I’m a masochist for writing this

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https://play.ht/articles/36154df84459My life-altering decision to change my habit of picking the same unavailable man saved my life and heart. I wrote about it, and then I started thinking about the word—unavailable. How easy it could be misconstrued. I would bet that many would assume, unavailable meant a married man because that would be the obvious reason. But the frogs that broke my heart on the way to find my guy were unavailable for other reasons. They simply didn’t want to commit or at least not with me.

One of them was married.

I never wanted to be someone’s #2. I don’t know of anyone who grows up with that as their goal, but for whatever reason, I became superbly efficient at filling the gap someone else left open, while not being the main filling. This is not something I’m proud of and don’t take this as me bragging about it, because I will always feel guilty for saying yes to him.

I was a masochist, and maybe I’m still am, but not in this manner. No. never. Not again. My conscience wouldn’t let me anymore.

It’s funny when I think back at all the things I told myself to keep me from feeling guilty.

• He’s not going to leave his wife and kids.
• It’s not that serious.
• He tricked me into loving him, so it is not my fault.
• I’m not taking anything away from them.

After a while of telling myself these things, I became numb, and my conscience quieted down, and I would sleep — never with him because nights were reserved for the wife — soundly.

It’s funny when I think back at all the things I told myself to keep me from feeling guilty.

I’m a jealous woman. Stereotypically Hispanic jealous, but I had become somebody else who didn’t care about sharing a man. Never in my life would I have imagined this would be me. Mistresses are supposed to be fancy, beautiful, nonchalant, and uncaring. I was none of these things. But there I was, in an empty bed with an unread text on my phone saying I love you, from him.

At first, I waved him off. You have a wife, I told him. I didn’t believe someone could love two people. Dos Mujeres Un Camino was the only reference I had, and that story didn’t turn out well for any of the characters. But according to him, it was real, he was feeling it, and I ended up believing him.

When we started seeing each other, he tricked me into believing he was single. In those days when a man approached me, I would look for two things, his ring finger and the lightened skin where one used to be. He didn’t have either. I didn’t even ask.

I fell for his charm, smile, and deep conversations. The single guys I knew talked about T&A and video games. Nothing was titillating about their conversations. Not him. He was smart, sophisticated. He was different. Little by little, at the speed the wind rips a dry leaf from a tree and it flutters to the ground, I came to like him.

After that, I lusted for him, and before he had texted those three words, I was sure I had been feeling them myself. But I kept this information secret. I knew I wasn’t supposed to fall in love. Baddy mistresses in the Telenovelas and Samantha from Sex in the City taught me — you don’t fall in love.

I must admit, I wanted to be Carrie, with her penchant for shoes, New York, and writing; her character fits me the most. But without planning it, I turned into Samantha. To fill her shoes, I couldn’t care about him, about his family. This was just sex.

The Benefits of Being a Mistress

There are zero benefits to a side-chick falling in love, yet I did. It turns out my inclination towards Carrie was too strong to ignore. I’m also a lousy liar and have the worst poker face in the world. He saw right through me, and I confessed—I loved him too. He was elated, and everything was horrible from then on.

It’s like the heart and brain align to form a trajectory of the traditional relationship path once the words ‘I love you’ come out of the lovers’ mouths. I wanted more. I yearned to walk that progression with him. It was seared in my brain and taunted me each night because I knew I would never walk that road. At least not with him.

I was a masochist for pain. Maybe I’m still am for writing this.

After the second year, when we were most comfortable with each other he told me I was perfect. Wishing to hear a compliment because I’m a Leo and I love them, I asked why. He said when he spotted me that first time, I was alone without friends, quietly reading a book.

“You are the perfect mistress, discreet,” he said.

I took this as a compliment and worked even harder to be better than perfect because I’m an overachiever. When his phone would ring, and we were driving, we’d pull over. He would step outside quietly and find a spot under the shade to talk. He didn’t want the echo of the car in his voice because if she knew he was driving, she would send him to get something, and this was our time to spend together. I was as quiet as a mouse when it would ring in my apartment. I would turn everything off and walk away from whatever room he was in to give him privacy.

The movies have it all wrong, the cheating man doesn’t go to the bathroom to take the call.

The echo in the bathroom is a big giveaway to the wife that her man is hiding something. So I would leave, so he wouldn’t get caught. Maybe the writers who’ve written these scenes have never been mistresses because if they had, they would know that it is the mistress who leaves the room.

I became like a Maslow dog when I would hear his phone ring. The motions became automatic to me. Eventually, I stopped thinking about why I was doing them and just salivated—I mean, left the room or stopped the car when his phone rang.

My guilt, you may ask? After two years, it was tucked away neatly in a perfect square in the box found in the back of my head where the rest of my failed relationships went. I shoved it there because I loved him, and I was the perfect mistress.

It wasn’t until years later when I was with my new boyfriend who would eventually become my husband, that I realized how second nature this “phone-call” routine had become. Early in the morning while we were still in bed, his phone rung. He has this thing where he sends good morning texts to his children. This time, one of them called. Upon hearing the ring, I slipped my legs out of the comforter, touched the carpet with my toes softly, and headed towards the door. But before my hand left the bed, he grabbed my wrist.

“Where you going?” he asked. He had pressed the answer button and was looking at me super confused.

“Let the puppies out.” It was a lie. I was going to sit on the couch with my knees tucked underneath my chin to look at my Facebook feed and wait till his phone call was over.

I’m a bad liar.

He patted the indentation I just vacated. “Stay.”

One word was all it took. It didn’t break my habit. I would need one more year to break it. But that one word woke me from the spell. It shattered the Samantha costume I’d been wearing for far too long, and left me vulnerably naked, but real and happy.

I Needed to Break what Broke me

Many years after I left my unavailable frog, he emailed me on my 30th birthday. He said he had gotten a divorce from his wife and wanted me to be his #1. These words would have had me tittering with euphoria eight years ago when we first met and I fell hard for him. But not anymore. I wrote him a long email back. I was angry it had taken so long. Angry he couldn’t see how he hurt me, but mostly I was angry at myself for believing his game.

The last sentence in my email to him said: “I’m engaged.”

His reply did not come back promptly. He’s the type of guy that needs days to cool off before he talks. He told me once that he learned a long time ago that words cannot be taken back. With this knowledge, he learned to take a pause before responding to something that made him emotional. I knew he was in that pause.

But, apparently, he needed a longer one. Four days later, his words on his reply read like lashes from the thinnest branch of the lemon tree in my grandmas garden. “He will cheat on you too. Good luck. I’m moving on to the other one.”

I typed “Goodbye,” and hit send.

After the sound of the jingle that tells me my email was sent, I deleted the conversation, the same way I had removed his contact from my new phone. But the anger in his words stayed with me for a while. When I met him, I changed myself to be worthy of his love. I didn’t realize I was worthy already. That email with the sting was my affirmation that even if I had a sliver of doubt when I first saw his name in my inbox, I had made the right choice.

That day, I slayed my last ghost.