Realisation

I've finished doing the grief work around Mr S Bananahead, to the point where it's strange for me to even think of him. But recently I was reminded of the strangeness of the breakup. I saw in a catalogue a picture of the ring he'd bought for me, and for a moment once again paused to wonder why, on the verge of proposing, he instead sabotaged the relationship he'd driven along so fast for all those months. It was a passing return to wondering, and I quickly consigned it to the "don't know, don't care, doesn't matter" basket and moved on.

But a few days later, I was reading through various GPYP posts to find good advice for a friend who'd just been dumped, and I read a phrase I'd seen a hundred times before but had never really absorbed . . . "what he does with you, he'll do TO you".

Oh, DUH.

When Mr S. Bananahead and I met, he was still living with an ex-girlfriend, who hadn't moved out because the housemate thing was convenient for both of them. He insisted on keeping me a complete secret from this ex-girlfriend, ostensibly because she had been paying the mortgage while they were together, and was owed a considerable amount if she moved out. I didn't even meet his parents until she was safely moved out and paid out. I met her once, because my car broke down and I was stranded at his house. I was introduced as a friend, and couldn't help noticing that she called him "sweetie" still. I later also found out that they'd still been sleeping together from time to time up until Mr S Bananahead and I started going out . . . so they were not so thoroughly-broken-up-for-the-past-6-months as he'd claimed. But despite the strangeness and inconsistencies, I let the secrecy happen until she was safely moved out, and believed Mr S Bananahead's reasons for it.

When that relationship began to go wrong, it was because Mr S Bananahead gradually scaled back affection and communication, all the while denying that he was doing any such thing, until I was nearly frantic. In desperation I turned up at his doorstep unannounced, and when I got there I discovered that he had a new female housemate he'd neglected to mention. His excuse for this was that we were too busy fighting for him to tell me anything, but since we were fighting because he refused to talk . . . ahem. Bullshit.

At the time, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She probably was just a housemate, right? But when I re-read that phrase - "what he does with you, he'll do TO you" - the uncertainty vanished. Of course she was his new flame. As demonstrated with myself and his ex, he's got a history of lining up a new girlfriend and keeping her a secret until he's got rid of the old one. Tell the new one a convincing story about the need for secrecy, so the phasing out is as painless as possible. He did it with me. He did it to me. It's what he does.

I STILL don't know why Mr S Bananahead decided to trade me in for someone else. I don't care. He's a bastard and a cheater and I'm well shot of him. And it was me that pulled the plug in the end, with far more dignity than he could ever have mustered. What I DO know is that I needn't doubt what was going on any more. I know what was going on. It was right there all along.