Imitation of Love (Volume 3 - The Grown Up Years)

crush /krəSH/

noun

informal

a brief but intense infatuation for someone, especially someone unattainable or inappropriate.

This is going to be the last post on this subject, and it's a long one, so strap in. Writing has been painful but insightful of the way I have grown up seeing romantic love, and by extension, the guys I've liked over the years. Each week I slip my self imposed deadline because it gets harder to look at myself as I write about years that edge closer and closer to my current age. I mentioned my ex-husband in the last post. I am careful not to call him a college sweetheart; I didn't have romantic relationships at West Point that resembled “sweet” anything. It would be convenient to rebrand us as "college sweethearts;” it's a nice shorthand to skip explaining the actual gritty details of your relationship. We only went on three dates while we were both at West Point, two of which were movies -- not the optimal venue to connect when both parties are introverts. He also met me on summer break between my cow (junior) and firstie (senior) year; he was a year ahead and had already graduated and been commissioned. This was my 21st birthday, and I am pretty sure we descended on T.G.I Friday's for dinner and my first legal drink. I was staying with my sister and her family in in Dover, Delaware, where she was stationed, and he had made the two hour drive east from his parents' house in Maryland. He surprised me by excusing himself from the table and moments later, a singing, clapping crew of servers appeared at our table with a dessert, complete with a lit candle. Before we left, I had at least one of those ridiculously sweet cocktails (ah, the days of not worrying that diabetes is going to show up on your latest lab test). We finished the evening walking around my sister's neighborhood after he dropped me off. Just as we returned to the house, he leaned in for a kiss, which was also unexpected, and awkward. But he had driven all that way, and was consistently clear about liking me.

I completed my last year and he went on his way until I learned that I was assigned as an Air Defense Artillery officer, which meant I would attend the officer basic course at Fort Bliss, where he was stationed. The gears turned and clicked inside of my head: maybe it was meant to be. Very simplistic thinking, I know, keep in mind I was 21. As my early August report date approached, he reached out more and more. He was the first familiar face I saw after crossing the El Paso city limits and stopping at a hotel. We went on a few more dates, I started my basic course and weeks later, he started a five month deployment to Saudi Arabia. I see now how these types of events create a manufactured urgency. It was a variation of what cadets went through when they were seriously dating and had to decide if they wanted to get engaged to ensure a better chance at being stationed together. In the land before cell phones and social media, people had ways of disappearing completely when you parted ways and there was little chance of winding up in the same place at the same time ever again. I was not in a rush to get married, my motivation was more about not wanting to put myself through the trial and error and inevitable repeated heartbreak that comes with dating. If I could "lock in" (as the youth say) with a person who lived enough of a similar life to understand my experiences, and treated me well (and at the time I had no evidence showing me otherwise), maybe I could bypass some of the messy, painful lessons.

The interesting part about trying to take shortcuts: at some point you may find yourself rerouted to the territory you tried to avoid.

I got married thinking that would shut the door on my pattern of crushes and unrequited love. Marriage declares to the world that you have a person, and you are that someone's person. What could be more comforting than certainty in a perpetually uncertain world? Marriage offered the promise of individuals joining in a bond that was greater than the sum of its parts. I got married without examining what I expected out of that union, or even asking myself if it was truly what I wanted. When you convince yourself it is another block to tick on a checklist that covered adulthood, checking the block became a task that brought you closer to life goals. This guy was as good as I was going to get, my young mind told me. My thinking was reinforced by my sister; when I was a cadet, I showed her a posed photo of him in his football uniform. His arms and face were rich chocolate, and practically glowing. His eyes had that steely look and his solid jaw gave him a movie star presence. On the back, he’d written a short message to me, signed with “Love ya.” He likes you? She said. I said yes, and she was impressed. Her verdict that this one was a catch was additional information to file away. I respected her opinion and survived my time as a cadet partly because of her guidance and support. I saw no reason to look further. It's embarrassing to admit this because it says more about me than him. This type of logic is not uncommon when you become accustomed to dismissing the value of your own wants, or even worse, when you didn’t even bother to figure out what you wanted in the first place. This was the era of, “Choose the guy who treats you well,” not, “But do you like him?” It was a deliberate calculation: “He must love you more than you love him for this to work in your favor."

