The unforgivable
When I was twenty two I did something pretty awful. Come to think of it, I probably did a string of awful things, but one of them stands out as somehow more dramatic and colourful than the others: I left my living-in boyfriend, and started sleeping with his best friend, who also lived with us at the time. Are you shocked yet?
I feel almost compelled to start enumerating the extenuating circumstances now in order to exonerate myself, and though there are no excuses, extenuating circumstances there were. Please allow me to explain. Firstly, I had been trying to break up with this boyfriend for the best part of a year, but was held back by constant promises of change and general begging. Secondly, I had, before anything happened, informed my so-called boyfriend of my attraction towards his friend in an effort to conclude this relationship forever, to no avail. Boyfriend person, let’s call him C, was ready to put up with this situation as long as I promised not to act on my impulses. Thirdly, our relationship was a disastrous, sexless, loveless wreck, and I had felt for a long time like a single person on a dry spell. Fourthly, and what seemed most important at the time, I was genuinely in love with C’s friend. And you can’t choose who you fall in love with, can you?
I pose that last question as a bit of a dare. On the one hand, yes, it can seem vacuously true, on the other, I would be just as angry as devastated if my husband came up with this as a reason for leaving me/sleeping with someone else. ‘You can choose who you fall in love with’, I would say- probably very loudly- ‘you can choose to take attractions further and indulge in flirting and allow yourself to become more emotionally involved with someone’. All of this I believe is true. I indulged in my attraction to this other guy, flirted, intimated, sprinted well past the point of the acceptable, and did not stop to look when the signs turned to “no-return”. At the time I saw no harm in this; I vaguely remember thinking that this infatuation gave me a constant boost without any real drawbacks. Nothing could ever happen. Nothing would ever happen. I was so certain. Only the power of love/sexual attraction/pointless infatuation- call it what you will, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about- is much more powerful than I gave it credit for. Voila, it was capable of pushing me further than I ever thought possible: into the arms of a forbidden love, and away from the relationship I had tried so hard to leave behind.
C was far from happy. He was furious. Let’s face it, he was often furious about the smallest of things, so this really gave him a chance for some serious anger channelling. Indeed, considering how crazy mad he could get over me allegedly throwing a bunch of bananas in the shopping trolley- instead of carefully placing them there with a loving kiss- he was positively restrained in the circumstances. No one got physically hurt, no crimes were committed. There wasn’t even a malicious backlash against us. C just carried on doing his thing, only hating the two people he had professed to like the most.
And here is the terrible thing, though I did not see it at the time. At the time I could not see past the freedom of a new romance, this time with someone I could actually stand, and who seemed to be able to stand me. At the time I did not realise I would be losing C forever. Losing him as a lover, as a boyfriend, as a partner, as the potential future father of my children, these were all tremendously good things. As a friend, though, I wish I could have kept him. Unforgivable things in a lover can be loveable quirks in a friend, and he did have his good things: a sharp, intelligent sense of humour, wit, and fierce loyalty. I thought, before what happened happened, that we’d always be in touch.
Some years have passed, and my illicit romance of those days is now my legally wedded husband. I know now that despite the doubtful morality of my actions at the time, in a way I made the right decision. With the pressures I have had to withstand along with my current husband, especially the stress and upheaval of having children, I know my relationship with C would have collapsed entirely, probably right after a scandalous descent into domestic violence. But still I wish C and I could be friends. In fact, I have tried to approach him a couple of times, and in as humble a tone as I could muster, I have asked to be forgiven. I have tried to explain without trying to justify. I have appealed to the time that has passed, to the new things I’ve learned. He is not interested. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.