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| April 24, 2000 CONTINUED |
e-mail to a friend in need
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NEXT LETTER > Predicament of the Week
More than four years ago, I met a married man through my work. We fell in love. At the time, I was a high-priced call girl working in Asia. He lives in France, and he was just visiting the country in which I was living on business -- but he came back to Asia to see me two months later. We were soon embroiled in a heartbreaking romance. He opened an office in my country, just so he could visit me more often. I quit my previous job before he came back to see me and have not done it since. He swears that being with me was the first time he had ever been unfaithful in his life. From my previous work experience, I am absolutely certain this is true. He was in his second marriage, his first having failed after he put work before his marriage and his wife had an affair and left him. Not long after he married his second wife, he was diagnosed with a liver problem. He nearly died two years into the marriage and saw that he needed to change his life if he was going to live. I have always thought his disease was caused by his unhappiness. I broke off our sexual relationship one year into the relationship, and though he was devastated and angry, he understood why. I could no longer live a lie and I wanted to give him a chance to rebuild his marriage and his health. I also didn't want to be responsible for what he -- not to mention his wife and five-year-old child -- would go through if he left them. I sent him to see a psychologist, but it didn't seem to help. In the meantime, I became involved with someone else who was single, which didn't work out. The last time I saw him was in Asia. He wanted me to stay in his hotel, but I refused. I know he wanted to leave his wife when we were lovers, but she is the little sister of his best friend, and a great deal of his assets are in her name, and he doesn't want the stress and trauma of contending with another failed marriage. A couple months later, I left Asia, without telling him. I then waited ten months to contact him, and then told him I thought enough time had passed for us to finally build a friendship. I also was worried about his health, and how he was progressing with the psychologist. He said he didn't think it was a good idea for us to call each other again, but told me if I wrote him a letter, he would respond to me with something in writing. After waiting nine months for a reply with no response, I recently rang him again recently to see why he had not responded and if he was well and happy. He told me that he had rung the number on my letter, but that a man answered the phone both times, and he assumed I was involved with someone else, so never called back or wrote. I also mentioned that I had some information on a doctor and a new treatment philosophy I had read about (I have been researching alternative therapies for two years, and think that he could benefit from my information, as I believe his disease is caused by various psychological problems that he has not yet tackled). He then informed me that his doctor said he would need a liver transplant by 2001, but he was willing to try anything I might suggest. I am so worried about his health, and I want to do something that I believe could save his life, yet he seems reluctant to have contact because he is so angry with me for leaving Asia without telling him and for other perceived pains I have inflicted. I know this by his attitude; I can hear it in his voice, and his response when he is angry has always been not to contact me. I rang him a couple of days after that phone call to tell him I was going to send him the information, and he disconnected my call, which diverted to his voice mail. I can't understand why he did this and am afraid to call again. I don't know what to do. I don't want to call him again, as I am afraid he may not be able to talk (now that our affair is long since over, he seems very scared of his wife finding out), and I am afraid he may think I am being a nuisance. On the other hand, I feel that I have not done enough to show him there are ways to change his life, his perspective, attitude, heal his anger, start forgiving, and thereby heal himself emotionally and physically. I know that I am the only person he knows who thinks this way about his health, and I am worried that if he has the transplant, it will not work because of the current negativity in his life. In the past four years, he has lost his faith in God and in his own ability to control any aspect of his life. I love this man more than anything or anyone in the world and have only ever wanted health and happiness for him. I learned through my affair with him that it is possible to love someone so much, you can put their welfare and the welfare of those they love before your own. I feel that that is the true nature of love. I don't mind if he doesn't want to have any contact with me anymore, as long as I know he is healthy. I'm not sure whether his apparent unwillingness to have contact with me is because he is scared of his own stifled feelings, his anger towards me, or his fear that having contact with me may lead to his wife finding out about our affair. I feel that all my instincts and journey through life over the past six years has led me to this point and this situation of being in a position to save his life. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but too many coincidences have all fallen into place and I truly believe one of the things I was put on this earth to do was to help him. Should I let it go? Or pursue the contact? I don't know whether I could live with the guilt if I don't contact him and give him the information and research I have gathered -- and he then dies. I think I will feel that I made a mistake not doing everything in my power to possibly assist with his recovery. Please help. --Desperately worried.
Our own Belleruth is one of the biggest mind-body-spirit mavens you'll ever meet. She of all people would be the first to get behind you on your psychosomatic/"alternative" theories about your lover's liver. But. Sometimes, DW, the stuff in our bodies just doesn't work. I gently submit her view (remember,while Belle is not a doctor, she is also not a naysayer about this kind of thing): "Sometimes, alas, a liver is just a liver. And if this particular liver is booked for a transplant it is probably pretty far down the disease road, and thus it's less likely that the gentler therapies could reverse it." Which is to say: DW, please don't make yourself sick with guilt. We hope very much for his recovery; we assure you that anything short of that would emphatically not be your fault. Letting go of this guilt is a prerequisite, DW, to letting go of this Florence Nightingale in Shining Armor attachment to him. You love him, doubtless. You have made your best effort to show that; he knows, I promise. But now, catch is, we have to say that you are disrespecting his wishes by pursuing this (and scaring the daylights out of him by calling him at home). Now that you have made your bestest loving effort -- of which he is, again, well aware -- it is time to, much as this smarts, leave him alone. …and, if we may be so bold, devote your copious energies to some research into yourself. Please oh please don't hear this like, "Girlie, you're the one with the problem." But there's some rich insight to be had here if you're willing to think more (maybe reflect with a pro?) about your own need to stay connected to this gentleman. Why, indeed, might you be so attached to someone so unavailable? … to the point where -- though we know there's sincerity here -- the only way to justify maintaining contact is to cast yourself as "the only one with the antidote!?" It's fine, by the way, if you don't want a "real" relationship. But this one's not going to make anyone happy or healthy. DW, you have done everything in your considerable power. You have. You really have. You have you have you have. Now please find a way to have the life and love that we'd all want you to.
Love, |
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