Hi my smart and kind friends,
How’s Spring treating you? Are flowers blooming in your neighborhood? I said hi to my neighborhood cats: one black male; one white Persian female. The female is pregnant. She came up to me and brushed up against my legs. That was precious.
I am settling into New Mexico, making friends, getting familiar with the drive home, going on hikes, and battling with the ant colony in the kitchen. If you have great non-toxic tips to keep ants out, let me know. I am going to try peppermint essential oil first.
I am rewatching Sex & City on a whim. I share a Netflix account with my high school boyfriend and his first wife. I insist on calling her his first wife. Go ahead and judge me. He asked me to not contact him anymore a few weeks ago. That was unnecessary. I was going to naturally stop reaching out to him as soon as his wife joined him in Germany. He is not the type of person who will actively reach out to his friends. So, the emotional burden of maintaining our friendship has always been on me. I did the reaching. Without my reaching, the friendship will fizzle out on its own.
We went out in high school when we were innocent idiots who didn’t know how to love well. We didn’t have sex. What we had was shared pain that we didn’t understand and was unable to communicate with others. We created a container for just us and the container fostered a deep and strong intellectual intimacy. We understood each other. There were certain soulful conversations I only wanted to have with him.
Our relationship was fairly simple. We talked about philosophy and life. We shared what we had been working on and what we had been thinking over the phone. Nothing about our friendship was romantic or sensual. We were good friends on opposite ends of the globe.
But we can’t be good friends anymore because my singledom is a threat to his marriage. His wife doesn’t like it. He wants to protect his wife’s feelings. I respect that. But what made me mad and disappointed is that he wanted me to befriend his wife. I need to take a deep breath here. I don’t know his wife and have never met her. I am sure she’s all kinds of wonderful but do I get a choice here? What if I don’t want to be your wife’s friend?! Where does the respect for our friendship and my individuality comes in? His decision to marry should not impact my freedom to decide whom I want to be friends with.
Can married men have single female friends? Does having intellectual intimacy with your unmarried friend count as cheating? Where is the line for loyalty? How do you define monogamy for yourself? All these questions need to be answered prior to marriage.
It is impossible to have one person meet all of our needs. But romance is intoxicating. It is also a common phonomonal where men don’t befriend anyone their wives don’t like. You make compromises to stay married. To have a good wife vs to have a good friend, it seems like an easy choice. Even though monogamy itself doesn’t make a relationship secure and successful on its own.
I, for one, want an union where I won’t lose who I am as a person. I want a partner who supports and celebrates my friendships outside of our romance. I want a partner who trusts me. I want to and I will keep my own good friends.
What would you do? Think about it. There are no right or wrong answers. Just what works for you without causing too much harm.
I am getting ready for a hike. Talk soon.
Xiaoyu
