Two years after we broke up, I finally understood why we did. The road to enlightenment involved stripping off the bandage I’ve applied and protected over the years, and digging my fingers deep into the wound.
It was actually pretty simple. I wasn’t physically attractive enough. Others would argue, but to each his own cup of tea I say, and all that. But there, I’ve said it. Delicately. In more specific terms, it means (inhale) my breasts were not symmetrical enough not firm not high enough not crowned with the requisite nipples and my belly wasn’t flat and tight and smooth enough and my skin wasn’t taut enough, enough, (exhale) I just wasn’t visually stimulating enough. I wasn’t enough for him.
Dissecting the carcass of our relationship and trawling through our 3.5-year history, I realized he was even more visually-oriented than most men. Though I never witnessed instances of ogling women in public, I do remember noticing a general tendency to be stimulated visually, along with FHM magazines and porn; the latter two once innocuous details now challenging my liberal beliefs. But what cuts deeply are memories of his disappointment, and the unspoken dissatisfaction hidden behind factual observations of missing nipples, or the less than white and smooth shaved armpits, or the wrinkled belly. I glossed over these subtleties, because they had no place in that hallowed mystery called true love. Fast-forward to the tail-end of our relationship and THAT conversation. I suppose there’s just no politically correct way to communicate a problem of physical/sexual inadequacy except to lay it out brutally. I swallowed the continuous apologies, woke up in the middle of the night and regurgitated the evening’s dinner.
Now I realize, with razor-sharp clarity, that they were dealbreakers. This finally hit me when I saw his fiancee’s picture recently. I felt like a deflated old tire that’s been discarded for a new one. My brother’s candid observation of said new tire summed it in 2 sentences: “Sis, she’s prettier than you. The type a talent scout would approach.” My sister gave a slightly more loyal comment: “Well sis, she is shorter than you.” Neither would know the existence of that universe of pain I carried around, or the private humiliation I never had the courage to put into words till now. My rational mind struggles with the warped reality that I am not the problem, and yet, I was the problem. It’s been two years, but the memories of shame, embarrassment and insecurity that never strayed far from my consciousness crept back up. I let it flow and burn my insides, then resume the solitary task of picking up the broken pieces of myself.
It is human nature to hope and subconsciously expect that all stories eventually have a justified and fair ending. Hollywood reaffirms it. So two years post-breakup, I was still waiting for mine. After all, I had already endured a case of infidelity, the admittance of dissatisfaction over our sexual relationship, and the several suicidal threats against the backdrop of his depression during the last months of our relationship. My own agony was but a footnote to the nobler task of ensuring his survival during those dark days. But the recent news of his engagement rattled my long-held belief that one day, just like in the movies, he would wake up, snap out of it, and return to me with knees bent begging for forgiveness. But still I stubbornly held on. Surely I am entitled to atonement, for he owes me his very own life? And so I waited. And chalked up everything, including sexual disinterest, to his clinical depression — that bandage that I’ve tenaciously protected with all I have. Because the alternative theory, that my physical inadequacy was the problem was just too emotionally debilitating to absorb. I wish this painful truth had just been lost in the archives of our history and never surfaced. Unfortunately, here I am, bandage gone, wound exposed, gutted and twisting in the wind. I feel like a soldier naked and without arms in a battlefield. For what possible excuse or defense could I conjure against such an attack to protect my fragile sense of self? My dignity in shreds, I was already annihilated and decimated before the fight even began. The only thing left to do is gather the courage from surviving this painful truth and burn my hopes for justice and atonement.
I gave him too little credit. He understood his dark side, struggled with it and in the end, had to give in to who he really is. May I be forgiven for wishing him a life of eternal unhappiness.
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