A dog story

I was as blunt as I could be.

Yeah I had a drink, but I wasn’t wasted or falling off track.

He told me he hadn’t realized, until my emails slammed into him, how much this had hurt me – how much of an embarrassment I felt – how betrayed I felt.

That many lines had been crossed, and how I kept giving the benefit of the doubt, always adapting, but this line was the one that could never be uncrossed. It was one too many, and a big one. I could never view him the same way again.

How I had completely lost faith in him as even capable of being a caring person – how every good thing he had ever done I now look back on with suspicion.

He said he really thought this wouldn’t hurt me much – since he had decided I wanted to get out of this relationship. He hadn’t ask me, of course, but that didn’t matter.

Let me illustrate this with a story. Well, it’s not a very good story but…
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One morning, the kid is trying to get out of his bedroom, but the crappy doorknob has become stuck and he can’t open the door.

John and I also try twisting and wrenching the knob on the outside, but with no luck.

We even unscrew and remove the knob itself, leaving a hole to look through… but the bit that sticks into the wall board is still stuck – the door won’t open.

All through this, the kid is trying to open the door from his side, laughing about the whole thing. Also, his big dog in the room with him is constantly sniffing and pawing at the door.

At this point, we realize we’ll probably have to kick the door down.

The kid has already moved back over to his bed, away from the door, while we figure this stuff out.

I’m about to say to the kid, “ok, get the pup out of the way and both of you get on the other side of the room, far away from the door.”

But before the sounds come out of my mouth, John takes a flying kick at the door, which flings into the room, partly ripping off its hinges.

There is also a loud “YELP!”

“What the fuck are you doing?!? You could have hurt him!” I snap.

“What?!” says John, pissed off.

“I’m ok! But the dog is scared” says the kid.

“See, he’s fine”

“What about the dog?”

The dog is now cowering in complete terror. He’d cowered many times before after doing something bad and getting yelled at. This is worse. He won’t let anyone come near him. I lift the bed under which he is hiding… he won’t even growl, he’s just shaking – he’s skin is actually crawling.

The dog had been slammed in the face by the door.

It took 20 minutes of my very gentle coaxing to get him to act normally again. Fortunately he was not really very hurt. 30 minutes later, he was, thankfully, back to normal.

Of course, no one gave him the option to run away.

But he's a forgiving pup.
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I was pissed at John – partly cause, oh yeah, I’d just been dumped for a new boyfriend the week before, blah blah blah.

But also because it illustrated something… here John took a brash action, cause he decided it was the right thing to do, without even bothering to find out how it would affect people (or animals) other than himself.

So he took the action and someone got hurt. And rather than face up to the mistake and the hurt, he – well, he didn’t.

That’s what had happened to me, too. He found a solution that worked for him, he even decided it was the right decision for me, then he did it.

And I was slammed in the face, shivering in shock – I didn’t see it coming.

And he still expected me to stay.
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So the good side of this conversation: I said my piece.

Even before I started, he said he realized how big a mistake it was - that he didn't understand until he thought how he'd feel if this had happened to him. Then he realized how much he hurt me.

I think I also brought him close to tears (we were in public, too).
I suppose that should be some kind of moral victory or something. But it wasn’t.

In the past, in one of the rare moments of him ever crying in front of me, I was always touched, and kinda cried in sympathy.

This time, I think I suppressed any emotion at all.

I felt nothing.

Cold and emotionless.

And I didn’t like it one bit.