The Forgiveable Journey Of The Cheated

32. Breaking (up)

Dear reader, do you grasp the sheer size of this challenge considering what you know of Dan and Eve? Opening up cannot be done without breaking her rules for navigating her relationship with Dan, rules that ensure a certain stability and peace between them. Opening up will likely provoke Dan to scurry away from the conversation, leaving Eve disappointed and frustrated, and even worse (or better), faced with the proof that she is either condemned to Stepford wifedom or to the healthier option with a likelier happier ending: separation. In opening up, she will probably be faced with invalidating messages about her thoughts and feelings, hearing Dan say that she is overreacting and is irrational, and that it is up to her to find a way to deal with her “problem” if she chooses to move forward. In Dan’s mind, the whole thing should be behind them and it is Eve who is slowing them down. 

Eve invites him to a restaurant hoping that the context will prevent a scene from occurring. 

The waiter opens a bottle of wine. They drink a first glass. Dan is in a better mood. When he looks at Eve across the table, he can tell she is preparing to say something to him. At the same time, he can’t help but think she looks pretty this evening. He tells her so because it is true, but also because he hopes it will disarm the bomb he suspects is about to be dropped. Eve’s glass of wine is helping her shed her inhibitions. His sincere compliment has the effect of encouraging her to say what she has to say. 

Eve starts by telling Dan that it will take a lot of time for her to get over all that has happened and to wrap her head around everything. Her strategy is to make sure he will know that their current discussion is not just one to be had now, but one to be had over the months and possibly years to come. Dan wonders where she is going with all this and wears a wary expression. While she takes another healthy gulp of her wine, he understands that he has somehow been trapped into a “conversation” and makes the conscious decision to remain outwardly receptive. 

Good choice Dan. 

“I’m not in your head Dan, but to me, you don’t seem to understand something I have come to know as a certainty – that I am thoroughly wounded it this wound will fester for a long time. My wound will continue to cause me pain, sometimes this pain will be sharp and at other times dull, sometimes it will make itself known and be more discrete at others. This is why I know your guilt will fester within you all your life in a similar manner. It will always be a source of friction between us.” Dan simply nods in response. He hasn’t been able to swallow the sip of wine he took somewhere near the beginning of her mini-speech. He wanted to swallow it, but he couldn’t. He is panicking at the idea that she is introducing an announcement to leave him. The deliberate pause in Eve’s monologue, combined with his inability to speak for the wine in his mouth, only increases his sense of dread. 

Dan’s mind starts spinning. Evidently his affair with Charlotte was no mistake like he had first tried to call it. It was a truly terrible thing that he did (and a truly terrible person he did), and he would have left Eve had she done the same thing. He would have been irreparably wounded, which is why he had totally expected it to end upon enlightenment. Yet he was so grateful when she said she would stay. He had tried so hard to make it work, even when regrets had surged within him. His love for her had returned to him surprisingly easily and with it an unadmitted awareness of how his contribution to the unhappiness in their relationship was greater than he had originally thought. He decides to maintain a receptive attitude, hoping that it will be helpful in trying to sway what he perceives to be Eve’s decision to leave. 

Good choice Dan. 

But instead of saying that she is leaving, she says “I’m afraid one of us will give up.” For has their journey not been a torturous one? Is there any more energy left to invest in moving forward? Dan correctly concludes that the hardest part of their track is behind them, but the remaining track is longer in distance. Such relief, because it means that Eve is not leaving him. Dan swallows the wine in his mouth. He reaches over the table and takes her hand in his.