My first workplace crush happened four years into my marriage at a job I took after moving from Texas to the DC area. I found the job on Monster.com, the commute was horrendous, but after a year and a half of looking, this job was looking like the best I was going to get (notice a pattern, here?). I have a much earlier post about an incident at this job. This entry is one of my favorites, but the job was rife with disrespect and "teachable moments." It was here where I met M, who worked for my company but in a separate daily setting, under different customers. I don't know how he initially engaged me in conversation, but he would swing by my desk to talk, and over time, our discussions expanded. He was light skinned, slim, with a moustache, soul patch, a beautiful head of hair just shy of being an afro, and a light Caribbean accent. He had retired from the Army at the top enlisted rank but carried none of the rough-around-the-edges demeanor that seemed to be common in senior Army NCOs. He dressed in button down shirts and suits, drove nice cars, and was about fifteen years older than me.

Our conversations eventually came around to salary. M observed that I was in a desk originally configured for an admin assistant (as a “perk," people came in to install higher walls in my cubicle so I wouldn’t be subjected to the half walls and customer-facing vibe that the admin assistants had). I had a nebulous concept of my job and a coworker who had been there for years who was supposed to teach me some of his functions but instead seemed to relegate the easy but time wasting tasks that he didn’t want to handle (I refer to him as“Important Job” in the post I linked). “You’re a West Pointer,” M said, “You don’t belong here.” It felt validating to hear that, not because I believed I was better, but because I knew I was capable of doing more. When you go from being in charge of 30 soldiers and 88 million dollars of equipment, shredding papers and printing slide briefings for the daily stand up meeting can feel like experiencing an extended death. We discussed salary, and he said our company was lowballing us, that I needed to look for something else and his recommendation was to seek a job at the Pentagon, where he had once worked.

I was new to this game and when you first leave the military, you’re accustomed to having a career where, if you’re fortunate, you can stay there. You trust that someone will take you under their wing and their loyalty to you will yield a feeling of loyalty to your organization. I was lucky to run into M early in my career because he was the first person to tell me that in this game, your loyalty was to yourself. These companies, even the ones with employees who were veterans, were not loyal to us. “How much do you want to make?” He asked. I had never considered this. I arrived to my early job interviews thinking I would be lucky if they took me, and had a mental calculation of the minimum salary I would need to live comfortably. In fact, in my first post-Army job in Texas, the company that hired me gave me five thousand a year more than I requested because my number in the interview was so low. When I went home and shared my thoughts about looking for a new job at a higher salary, my husband said, “Are you sure you should leave? You haven’t even been there a year.” I contrasted this with the phone conversation I heard him having with his brother, who was leaving the Army with a Top secret clearance, but as a junior enlisted soldier without a degree. “You should ask for sixty-thousand,” my husband told him. That was fifteen thousand dollars more than what I made. His lack of encouragement was because this was the first job I landed after a year and a half of being unemployed and dependent on him. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder if he thought it made sense for his brother to earn more since he was single, and would have to foot the bills alone, buying into the thinking that in a marriage, the wife’s income is supplementary, and less important.

My talks with M extended into going out for lunch, or sometimes taking a break in the middle of the day to cruise in his Range Rover or convertible Jaguar. Eventually we chose a lunch venue where another group from our office was gathered for a farewell to a departing employee. “They’re going to talk about us,” M said. “Let them talk,” I said. Technically nothing was going on, but whenever you tell yourself that, something is going on. When he gave me birthday gifts, a plain set of pearl earrings and a small flask of Tresor perfume, I freaked out and we had a talk. “I share more with you than I do with my husband,” I said. He understood and we took a break from each other.

When I got sent to Fort Bragg for work, I logged into the computer and initiated my job search. Not long after that I landed a position at the Pentagon with a 25% raise and a shorter commute. My husband was happy for me, but credit went to M. In my time between jobs, we met on one of my days off, and went into D.C. to tour a museum. "I was thinking of buying you a single rose," M admitted when we linked up, "you could sniff it and just throw it away." It seemed like a sweet sentiment until I shared it with Heather. "Oh, whatever," she said, "he just wanted credit for having the thought without actually buying a rose." Another time, much later, we met for lunch. By then I had already left the job at the Pentagon for one that paid even more. I was quickly learning how to take advice, be loyal to myself, make connections and keep an eye out for opportunities that fit my background. At lunch I voiced a desire for a higher salary that he thought was asking too much. With that opinion, M lost his luster and my heart was free.

I didn’t have a crushes everywhere I went — some workplaces were crush-deserts; there just wasn't anyone in the inventory that caused my heart to skip a beat. Eventually I realized these feelings cropped up because it was important for me to know that someone saw me — meaning they observed something in me that might not be obvious to others. At a more recent job, about ten years into my marriage, this someone was R. He was older (please spare me from the “Daddy issues” diagnosis, it’s so cliche), divorced and a retired Army officer. He was serious about his work; only once in four years did I see something not work related displayed on his monitor. He revealed himself after I returned from maternity leave. This welcome yielded a hug, and an admission that he had missed me. We sat at cubicles directly across an aisle from each other and rarely talked. I generally assume people don’t like me unless they show me otherwise, so my thought was, he missed me? Really?

