Can The Wrong Man Be The Right Man?

Break ups.

There are countless articles out there about relationships and break ups. The typical scenario is that of a woman whose partner has hurt her irreparably, causing the woman to break up with the man, or the man, out of the blue, breaks up with the woman who had already envisioned white lace and wedding bells.

Life of course as we know is messy and things aren’t in reality so easily figured out. The break up I will tell you about today for example, was quite a different story. I was the one to initiate the break up; he was the one envisioning wedding bells. There was no cheating, no wrong done to me by him in any kind of deliberate way. Yet, I know deep in my soul that this was the right decision. Oh, and incidentally, I still love him.

Let me take you back a couple of years. I met the man we’ll call Brad for the purpose of this article (in the interest of protecting his privacy), after a long period of loneliness. He was sweet and good looking. He came into my life and almost immediately declared his undying love to me. This scared me terribly, but at the same time it is a powerful thing to be someone’s dream come true. Of course there was hesitation. This was a man in his 40’s who had never been married, was currently working for minimum wages, had no car, had dropped out of college, had unresolved legal trouble (nothing criminal, let’s be clear) and clearly had dependency issues. To top it all, he was a heavy smoker, which for me was an issue. My intuition nagged me, and I expressed my reservations to him. He was so in love with me he said, he knew I was the one for him; he’d put every fiber of his being into getting his life together, he’d fix every one of my objections; he’d rise to his potential. Maybe I wasn't interpreting the intuition correctly, I lied to myself almost deliberately. We all know that this is a bad idea but yes, reader, I decided that maybe I was meant to save him.

He asked me to marry him almost right away. I said I would someday, but that right at the moment we weren’t in a position to undertake that endeavor. We would re visit the topic when he got some things figured out in his life. I meant it. He sure seemed to have started well. Within weeks he had resolved his transportation and legal issues and announced he hadn’t smoked in two weeks. I fell in love with his love and before I knew it he moved in with me.

Several days later he was already smoking again. I soon noticed that he wasn't very serious about work. Less than 6 months after that he lost his job, and at first this didn’t interfere too much with our relationship. He was certainly making me feel loved, even adored, beautiful and wanted like no one before. I saw the layoff as an opportunity for him to perhaps get new skills, get into something more suited to his gifts and be happier. But this isn’t what ended up happening. For the following 18 months he proceeded to waste more time than I have ever seen a human being waste. It became increasingly obvious that he and I had completely opposite ways to face the world. I tried to encourage him, coach him into making a plan and follow through. When he wouldn’t respond with the level of energy that I expected I became increasingly critical of him and unhappy. Other things happened that were disappointing to me: lies, half truths, less than ideal moral choices, unauthorized use of my check book, even if usually with the best intentions; more wasted time. Family gatherings became increasingly awkward as his inadequate social skills became even more pronounced due to his diminishing self worth.

At some point during that time I knew he wasn’t a man I could respect enough to call him my husband. I knew it as clearly as I know day from night. But I did not want to face it. After all he was still incredibly tender and loving to me. I was the center of his world, which wasn’t something I wanted but it made me feel that nobody would ever love me like that, and that he certainly deserved my love. So I kept giving him time, struggling with my anger at his lack of stamina to solve his challenges, my frustration at his inability to relate or connect to the rest of my loved ones, his passivity in the face of everything. I regularly confronted him about how this made me feel, how I didn’t think I could continue to love him if I could not admire him, but he didn’t seem to react. And when another new year arrived and found him still without a job, still with very few true job search hours on his log, something inside me broke. It took weeks of ultimatums and postponed deadlines but in the end I had already lost hope in our future together and I ended our relationship.

At the time of our break up he had no money, no job, nowhere to go. He had apparently gone over his quota of chances with most of his family and he had trouble getting anyone to take him in. He finally took off to a far away state 5 days later. The days leading to his departure were excruciatingly painful for both of us. His hurt was thick in the air which made it even more difficult for me, battling as I was with my own feelings of loss. I looked at his kid picture and I cried for him, the little boy lost who still hasn't been able to overcome his wounds. I have never seen a man in such visible pain before. When he left, he asked me to keep an open mind. He would turn his life around and prove to me that he could be a better man. How could I not keep an open mind? The future will bring what it will bring. At this moment, it is finished.

I have told you this long story because in it there is a lesson. One that in my head I already knew, yet somehow it became necessary for me to live it to really learn it. Here it is: When that little voice inside you (which we previously called intuition) tells you the relationship isn’t the right one for you, you must stop in your tracks and sometimes make a choice that contradicts your immediate want. Because the fact of the matter is that you won’t change him and you are not his savior. You will make him and yourself miserable while the voice eats away at your very soul. If you ignore it long enough you may silence it permanently and be unhappy for the rest of your life; otherwise it will drive you mad until it makes both of your lives explode in hurt and tears years later.

Asking Brad to leave is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I’ve cried at least as much as he has. I’ve felt evil, and weak, and I’ve wanted so much to hold him again, kiss him and tell him it would be alright. I face waves of doubt and the fear that I sent away my last chance at love. But I knew that this was my only remaining opportunity to do what was right. It would have been so much easier to do it way back then, when I first saw the issues. The heartache for him then wouldn’t have been nearly as deep. I will always care about him, and I hope that he will someday be able to forgive me, and maybe even gain something from this experience, resolve his challenges and become the man that he was meant to be. I will move on and be wiser in the future and know that in my experience, and as evidence shows today, the wrong man did not turn out to be the right man. But please don’t listen to me; Listen to your intuition.