by Dream » Sun May 27, 2007 12:35 pm
Well, this is probably going to turn into either something really really long, or something really short… My best friend is a girl I first met when I was 13, and good 14 years had passed since then. She was the first girl I fell in love with, the first… well, everything really. We spent a couple of years in school together, and then her family moved away, and for about a decade we kept in touch on and off, talking, occasionally finding a chance to meet. And each time we met… There was something akin to electricity coming alive between us. We’d talk for hours, we’d laugh, we’d finish each other sentences – and ignore this incredible thing building up between us. We’d both just get completely scared, say our goodbyes after a day spent together, and continue with our lives. Well, we used to live on different parts of the country, so our meetings were rare, and life sort of continued. I’ve spent some years messing things up in my life, and she got married.
And then, three years ago, we’ve met at the university, began studying in the same department. And life could no longer interfere. First we’d meet once a week and have coffee together. Then we’d meet more often. And more. It got to the point I couldn’t wait for my class to end, so I’ll be able run to the building where her class was taking place and spend the recess together. We couldn’t stop talking. You know, the kind of conversations where you suddenly realize things about yourself, and about your life, and end up talking about stuff you never told anyone, or even remembered... And we still ignored everything else. She kept saying to herself that I’m gay but not interested in her, and I kept convincing myself that she’s straight and in love with her husband, and that we just have the best friendship one can ever ask for.
Right… Well, one day we somehow ended up with her daring me to kiss her. It was a joke, it sounded silly, we kept laughing (and drinking, may I add), some stupid curiosity thing, nothing more. And then we kissed. And all that electricity that was building up for months – even for years, one might say, between us – exploded. It was the most intense kiss I had in my entire life. The world, reality, time – everything just quietly folded itself and disappeared. You know that famous line from Babylon 5, about how it feels when telepaths make love?.. Well, we didn’t even make love at that point, just kissed for what seemed like ages – or bare moments – but it felt exactly like that…
That was three years ago… Since then we went through heaven and hell, and every possible gray shade in between. The most amazing happiness and the kind of loss of innocence that leaves you changed forever. She’s not a cheating type, and what happened between us had the most horrible repercussions on her marriage. I don’t know what we would’ve done if either of us could foresee in time just how bad it would end up being… At the time if felt unstoppable, irresistible, that we were no more in control than one would be when trying to put out the sun with a bucket of water…
She started hating having her husband touch her. She would avoid any possible intimacy with him, refused having sex, couldn’t bare it… And he – he chose not to notice. I believe that if at that point he would’ve really talked to her, instead of bulling her into sleeping with him, and terrorizing her emotionally (and she was already hating herself horribly and being full of guilt for cheating on him), she probably would’ve broken down and left me. But he didn’t. He knew that things were wrong, but he just kept demanding from her to have sex, stopped talking to her for periods of time until she gave in, and just wouldn’t let go until she complied. She would lie under him, crying, believing that she deserves it and that it’s her duty as his wife – and he wouldn’t care. Eventually she couldn’t take it anymore and she told him that she can’t do it anymore, and that she considers divorcing. He said he will never let her go, and the subject was never raised again (it was too painful for her to try and keep explaining, when he would just dismiss it all and drag her to bed).
Eventually it got to the point when she couldn’t sleep without having nightmares, and got to the verge of a nervous breakdown. The thing is, she comes from a very uptight family, and all her friends are straight, so the idea of a divorce is almost unthinkable (I’m not even talking about coming out) – her family would not speak to her again, and all her friends would leave her (that's a fact, not an exagerration). So she’s terrified of making this step, as it virtually means that she’ll have to start her life all over again, alone, in a place where nobody knows her. Instead, she got a scholarship and went to Japan for a year as an exchange student. She came back for two weeks for a short visit during holidays, and it was a nightmare – her husband didn’t let her see any of her friends, barely let her see her family – he just demanded from her to spend all her time with him, and no matter how cold she was, or how almost catatonic – he kept raping her whenever he wanted (She refuses to call it rape, out of the guilt she’s feeling and her belief that her husband is a wonderful guy whose life she had ruined, but she did admit that she just lies under him, without moving, trying not to think, trying not to feel, waiting for it all to just be over, hating him touching her – so then, how else one might call it?).
After this visit she was a wreck for months, and I was going insane trying to convince her to leave, since nothing is worth going through things like that, but she claims she has nowhere to go. She tried telling her mother that she wants to divorce – her mother’s response was to call the husband and yell at him for not making her daughter pregnant yet, and that he should do it as soon as possible…
Everything is much more complicated than that, of course… I was talking to experts trying to find help, I was (am) doing everything possible to try and make her believe that her life won’t end if she divorces, and that we can make it (she also has to deal with the fact that she realized that she’s gay, and it’s incredibly hard for her, as she never imagined that a life with a woman is even possible), but the fact remains that her stay in Japan ends in a month and she’ll be right back in the hell from where she tried to escape. And I don’t know what to do, it tears everything in me to pieces… She’s the love of my life, and I know that I’m hers, and I would turn the world upside down for her, but until (if ever) she decides to make that first step herself, and to actually leave – I can’t do anything… And I feel like I’m stuck in a tiny glass cage, with no air, going crazy…
What’s worse – or not worse, but maybe just the last thing that ultimately broke me down, is the response I got from my friends about it… I’m not naïve, I don’t expect generally from people to understand any of it… But my close friends… Whenever I would talk about it, horrified, I’d get one of either three responses: 1) I’d be told that I’m just jealous, 2) I’d be completely ignored and be told, “don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll live happily ever after eventually”, or 3) I was given the advice that I should leave her and that it will be good for her, because if the only emotional support she has (me) will be taken away from her, she’ll realize how alone she is and will get the courage to walk away (which really pissed me off, as I think the only courage such a thing can give is a courage to commit suicide).
I even told my parents at some point, when I was reaching the brink of madness… I don’t know, I guess when things go really bad you somehow always end up turning to your parents… They’re rather traditional, but they know about us and have no problem with it, or with anything “gayish”, but – they just couldn’t get why am I getting so worked up over the “rape”. My mom said something incredibly idiotic along the lines of “men are different, you don’t know, they have needs”, and my dad said that marriages are complicated and that she’s not the only one who has to deal with things like that (which apparently makes it ok then).
So eventually I just stopped talking to people. It feels like her and me, we have to deal with things alone, always, and we have no one but each other. That no help, no support, no understanding will ever come from outside… And it feels so wrong to me, and so horrible… I mean, it’s not possible that we’re the first people who have to deal with a situation like this, or with these kind of feelings of fear and helplessness (and in my case, also a lot of anger). And I don’t know, keeping all of this inside just makes me feel sometimes that I’m going mad…
Hmm. I guess it turned out to be incredibly long rant after all…