Preface: Some of you will judge me for my actions. That’s fine, but I respectfully ask you keep it to yourself. For the others, please lend some support. This will be quite a long post, and I apologize for that. But writing this is a form of therapy for me. TL;DR at the bottom, but please try to read the whole story.
Back in 2006, I was at my community college testing center about to test out of English. It was there I saw this stunning German woman wearing a golden Indian sarong with a dragon tattoo on her back right shoulder. My attraction was immediate, but I figured I never had a chance with her and would never see her again. Man, was I ever wrong.
A few weeks later, it just so happened we started working the same day at the campus math tutoring lab. Recognizing my second chance, I told myself, “You need to have this woman be some part of your life.” I made it a point to strike up a friendship with her, and become close friends we did. We got our boss to always schedule us to work together, and we took classes together as well.
She was married at the time. I didn’t interfere with that. At least not on purpose. Her marriage was an ugly thing; he was an ultraconservative Christian who constantly resented her very presence. He was entirely convinced that she was cheating on him (she wasn’t), and made it his mission to prove it. I was her confidante, and while we did spend every moment we could together, it never came to anything inappropriate. Twice it came close later on, but I resisted the impulse out of respect for her.
I loved being around her, and her presence was all I needed, even if there was nothing more than friendship. I went to work every day with a smile on my face because she put me in that kind of mood. She was everything I ever wanted in a partner. But I never dared to tell her, though, as I valued our friendship too much to introduce that kind of complication.
Two years later, it was time for me to move on to the next chapter of my life. My community college years were the best years of my life, but I needed to grow. I graduated, quit my tutoring job, and moved to the city to take a full-time job. She and I stayed in touch, talking every day over text or G-Chat.
As the months went on, the talks grew more and more intimate and sexual. I finally revealed my feelings, and she said she felt the same and wished I had told her sooner.
Her husband eventually found out. She wasn’t careful like I told her to be. There’s no doubt he would have killed me if he knew where I was. Her last words to me at the time were that she would be going back to Germany to finish her master’s, and just wanted to be alone for a while. She said she would contact me again.
She never did.
The years went by and I dated several people since. But there were times I would lie in bed and just look for her on the internet, with not much success. But eventually I did find her. It was an employee profile for a company she was working at, and it included her picture and her work number. Yes, I was tempted to call it, but I didn’t for two reasons. That would have not been appropriate, and she was wearing some kind of scarf around her hair. I figured she reconciled with her religious husband and agreed to dress more modestly as a condition of staying married.
But I never stopped looking for her. Last November, on a whim, I looked her up on LinkedIn and found her. I thought sending a contact request would be innocuous enough, and if anything, she would be a good employment reference. But I never expected what was to come.
She was elated to hear from me. She sent me a long email telling me about her past seven years. She did divorce her husband, but remarried to a Muslim man and converted. She also moved 2000 miles away to Texas. Yes, I was happy to talk to her again, but I didn’t put as much energy into it as I had before, since I was disappointed that she was married again. I didn’t prioritize responding to her.
After New Year’s, she sent me another long email asking me if she has done something to upset me. I told her no and made an excuse for not responding. We did start talking in emails and texts again, and just like before, the conversations grew more and more intimate. She revealed that she remarried out of loneliness and didn’t reach out to me because she thought I would be married by now. She was wrong. She didn’t love her current husband, but married him out of a need for security, which she has now outgrown.
Early March, 2015. She promised she would visit me around the end of the month. However, she shortly hit me with something crazy: she wasn’t waiting until the end of the month. Because of the cheaper airfare, it would be sooner. It would be that week. And she came. We didn’t hold back this time. Do you know what it’s like to finally make love with someone after almost a decade of waiting and wanting? If that feeling could be baked into a pill, cocaine would be as worthless as a Greek Drachma note smeared with shit.
We said “I love you.”
On her visit, her second husband figured out what was going on. He called her, she admitted it. She fell into my lap and cried, not because she cheated, but because she wanted to end it respectfully with him. I tried to convince her to stay with me; there was nothing left for her in Texas. She considered it, but was afraid he might put her cat on the street. So she went back, and when I saw her off at the airport, I had this strange feeling it would be the last time I ever see her.
So she went home and faced him. She never went back on her decision to divorce him and move out. We made plans. She would move back to my state on May 31st. She would move in with me. We would finally be together. Despite the wait of two months, she promised me she was not changing her mind on this. She even got a job at her old company for far more money than I’ve ever made. Everything was falling into place perfectly. I would fly down to Texas and we would drive back together. This time, she said, she was choosing happiness and love over security.
Come May 29th. At this point, I had put everything together in preparation for her to move in. I moved to a new house and readied it for her. I changed my financial picture to take her income into account. Without being asked, she had already sent me half of the first month’s rent. However, that day, she asked to Skype with me. The school she was teaching Spanish at (and about to resign from) had a position opening up. She said she wasn’t really qualified for it and it would be a “one-in-a-million” shot that she would get it. But her principal wanted to speak to her the next day when she went in to submit her resignation paperwork.
May 30th. I finally hear from her at 2 p.m. Not only do they want to give her the job, but they are willing to pay for her master’s degree and her teaching certification. She said she needed to speak to some friends and family about this opportunity and decision. Longest three hours of my life. Finally, a text: “I will stay. I’m sorry and you have every right to never speak to me again.”