R’s quiet nature and work focus caused me to think I was on neutral ground, but he did and said little things that indicated otherwise. Once, it was a comment about what he would do as my partner, if I weren’t taken, which is a completely inappropriate sentiment in a professional environment. When you are deep into a marriage where you often felt like a nuisance, or “too much,” it felt life-giving to hear another person voice how they saw you in a positive light. Another time, he commented about the work I probably did at home, with two young kids — acknowledging that I was probably constantly sorting and donating their outgrown clothes and taking care of things. It was so specific a description, because yes, that was something I did regularly, one of the many invisible tasks to manage storage and keep a household running. R had southern charm and humor; when tasked with something next to impossible, he’d claim our boss had him “spread thinner than Piggly Wiggly peanut butter.” As the years went on, more personal details emerged, including that he had initiated his divorce due to his ex-wife’s unrestrained spending habits. I admired him for that — statistically we keep hearing that men don’t leave their marriages, even when they’re unhappy. I kept my feelings to myself but answered honestly when another female coworker who was also a friend asked who caught my eye. To my dismay, she told him. Nothing changed, but knowing that he knew was particularly mortifying and went against my personal rule of keeping that crush under wraps. After all, I was married, and I knew how foolish it was to think about someone else that way.

When my husband accepted a job that allowed us to commute together, pick up time sometimes ran late. I would wind up being one of the last people at my desk, watching R pack up as he prepared to leave. “Is he coming?” he’d ask. “He is,” I’d say, making a joke that my husband’s minutes were longer because they were “football minutes” — a play on how a one hour game expands to three and a half thanks to time outs, halftime and commercial breaks. We would laugh. Sometimes he’d ask if I wanted a ride somewhere. Looking back, this might have been a soft pick up line, but I’ve never been one to catch hints.

I left the job four years after I started. Contract and leadership changes resulted in lower pay and more restrictive rules for employees. In my usual fashion, it was better to leave on my own terms than wait for the ship to sink. R hugged me goodbye and just like that, I was out of the door and off to the next adventure.

Every time I left a job crush, I missed the person. At the job I’d develop a pattern of seeing if their car was in the parking lot to decide if it was going to be a good day, or entering the office with an eye peeled for their presence. After enough time passed, the feelings would fade and I could transition into remembering them fondly. Instead of waiting for that transition, I addressed my feelings about R by writing terrible poetry and saving it as a draft in my email account. It was never going anywhere; this was my way of dealing with feelings I felt ashamed for having, and believed I should not have had in the first place. Of course my husband found it.

He was deeply hurt, and rightfully so. I did not deny his feelings and tried reassuring him that I had never intended to send the message; there was no email address in the “To” line. I knew this didn’t matter, the damage was done. When we shared this incident with our couples therapist years later, she looked at me and stated, “That was a betrayal.” Yes, it was. I would have been just as hurt if I had stumbled on a message written by my husband to another woman going on about his feelings and how he loved her. “No one will love you the way I love you,” my husband said during one of our talks, “you know that, right?”

I couldn’t figure out why this seemed like a loving statement but didn’t feel that way. It wasn’t until years later that I understood this line was straight out of Emotional Abuse 101. When I read an internet stranger’s post on Reddit describing a very similar statement from their partner, I gasped. Was there a hidden script they followed that the rest of us didn’t know about?

I took on another new job and on the first day I had to check in at the corporate office before someone escorted me to the government site, where I was working. There wasn’t much for me to do but sit at the desk and read documents; I wasn’t going to have computer access until I was vetted by the security office and granted access. I was going to be part of a three person team, and the other two, T and K — both men — who had worked with each other before I entered the picture. By the end of the day someone had to drive me back to the corporate office so I could get back to my car for the drive home —this was T. We exited the building and I smiled when I realized his car was the same make as mine. As we pulled into the company parking lot, he gestured towards a boatlike sedan. “Is that you?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking and I said no. Finally we pulled up to my little hatchback and I looked over to see if he was surprised. We said our goodbyes and I drove home. The following day one of the first things he asked was, “What’s your car’s name?”

How did he know my car had a name? Why did he think to ask— not if it had a name, but what was the name? His intuition was spot on, my car did have a name, “James,” due to my issued license plate having the numbers “007” at the end, and the British history behind the brand. It struck me as odd, because T was a military retiree, and I didn’t associate quirk or a question like this to someone who spent most of their adult years in the military. In fact, I suspected T was gay until he mentioned his wife. I appreciated the question, and the thinking behind it. My husband would roll his eyes at car naming as if to say it wasn’t cool, it wasn’t cute, it was dumb. That was how I often felt when he didn’t understand why I liked certain things.

