I Know

You think that I don’t see it, that I don’t notice, but I know you both so well, one of you is one of my best friends and the other one was my boyfriend for a decade – I know you intrigue and like one another – I know because of the cofidential conversations I have with each of you where the others name comes up – you mention the other one nonchantly, in a throwaway remark hoping I won’t notice the intensity beneath your words, the desperation of wanting to talk about the other one…and I am here, in this position between you both, knowing and pretending not to notice. I pretend not to notice because I can’t decide whether I should sabotage it – comfortable in the knowledge that both of you would screw me over for your own well being, or encourage it and cut you both out of my life – most days the second option seemes better – but I do neither because I don’t want give either of you the joy of reveling in the drama that you crave more than you crave each other.

Fear

I fear I will never be good enough for her.

I fear she will leave me when she realises this.

I fear I will never truely be happy with her while I feel this way.

Cheating

Ok. Where do I start? I’m engaged for the last 3 years and I love my Fiance. When we first started going out I knew she was the one for me. Then, we had a slip. She’s from another part of the country and I had no idea what to do. She called me to tell me she was pregnant. We were only together for 8 months at this stage and had only slept together a few times.

We decided it was too soon and made the trip to England together. I cried, but she didn’t see, she was crying and trying to be strong. That was 3 years ago now and I still miss our baby. My sister had a baby very close to when ours would’ve been due. I spend more time with him than her other kids.

While we were deciding what to do, I kissed 3 other girls. I’m still disgusted at myself. I can never tell her. I haven’t cheated since. I love her so much, should I tell her??

Sexuality

Mom of two in a relationship and I am a secret Bi-Sexual not to mention a coward..

Why can’t I just be open and honest about how I am?

It’s Still There

Having tried so hard to put it from my mind and heart IT’S STILL THERE???

You may ask what is still there allow me to share… I was married at the age of 21 and had a lovely family life and loved my ex passionately everything was great (I thought).

When things started to change for what I thought was for the better my other half just vanished from mine and our kids lives.

Some years on I still sit and wonder “What went wrong”? or more to the question “When did it start to go wrong”? “What the hell was i doing that i didnt see it”?

Contact with my ex is very limited (none at all really) even though we share kids and for that fact I ask myself how can they just close that part of their life so coldly but thats wat they have done and it seems with great pleasure.

But its still there not only the question of Why or When, no I can live with those questions wat I can’t seem to get over is that I do still find myself loving them despite all that has gone on in the past.

But I have learned that loving someone or something is just simply not enough because no matter wat love I have for them I hold no TRUST or RESPECT for them whatsoever. And one can only truly love when all three are in perfect sync with one another.

And so it may very well Still be There but for now I have recognised that I for one need to ignore it until I have perfect harmony for all three… TRUST RESPECT & LOVE

Square One

When I found her facebook page I had the good sense to stay away. But then I found her blog. Her blog. Christ she has a blog.

It wasn’t intentional but one day there it was and curiosity got the better of me. I knew it was a mistake before i even clicked onto those first words but her image lured me in and I began reading. I started at the beginning.

My hands shook and my heart almost escaped my chest. I knew it was true but seeing it in black and white, seeing how happy she is and how her life has moved on from me was like having my heart broken all over again. I felt sick but I kept on reading.

Shes still with the one she left me for and shes in love in a way she never loved me. I hate myself now for being so weak and letting my curiosity get the better of me. I hate her too.

I hate her with that vicious angry violent type of hatred and then, I don’t hate her at all, not even a little bit and there in lies my greatest torment. After so long and having come so far I would give it all up just to spend one more day with her.

Share A Little Happiness

I want someone to give me flowers… not expensive flowers or fancy flowers, I’d be happy if someone picked me a daisy and gave it to me with a smile that says they’re thinking of me.

Theres something so lovely about knowing someone cares about you. If I had one wish for today I’d wish that more people gave each other flowers, or a hug or a real smile…

It’ll probably never happen but still.. it’s the thought that counts.

Am I?

I’m not sure if I really do treat her as badly as she says or has she just gotten so good at convincing me that I do, that now I believe it.

What A Crack

New Year’s day.

Monday morning.

These are the usual times that people will utter the words:

“The diet starts today.  I’ve joined a gym too”

Today is that day for me and mark my words on this here anonymous forum that I will stick with it.  I have to.

I just cracked the toilet seat with my giant ass.

Apprehensive

We’ve both officially retired from the workforce – he to rest and relax and learn to fill time with his hobbies and woodworking, me to embark on a serious stint of creative productivity that might make me some pocket change but will fill my days with things I’ve wanted to do for 25 yrs or longer.

However, I’m a little apprehensive about it working. We’ve talked quite a lot in the last year, knowing that there would be a transition period for us both of course, but I think men are predisposed to boredom after retirement. We are also moving – a long distance from where we currently live – so he’ll be leaving any of his male friends behind as well. I dont know what he’s going to do all day, all I hope is that he finds something to inspire and invigorate him, without that ’something’ needing me to partake daily to keep him occupied. Its happened to three ladies I know who’s husbands have retired in the last few years; the husband looks to the wife to be his tour guide/cruise director. There is nothing wrong with togetherness – but not 24/7  We still both need our alone time. In theory he knows all this, agrees with all this, tells me to smack him silly if he becomes boyish and needs a mom to keep him occupied – in theory. In practice, I guess we shall see shortly. So far so good, but we have a good 10-20 yrs to fill!

The Wood For The Trees

We drank cocktails and you looked through the photos in my phone. I grimaced twice. The first time, at a shot of my face showing a little more ecstasy than it’s appropriate for you to see anymore, shall we say. The second, when you looked at a picture of the sun blazing in the sky and said ‘that’s beautiful’. I took it last summer, on the same day that you told me you couldn’t see me anymore. I was lying on my back on the grass, staring into the convenient sun as an excuse for tears. I clicked capture to take the blurry words of your goodbye out of my eyeline.

