Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek behind doors left slightly ajar. This week, we bring you the Laid-Off, Cuckolded Boyfriend With Anger Problems: 29, male, suburban Connecticut, straight, laid-off.
DAY ONE
Midnight: At an art event while my ex is on a Craigsdate. It feels so good to finally be alone after seven years with a woman six years older. Then she texts: She’s been stood up. I rush home.
1 a.m.: We still live together in Connecticut, where I moved to support her until she finishes graduate school in May. I ended the relationship a week ago out of sexual frustration — the last two years were celibate, due to her thyroid condition. We have both begun dating again, but are co-dependent until our lease is out in May. I still have intense feelings for her.
4 a.m.: She’s waiting with pizza. Never wants to see her suitor again.
10 a.m.: We still share a bed. Upon waking, she’s fuming over being stood up. Attempt to initiate sex. She cringes when I touch her. She began hormone therapy a few months ago, but has shown no interest in sex (with me). It’s a source of resentment disproportionate to the act itself.
11 a.m.: Her suitor e-mails to apologize. I tell her not to respond. She does. Check my e-mail. Nothing. Jealous.
11:30 a.m.: Make breakfast in bed for her. Admittedly, I am trying to seduce her. I don’t believe she has no interest in sex. I feel taken advantage of. I never would have moved here if I thought we wouldn’t one day have a normal relationship. I still want to be with her.
Noon: We discuss relationship. Takeaways: We will love each other always, we cannot move forward in life without one another, but we are broken up, she needs to talk to Craigsguy, promises not to sleep with him.
5 p.m.: Walk her to school. Come home. Begin heated e-mail exchange with her. She tells me my e-mails were romantic and passionate, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed having romance in her life. That’s what I was missing too, I say.
7 p.m.: Take shower; masturbate, thinking of her.
8 p.m.: She forwards me an e-mail from her suitor, asking me for clarification. Please don’t torture me, I say. I have to do this, she says.
8:50 p.m.: She comes home to change before her date. She’s stunning: tall, redheaded, and dramatic, my ideal of female beauty. Sit stewing.
9 p.m.: Why is she going out if she loves me? “We’re just talking,” she says. “I didn’t do this before your date.” So it is a date then? “Shouting at me before I go see him is a bad idea,” she says on the way out.
10:30 p.m.: Check online-dating site. Lone message is from a cheap clone of the ex. Pour myself a dry martini. Tomorrow is a big day, tryout for a potential job that would get me out of here for a year.
2 a.m.: She sends a text describing an improbable, romantic-comedy-like moment between her and her new beau. Doesn’t reply to my follow-up text.
3 a.m.: Send a series of frantic and increasingly angry texts and voicemails.
DAY TWO
9 a.m.: She texts saying she slept on couch. Haven’t slept at all.
Noon: She arrives home, likely thinking I was already gone. Admits to kissing the guy on the lips. I insist on kissing her. Awkward, we hug for minutes at a time afterwards; I can smell something unfamiliar on her. His dog, she says. Trust is utterly gone. Leave for job interview.
3 p.m.: Back in New York City. Check into hotel. Glib texts with the ex.
10 p.m.: Flirt with bartender who looks like Drew Barrymore. She tells me to meet at another bar afterwards. I go.
11 p.m.: Shower, shave, “safety jerk.”
Midnight: Cute bartender is buying me drinks and nuzzling. I invite her back to my hotel, but she balks, and gives me her e-mail. Pick up an Israeli girl who’s been staring at me.
5 a.m.: Raunchy hotel sex, first intercourse in two-and-a-half years, first blow job in seven. My ex always claimed my breath was terrible and my penis was drippy and disgusting. Ask about this, girl says everything seems normal. Afterward she wants to talk about Gaza, sigh, and says she wants to be a journalist, double sigh.
DAY THREE
11 a.m.: Feel bad chasing the Israel girl out before checkout. Run into her on the street afterwards. Giddy, but also uncomfortable because it wasn’t someone I cared about.
5 p.m.: Back in Connecticut, walking home, chatting with stunning brunette I met on the bus ride home. Forget to ask for surname.
5:30 p.m.: Home. Ex avoids me, is holed up with her computer, smoking furiously, penning some massive missive to the guy. Message from a very cute girl I’d been on a date with the week before.
7 p.m.: She’s still wrapped up in her computer. Realize I could care less.