At work I remained guarded, declining lunch with T and K and instead remaining at my desk to eat what I’d packed. I was still coming out of the shame of that discovered email, and I didn’t want to leave myself open to continuing the pattern. I lasted roughly four months. The feeling hit me after I’d snuck a photo of T sitting in his cubicle with his back to me, oblivious to the spy in his midst. He sat at his desk chair in his button down shirt and black sweater vest. His bald head was turned slightly, providing a glimpse of his beard and glasses. I couldn't place why that photo shifted something in me. Around the same time, I was keeping a dream journal on my night table. When I had a dream about laying beside T, trying to hold his hand and also trying to maneuver my ear to his chest so I could hear his heartbeat, I knew I had failed to stop my own pattern. I did not write about that dream in the journal.

Looking back so many years later, these things strike me as obvious alarm bells that I needed to assess my life and figure out what I needed. I was so used to feeling odd and ashamed of the way I’d go down this path repeatedly and keep falling into the trap of finding a high in another human being. I didn’t have any idea where to start.

This went on for two years. Our little team grew closer and closer because our work problems felt unique to us. T insisted on training me on an online tasking tool, so we would sit side by side and click through the different functions. He teased out personal information, and shared some of his own. Eventually I caved and joined T and K for lunch in the cafeteria on the top floor of the building where we worked or at a local restaurant when we needed a midday break. We moved desks several times, but always remained clustered together. When you work that closely, it becomes near impossible to avoid sharing your personal life.

I knew how I felt but I walked right on the line. I took in T’s comments about enjoying the book The Hobbit and paired it with a complaint that he could not find his letter opener and I presented him with a letter opener designed to resemble a Hobbit’s sword. I liked the way he seemed so touched that someone had listened and put thought into a gift even when it was something small and inexpensive.

One year we both planned to attend a conference for work, but T was away for a meeting as asked me to make his reservation and pay for his registration fee. I mistakenly used his personal credit card for the registration when it was funded by our organization. Even worse, the website explicitly stated they would not provide refunds for credit card purchases. I had a complete meltdown when I realized my mistake, and immediately called T, who remained calm about the $450 charge that would show up on his bill. I was so frazzled I didn’t make it to lunch time so I packed up my things and went home. When I shared what happened with my husband, including using the credit card number, my husband said, “He trusts you like that?”

I met T’s wife on one of our team lunch outings. The following day T declared to me that she “was a fan,” which was funny because I didn’t like how she had treated him during the meal, or how cold she was when he hugged her. I know my assessment was unfair partly because of my own feelings, and also because no one knows the truth about what happens in a marriage except the two people in it. T and K met my husband, who reluctantly agreed to join us for lunch at the same spot on a different day. I wanted him to meet the two guys I worked with all day, the same way I had gotten to know the cast of characters from so many of his previous jobs. What I didn’t seem to understand was, you can’t make your partner take interest. I wanted him to meet them, yes, but more than that, I wanted him to want to meet them.

The conference trip happened right around my two year anniversary at the job. T and I, and a bunch of others from our office would be there. K stayed behind. This was my first time at this annual conference, and I found it overwhelming. Not only was the day packed with information sessions and networking opportunities, we also had built in meals, which meant perusing the buffet line and finding a seat at one of the huge round tables set up in the enormous ballroom. If you didn’t have a buddy with you, this meant sitting among a bunch of strangers and making yourself open to potential questions and small talk. In other words, an introvert’s nightmare. Given the prospect of repeating this schedule for four days straight and you might understand why I was ready to leave by the middle of the second day.

On the afternoon of the second day, T called my room to ask if I wanted to venture out. He figured out there was a bus, and he’d gotten tickets. I felt exhilarated. I picked out something to wear and walked to the lobby to meet him. What followed was the most enjoyable date in my entire life. Looking back, I could figure out why. We were two years in with a solid friendship with occasional flirting. I knew this person, and without the pressure of feeling like I had to make him like me, I could relax and talk openly, because we had already built that rapport. We started with dinner by the water, and T wasted no time.

“Do you love me?”

Before I could question why he was asking, I nodded slightly, and bowed my head. The secret was out. This had never happened to me, and I knew no amount of denial would allow me to come back from it. Despite knocking out that question early into the evening, things did not feel awkward. We walked and talked, and five hours later, finished up with drinks at a pub that came complete with a server that had a soft Irish accent. We rode the bus back the hotel. Instead of sharing a seat like we had when we arrived, T sat on the other side of the aisle. He walked me to my room, and we hugged goodnight. I tossed and turned. I texted Heather, alarmed at how I was feeling. I had never wanted someone so much in my entire life.

