! The poor woman was speechless. Later we managed to contact each other without his knowing and I asked her how she could bear all that. She said she loved him so much she was ready to do anything for him. She even ended up begging me to go back to him, because she wanted him to be happy and she thought that nothing else would make him happier than that. But I assured her that I would never again want anything to do with him, especially when she admitted he had beaten her a couple of times. Nonetheless, she still hoped that the beating would stop, that she would manage to transform him... Some time after this occasion I met her in the street and she said it was all over.

Meanwhile, he kept calling and showing up in different places, although not so often as before. A couple of years later, he had stopped showing up but still kept calling from time to time. In one of those calls he suggested I talked to his dog. I thought he had completely lost his mind. Only the "dog" turned out to be a woman, who started apologizing for bothering me and wanted me to assure her I was not seeing him! Poor soul, who knows what he had told her... but how could she let anybody call her a "dog" and still stay with him?!?! After she apologized once again he took the phone from her hands and plunged into "I-love-you's" and "I-miss-you's"...

In the next few years there had been occasions similar to those, so I had no other choice but to start believing in that phrase I so detested, only in the reverse - "All men let women down one way or another."

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