10 p.m.: She leaves for work. I tell her I know she’s lying and she more or less ignores the question, saying she isn’t used to dealing with these situations. Ugh, am sneezy, snotty, and obviously coming down with something. Hope I didn’t give it to that poor Israeli girl. Or did she give it to me? Pour myself a drink. Haven’t slept in two days.
11 p.m.: Drunk and sick.
DAY FOUR
10 a.m.: Very sick. Wake up to a cat kneading my pillow.
11 a.m.: Argument with ex after she refuses to stop smoking in the same room.
11:30 a.m.: Polite rejection from dream job. Shout at cat, who scratches me.
2 p.m.: Fight with ex over whether I am invited to a club in two days. She says she doesn’t want me to hit on girls or get drunk and embarrass her. Reasonable.
6 p.m.: Drag myself out for an art opening with ex.
8 p.m.: Friend of ex invites me to stop by anytime. Not sure how to take it. Ex is visibly irritated, explains why aforementioned co-worker would never have anything to do with me, how she only dates real men with real incomes.
9 p.m.: Ex says she might see her beau tonight, “for the last time,” and leaves. Last week’s date leaves a few flirty Facebook messages on my profile. Am so sick. Pour myself a drink. E-mail ex; she’s either gone or ignoring me. Don’t really care.
DAY FIVE
11:30 a.m.: Ex texts to say she’s coming home. Claims she spent the night at her work studio. Too sick to care.
2:30 p.m.: We leave for our monthly shopping trip in a rented car. She gets very angry at me when I tell her I want her to start paying utilities. I call her a whore. Afterward we ignore each other.
6 p.m.: Ask her to apologize for leading me on for two years. Call her a whore again.
7 p.m.: Home. She goes into the other room, smoking, frantically e-mailing her man. I check mine. Start drinking bourbon.
11 p.m.: Notice the rental car is parked illegally. Ex asks me to move it in the morning at 8 a.m. I refuse, saying I’m sick and she doesn’t get special privileges from me if she’s with someone else. She’s angry but moves the car.
DAY SIX
11:45 a.m.: Up. Not as sick as before. Ex has left many cat chores for me to take care of.
1:30 p.m.: Parents call encouraging me to move out. Psychologically, this is my best option. It would also hurt her the most, and I don’t want to do that. She would literally have to drop out in her last semester.
3:30 p.m.: She calls, says she’s having a hard day and is about to break it off for good with the guy. Please don’t tell me about this.
7 p.m.: She comes home. She’s crying over him. I pour her some of my bourbon. She admits to sleeping with the guy and gives me lurid detail that “it was like losing my virginity again; it wouldn’t go in, we had to try and try.” I tell her my hotel story. At first it feels cathartic, but then we’re both really mad at each other.
10:30 p.m.: We go out to a club together. I keep drinking. I lose her in the club. Last thing I remember is bumming a cigarette (my first in nine years) off someone and storming home to confront her.
DAY SEVEN
1:30 a.m.: Storm into house, kick down bedroom door, and corner her against the wall, screaming at her until the police arrive. I’m hauled away. Handcuffs, no glasses. Blind. Paddy wagon. She tells the police not to take me, but given my condition they have to. It’s the first time I have ever been arrested. We have had bad arguments before, but never like this.
5 a.m.: Why are people masturbating in the cells next to mine? Furious with her. Police are nice to me. Bologna sandwiches for breakfast aren’t as bad as you’d think.
9 a.m.: Use my phone call to call her. She tells me she tried to get the police to leave me, but they had to take me away. Sobering up, realize how awful what I’ve done is. Shackled to other prisoners in an absolutely dark van. Spooky.
11:30 a.m.: Arraignment. Charged with two misdemeanors. Court date. Limited restraining order. Mandatory alcohol counseling. She’s been calling on my behalf and I would have been in much more serious trouble if she hadn’t.
12:30 p.m.: Home. Am shocked to see how wrecked the house is. She’s obviously in pain. We both apologize. Realize just how fucked up of a person I am.
1 p.m.: She tells me she must call her guy to break it off. She’s on the phone with him for hours. Why is she more upset about her breakup with this guy than me?
5:30 p.m.: We lie together in the dark, reeling from the whole thing. In some ways it’s like nothing ever changed. Want to be away from her but don’t. Just need to find a job first. We’re still stuck together until May. Fall asleep together listening to music.
TOTALS: One act of hotel sex with stranger; two acts of masturbation fantasizing about ex; one act of domestic violence leading to two misdemeanor charges.