This time was different because I had finally encountered a person who challenged me, and also seemed to appreciate the way my brain worked. We had moved beyond the usual office banter, the stolen glances, the inside jokes. Every time we crossed a line, we drew a new one, only to cross that one later. “What’s missing,” T would ask, referencing our lives and our respective marriages. It was a valid question that I should have used as a stepping stone to examine myself. We could enjoy each other without the contempt bred from familiarity. This relationship felt special, and like the only thing I had just for me, while every other aspect of my life required consideration of my kids, my husband, and my mother, who also lived with us. And, to be honest, part of this was a fuck you to my husband. No one will love me the way he loves me? Challenge accepted.

My relationship with T lasted two years. Being with him was fun and light at first but devolved into something unsustainable and heavy. The relationship progressed like an addiction, life-giving and exhilarating in the beginning, draining and restrictive by the end. Eventually when we met up, I was glad to see him but despondent when we said our goodbyes. I felt seen by T, but the nature of our relationship meant the world would never see who I was to him, which wound up being more important to me than I initially believed. These things don't end well, my sister once said, and I knew she was right. A cell phone billing error resulted in my husband discovering me, resulting in the single most destructive event in my life (so far!). Living a life where fear dictated my actions, paired with focusing on being "good" instead of being true to myself had led me there. Instead of figuring out what I actually wanted out of life I had followed the checklist only to realize the checklist had stifled me. Often people will blame an affair for the end of a marriage when the affair is a side effect resulting from the state of the marriage. I regretted hurting my husband, but I could not bring myself to say I regretted that relationship with T. When my husband tried to diminish my actions, claiming I had "made a mistake," I corrected him. He had a way of controlling the narrative, and reducing my experiences to his interpretation of events. "I did not make a mistake," I said, "I made a series of deliberate decisions."

My husband demanded I find a couples therapist and I did. When he got angry, I listened. When he called me names or wished ill on me, I took it. He had every right to be angry, devastated, sad and hurt. “Not after what you did” became a familiar refrain when I would bring up a paper cut that looked minor when compared to the fatal stabbing I had inflicted upon him. My voice became muted, and all of my husband's offenses throughout the years were dwarfed when compared to my actions. What I eventually understood was, those feelings didn’t give him the right to be abusive, and I did not want to spend the rest of my life with a husband who weaponized his forgiveness. To paraphrase the words of Cheryl Strayed, I had to be brave enough to break my own heart. No one gets married imagining they will eventually file for divorce.

I read books and blogs about limerence, a term that seemed to perfectly describe the way I felt affection for certain people, to the point that I obsessed over them and idealized them beyond human measure. Every crush did not become an obsession, but many of them did, to the point that thinking about the person was akin to having an app open that I wasn’t using running in the back of my mind. I felt shame for being a weirdo who could fall in love in an instant and get consumed by daydreaming, despite being married with two kids and an already full life. What I failed to realized was a “full” life is not the same as a “fulfilled" life. To quote T, "What's missing?"

That was what I needed to figure out, what was I seeking in these other people, and why? What did I need to change about myself to stop, because this was not how I wanted to keep living my life. What did I want?

I listened to the "Hidden Brain" podcast episode featuring Dr. Kristen Neff. She described having an affair with a married professor. That relationship had ended her marriage, and like me, she had also married young, to a guy she had met in college. In order to make progress she had to distance herself from feeling shame by cultivating self compassion. Developing self compassion isn’t easy when you are accustomed to an inner voice who works overtime as your personal bully. The best way I could practice was by talking to myself the way I would advise a dear friend approaching me with an issue. Kindness. I had to face the lessons I had missed after decades of avoidance. Self compassion helped me understand that what I wanted mattered, and I should not have been expected to abandon myself in romantic relationships. Self compassion helped me understand there were patterns that I developed in childhood that carried over into adulthood. Those patterns helped me survive childhood and became detrimental once I became an adult. I was in my 40's and didn't need to operate in the same way anymore. Self compassion isn’t a pass for shitty behavior; it is grace extended for being human.

I've stopped looking for a car in the parking lot or a favorite person sitting at a desk as a way to determine if my day will be bright or disappointing. I know more about myself, and know a secret relationship and double life is not something I will put myself or anyone else through again. I can appreciate qualities in some of my male coworkers and without going off to the races in my head. On one hand, I miss the unbelievable high of a newfound crush, and on the other, I never want to feel mentally ill over anyone again.