A Glorious Disaster

Over the last two months, the biggest challenge I've faced is being patient.

I am NOT a patient person.  I don't like waiting for things to happen, I like making them happen.  However, when other people are involved, it's just not that simple.

I'm referring, of course, to the waiting involved in this triangle between myself, Kyle, and Lora.

Kyle is my best friend.  I can tell him absolutely anything, no matter how dark or twisted my thoughts get, and he doesn't judge me.  He's been where I've been, at the lowest of the low, and he understands how hard it can be to suffer through these situations.  He struggled very badly with Lora's ultimatum, and ended up continuing to talk to me.  When I asked him why, he said "Because you're my friend, I like talking to you, and I want to be here for you."  A few weeks later, when I told him I wasn't comfortable with being secretive like that, he flat out told Lora we were still talking.  Knowing that it would probably ruin their relationship, he confessed anyway.  She was obviously angry, but instead of leaving, she issued the same ultimatum.

It did nothing for two days.  He continued talking to me, but it wasn't normal talking.  Instead, it was a back and forth about what he was going to do.  By the end of the second night, I felt him leaning toward saying goodbye, so I told him to go ahead and do it, because it was clearly what he wanted.  He told me he wanted to see this through with her and that he was sorry.

I've never cried so hard in my life.  I tried to go to sleep that night, but I just couldn't.  Knowing that my tossing and turning was keeping Bryan awake, and he worked the next day, I got out of bed and went to the living room to sit.  Our pitch black apartment was broken only by the sounds of the dogs snoring, and my thoughts began to run like crazy.  How dare Kyle dump me for her?  All she'd done was sow pain and mistrust amongst all of us.  I'd been a good friend, a good person, and I didn't deserve that.  I deserved much better.

I didn't know then how much my next move would haunt me.

I picked up my phone and fired off six text messages, tearing into him.  I can't remember exactly what they said, but they were cruel.  I remember calling him a bastard, asking how he was going to be able to live with himself knowing how badly he'd broken my heart, and telling him that while I wasn't perfect or claiming to be perfect, I deserved a lot better treatment than I'd gotten at the hands of the two of them.  He didn't answer the messages, and my anger slowly faded away.  It was replaced by worry.  It wasn't like Kyle to ignore messages at all, especially ones like that.  I knew him better than that.  When a half hour had passed without an answer, I called him.

He answered, groggy and confused, and I immediately realized I'd woken him.  I apologized, but tearfully asked him to tell me why this was happening, why he couldn't see how much damage Lora had done.  He didn't answer, and I realized he was reading the messages.  Before I could tell him to stop, to delete them and pretend they never existed, he burst into tears.  I sat and listened as he cried, saying "Oh my god" over and over again.  I've never heard anything like it before, and I hope I never do again.  Those sobs were the sound of my best friend's heart breaking.

We ended up talking for about an hour before I realized I was finally tired.  We got off the phone and I went to sleep, expecting to never hear from him again.  Instead, he texted me the next morning, and every single day since then.  We don't talk about that night, except for one time that I apologized profusely for what I did.  I can still hear the sound of his sobs in a distant part of my brain that won't let me forget how badly I hurt him.

That was a really long story to tell you guys that I haven't lost my best friend...the problem here is that neither has Lora.  She doesn't deserve him and is actually incredibly controlling, but he won't leave her.  He can't.  He feels like he would be abandoning her, because she has no one else.  (The reason she has no one else is because she ruins all her friendships the way she ruined ours, just saying.)  So instead, he suffers on in a relationship he's not happy about.

Last weekend, she visited him in NY.  The day he told me she was coming up, he was completely miserable.  The next day, we talked while he was at work, and again, he was miserable.  When I pointed this out and asked him if that was the kind of relationship he wanted, he replied "I don't want anything anymore."  When she's not around, he's his old self again.  When she is, I barely recognize him.

Some of my friends have suggested that I simply tell her that we're still talking, which they assume will incense her enough to leave.  I can't imagine being that underhanded, though.  I would never do anything to sabotage their relationship...I'm not that kind of person.

I know that a relationship like this can't possibly last forever, so I'm doing my best to be patient while it fizzles out.  He and I have worked out an unspoken agreement where neither of us talk about her or their relationship.  It seems to be doing pretty well for us, and our friendship is starting to feel normal again.  However, it hurts to sit silently and watch him be miserable, suffering at the hands of a petty child trapped in a woman's body.

I wish he'd leave, but I know the way his mind works.  He can't abandon her any more than he could abandon me.

Has anyone else been in a situation like this before?  Do you have any advice for how to cope until she finally gets tired of playing with him and moves on to her next target?

Crossing my fingers!

J