We’ve come a long way from there. A long way from all the times that we were bad for each other. My new memory of you is of a post it note on a CD. You’ve called me a name for short, because you don’t know that I hate it. It makes me smile because you don’t know me at all, and I don’t know you. It’s a good place to start from. Now we can be friends. Take what you can get. My old memory of you is text messages beginning with ‘Sorry…’ and the feel of carpet under my back when you were the boy who cried rejection.

I’m In A Tunnel, Where’s The Light?

I’m sick of saying I’ll leave only to have her put a knife to her wrists making me stay.

I’m sick of telling her that we don’t have a sex life because she disgusts me, emotionally, mentally, physically.

I’m sick of her threatening to leave and not following through. (I don’t promise to cut myself)

I’m sick of us needing each other financially.

There are things I could do to get out if here. I could get her help but she refuses. I could get myself help, but don’t know where to turn.

We’ve no children, thank fuck.

On the surface we’re a great couple. No one sees behind our closed doors. I fear I may do something drastic to get out of this situation, but everything I contemplate sickens me.

The Things I Didn’t Tell You

I kept a diary until I was 19 . When I moved out of my mother’s house, I lost the last diary. I worry that someday my mother will find them and read them and never look at me in the same way again.

In my father’s eyes, I came second to his addictions. Now his addictions are sometimes mine.

I kissed a girl once. She pursued me for weeks and one night she pinned me up against a wall in the bathroom and I though, what the heck. I enjoyed the power I had over her. She was also a really good kisser.

I’m certain that my grandfather isn’t my grandfather but I know I’ll never know the truth of it.

I sometimes watch soppy girly movies in private.

Falling In Something

I sometimes wonder do other people get as confused as I do about falling for someone, and knowing the difference between a deep friendship connection and real feelings of love. I just get so wrapped up in other people sometimes and it destroys me internally for weeks, months… They stay in my thoughts constantly and visit me at night, usually not sexually, but then there is always that sizzling tension, butterflies in my belly, a want to hold them and kiss them, just BE tender… sometimes it even happens with men, so rare and awkward… and then eventually it quietly passes and I realise we’re finally great friends and it’s so wonderful and how could I have been so stupid?!

Then she came along and made it more real.

Then he came along, and made me question it again.

If only he had never kissed me. If only he would again.

The Not So Great Hunger

There has to be some great Cosmic Joke going on here. I didn’t emigrate to America to be fucking hungry.

I didn’t eat yesterday.

I got lucky today.

I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow.

Moving To California

We have decided to move to California, but we havent told anyone yet. Have to wait while this downturn thingy plays itself out.

Not Going

I’m not going to my school reunion. I’ve told people it’s because I have something else on that night that I can’t get out of but it’s actually because I’m 2 stone fatter than I was the last time I saw any of these people and I can’t bear to have them see me.

Tea and Talk And Time For Goodbyes

Having tea once, he burst into tears and then would never tell me why. He is not good at emotions, so I know that tonight’s phone call was something considered a hundred times and chosen as the right thing. They are both my friends, this couple that are a couple no more. We were all friends before they started dating, and all through and now…at the end. They were, he said, not working anymore. They haven’t been for a long time. He loves her, but they have grown up and apart, and they don’t make each other happy. They have to  have that talk.

It has nothing to do with me and yet my head whirls with self-centred thoughts. I have promised not to say anything to her before he does – I never would. It’s not mine to tell. I have crossed the road to the shop and bought tissues and her favourite kinds of snack. I am waiting for my phone to ring. I know my friend’s pain is coming before she does. I know all of the things that he will say to her before they are said and before she repeats them to me through tears. I am feeling put out that my planned good night’s sleep, the first in a week, is not going to happen, and knowing how selfish that is. I am curiously grateful that I’ve been given time to take a shower and throw together tomorrow’s lunch. It is a strange sort of thing, to be completely aware of a coming catastrophe and unable to stop it. An hour of fore-knowledge doesn’t change anything about the months of moping ahead. It wasn’t wrong to tell me first, and yet it was. He loves her, he’s passing the baton at the finish line, readying someone to take over as he leaves, taking care of her to the last. On the other hand, when you are about to be taken leave of, at very least you should be the first to know.

I’m never going to tell her that I knew, or that I agree with him that they don’t work anymore. I’m never going to tell her that because I missed a call last night, out with her, he instead chose to discuss the break-up with the girl whom she is convinced he’s falling for a little bit, even though he doesn’t mean to. I never told her that he cried in the cafe, it wasn’t mine to tell.

How appropriate that the blog is back, just when there was the story of the lives of others to tell.

A New Beginning

Things have been very quiet here of late as a result of a few factors.

When we set up here originally, the best way to work the project seemed to be to have one universal username and password so that anyone could post anything they liked in total anonymity.

The problem with this was that it could only be given to trusted people we knew in order to avoid any abuse of the system and those people only have a limited number of things to say here.

Thus, a new idea:

The Lives Of Others Postbox

Simply fill in your post for here, long, short or otherwise and it will appear the next time a batch is moderated. The system is still anonymous – all that we will recieve is the name you attach to it (if you choose to) and the text of your post, everything else is untraceable.

We hope this will open The Lives Of Others up to anyone who stumbles upon here and would like to have one of their posts appear here among the moving, shocking, fascinating ones we’ve had so far.

We still reserve the right not to publish anything racist, sexist, defamatory or just plain old nasty but that’s just common sense.

Tell us about you, tell us the post you could never out your name to…