You Don’t Get To String Me Along

I heard this song after I had a conversation on the phone with mr horrible and the lyrics raised conflicted feelings about my ex that were all too real. Because is he stringing me along? And I don’t know how I feel about it.

Had a phone call late one evening from mr horrible in which he began to wax nostalgic about how something that had happened earlier that day made him miss being with me. Interesting? Maybe. Conflicting? Yes, completely.

Video to the rescue

I was curious, though, and I had to ask how long he had been having these “feelings”. He claimed to have been feeling them all along since his first visit here and still felt them currently. What? For almost three years? No, really?

At the time he kinda caught me off guard so I wasn’t even sure how to respond, but I wanted to know more, so I was noncommittal in my response, anything to get him to keep talking. Secretly I was hoping that he was drinking so he wouldn’t recall much of what I said and therefore not be able to hold it against me later.

My dilemma – lets look at the evidence

How is it possible that he has these feelings when he is still with that other woman? How can he claim to feel conflicted? Claim that were he to move out here he would hope I would take him back?

He has to be stringing me along. This can’t be real.

For starters, I am doing no such thing. When it is over, it is over. I mean, realistically we were toxic together. I don’t think I have it in me to give him the “love” he wants, not in any form that he would recognize it as “love” and be satisfied.

So, I am left with the conclusion that this is not real. He doesn’t really want me back. What he misses is having me there. He misses having me around to manipulate.

Behavior proves otherwise

It came to me when I heard this song because every time we talk he usually asks me at some point if I am seeing someone yet. And he seems comforted by the fact that I am not seeing anyone, and don’t express a need to begin dating anytime soon.

But the truth is he can’t possibly want me back. He doesn’t really have conflicted feelings. Evidence points to the contrary. He insists to this day that it was my inability to fulfill his need to feel “loved” that caused him to stray. With him so convinced in making me the guilty party, what would be different now? He can’t expect that I have changed in any fundamental ways that would give him what he wanted.

He says I never told him that I loved him. I know those are lies. I told him every day. Showed him in every way possible. Conclusion, there was some fundamental disconnect that will likely still exist now since he hasn’t changed and neither have I (other than to connect more closely to the pre-marriage me), not fundamentally.

His modus operandi

So it’s all part of his M.O. of continued manipulations and mind fucks that he pulls on me. Were I of a weaker mind, I would be so flattered by his declarations that I would do anything to get him back. But I haven’t lost my damned mind.

He just wants to keep me as a backup. He just wants to manipulate me, keep me “hooked”, JUST IN case shit in his current relationship goes wrong because he knows he fucked up big time letting me go. Or at least I want to think that he realized his mistake.

Ain’t nobody got time for that…