I was obviously devastated. But instead of ending it, I decided to fight to make it work. I loved her, after all. I suggested I move to Texas after I graduate University, even though I can’t stand Texas. She was agreeable to that and said the very next day that she immediately regretted her decision, thus setting into motion a month and a half of what I can only describe as pure emotional hell.
[We soon agreed that me moving to Texas wouldn’t be a good fit, so we tried to figure out how to get her back to my state]. She would give up on the new job, but she had to finish out her summer school contract and could be here around July 9. “Fine,” I said, “but after breaking your promise to me, I can’t wait anymore after that. I need to find a roommate.”
I have to mention here that since the day of that awful broken promise, she changed. Our conversations reversed in intimacy. Sex never became a topic of discussion again. There were no more Skype calls. Phone calls were reduced to almost nil. Texts became cool, as if two co-workers were making small talk around the water cooler. Eventually the “good morning” wake-up texts she sent every day started to draw down. Her bubbly personality was gone.
Since the day she decided to stay, her life has been rough, too. She was stuck in an apartment with an estranged husband. Her finances deteriorated to the point of her car being repossessed. She fretted over losing ten bucks because that was the only money she had for laundry. It turned out that she wasn’t going to make it here around July 9th but kept promising she would try to be here as soon as possible, and asked if I would wait for her.
But her stress changed her on a deep, fundamental level. She drew away from me, and I couldn’t figure out why. We spent hours texting and talking about the situation. She still loved me, she said. She promises she wants to be with me, she said. But I felt like I needed proof. That she owed me proof.
July 9th came and went, and the whole month has been marked with a back-and-forth dance with her. I could never get her to pin down an actual date she would be coming. She said she needed to get into financial shape before moving. Prior to May 30th, she did everything she could to make it possible to move here. Subsequently, she had every reason and excuse that she couldn’t. Something didn’t add up for me. I was sure she wasn’t telling me something big.
On July 10th, I told her I needed a few days to think about whether to continue. I was tired of the constant uncertainty. I got back to her a few days later and she admitted to me that the only reason she could think of for deciding to stay in Texas on May 30th was because of a drunken mistake I made years ago. She said she needed to know she was moving to a home with no alcohol and that I needed to agree not to spend any time with members of the opposite sex alone. I am a nonreligious agnostic and after some discussion, I agreed to latter, but not the former. In return, I gave her an ultimatum: she needs to come here now. No more bullshit. Get a job waiting tables or shining shoes and put every dollar you can into a plane ticket here. I wanted her here in time for my birthday on July 29th, or it’s over. She agreed and cheerfully stated that she was “up to the challenge.”
Two days later, I receive a long email from her, subject line: “Reflections.” I had a feeling this was bad, so I skipped to the end first. “Grieve this loss,” she said, “I know I will.”
The email was her apologizing for everything over the past few months. She said she knows she made my life hell with the constant flakiness. She is ending it now because she can’t guarantee she’ll be here by the 29th and doesn’t want to break yet another promise to me. But she also added that she is now more spiritually happy than she’s ever been in her life. She turned into more devout Islam and cannot reconcile her religious tenets with being in a relationship with me. She will always love me, but her faith prevents us from being together. There is too much past for us to be friends now. She is still moving back to my state, but she will never contact me again.
That was a wake-up call for me. I had put far too much pressure on her in a situation that must have already been crushing for her. I was demanding and entitled. But I never expected her to end it so suddenly. I sent her a text the next morning asking for a conversation about this. Surprisingly, she agreed to one. We texted for hours and I apologized for being so pushy. I asked her to reconsider, and that she could take all the time she needs to move (within reason) without pressure from me.
Then she hit me with a whopper: will you agree to convert to Islam and marry me later on? Yes or no. If not, our contact ends here for good. It turned out that in this time of crisis, she turned to God and through much prayer, decided she needed to make changes in her life. One of those changes was never again dating outside of Islam. I told her I needed a day to think about it. But I knew I would never do that.
Last night, I countered. I said I would consider it but on the condition that she meet with me when she got here so we can talk about it face-to-face. A life-changing decision such as this one can’t be discussed over text. I figured that if she saw my face and heard my voice again, she would soften her stance on this.
She said no. She said she knows I would never agree to converting. She sent me that email to end it because she didn’t want to put me in the position to answer her question. She loved me and tried to spare me from that. There is no other way. She is fully invested in Islam now. She regrets her “sin” of visiting me to cheat on her husband. She wants to be a better person in the eyes of God.
So last night, after eight years, we said our last goodbyes. Eight years of missed chances. Eight years of longing. I gave everything I had to try to make it work. I pleaded and compromised. She pleaded and compromised. In the end, however, two people who shared a deep love couldn’t be together. And that is tragic.
Thanks for reading.
TL;DR: After 8 years of wanting to be together, we never could get it to work because of life circumstances. We finally came within an inch of it, but she decided to pursue a job offer instead of a relationship with me. She regretted her decision and changed her mind again, but after a torturous month and a half of complication and chaos, finally agreed to an ultimatum from me. Two days later, she cut off all contact, citing that she couldn’t resolve her love for me with her increasingly devout religious beliefs.
