How I Hurt the Woman I Love - Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

Downward Spiral

During my fights with Karen I’d often think about how I never used to fight with my ex. I blamed myself completely for the failure of that relationship and remembered how easy it had been and how we never used to fight. Never while I was reminiscing did I remember that we just weren’t working at the end of our relationship, I only remembered the good times. So for some asinine reason I thought I could and should still try for her. That that would be ok, despite my own circumstances and the feelings of those around me. Our baby was due in less than a month and I wanted to try for an ex? I don’t know what I was thinking.

At the start of February, a friend of mine was hosting a little art showing that businesses do around town the first Friday of every month. He was seeing a friend of my exes at the time, and I had a feeling my ex would be there, so me and my buddy went to it. Sure enough she was there.

She had a boyfriend at the time but he hadn’t shown to the party, apparently he was being a jerk. We started talking and ended up talking in private for a while about how things had been since we’d last talked. She didn’t seem happy, her boyfriend was really controlling. I told her the pregnancy had been hard and that it seemed like Karen and I were always fighting. We ended up going to get food after the event with her friends and then went back to the friends house for a while before she passed out and I went home.

The whole time I ignored the signs that still showed we had almost no real connection. It was the same type of feeling that caused our relationship to end, but I chalked it up to her having a bad night because of her boyfriend. In my head I had messed up the relationship. We kept talking over the next few days.

One night she was out drinking and wanted to come over. She came over and we had some drinks and smoked. We ended up having sex. It wasn’t good. There just wasn’t a connection. But I chalked it up to being rusty, we just hadn’t seen each other in a while I thought.

Two days later I was meeting Karen to go to a birthing class. We went to dinner first. I was fully planning on trying again with my ex, even though she was moving later that year. I thought we could make it work somehow. I had major doubts about Karen and I working out and thought I would end things with her that night as far as a romantic relationship. I didn’t. I was actually really enjoying just hanging out with her and instead of going to the birthing class we just went to my house and spent the night together.

Two days later I took my ex out to dinner. It wasn’t anything more than dinner. I was sending Karen sexts throughout the day and that night and she came over in the morning after her graveyard shift. She was exhausted from the night. We had sex and I made her pancakes and took care of her until she went back to work that night.

The next day she brought up being in a committed relationship. I told her I didn’t want to. In the back of my mind I was thinking about how shitty I had been recently. I was totally lost with what I was doing.

I don’t know what I was thinking throughout this. It was like I had convinced myself that I should try and be with my ex, like we were meant to be or something, but there was no connection there, while I had told myself I wouldn’t be with Karen, but there was an actual connection there. The next day Karen went into labor, it was Valentine’s day.

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Part 4 released tomorrow

@jakeybrown