Ouch

So we get to it, finally. M isn't asexual. Or gay. Just a rodent. I'm sad for you, Muse.

Certain guys of the male persuasion tend to think 'no harm, no foul' to themselves as long as there's no body contact below the belt. But our Muse is now experiencing, somewhat after the fact, the very concrete betrayal of an emotional affair -- unfortunately from the outside. Harm and foul.

M always kept one foot halfway out the door during the relationship. This J stuff was, in the rationalizing part of his mind, barely a foot-creep further. But for practical purposes, he was involved with someone else. And if he didn't tell ya about any of it, then in some more honest part of his mind, he knew he was in the wrong. I'm not going to go into any more about emotional affairs, because the information is out there already. Even Ann Landers and Dear Abby write about it.

What M does or says at this point, or any future one, is now immaterial. He's shafted the Muse. (And she's doubtless thinking "Duhhhh!" to herself at this point in the narrative...) Interestingly, her posts have shown a half-awareness, all along, that M has not been there for her. That awareness only started becoming conscious a couple of months back.

The Muse's next move may be to wonder whether she herself was passive-aggressively manipulated into pulling the plug, made to do the work so that M didn't have to emotionally dirty his hands. Which would pretty much follow the pattern of the entire relationship. The next after that may be be to wonder if M. has had even more contact with J than he has so far admitted, and is hoping to use the old "she dumped me" gambit to get reinvolved with her.

I'm gonna suggest not descending into that particular endless circle of hell... In my pungeant (stolen) phrase of a coupla days back, 'that way lies rump of skunk and madness'.

To the Muse, I'd say, forget him now. Do what you need to heal. Make sure it is about you, and not about M. Get on with the business of getting past him and whatever he's done or is doing, and seeing to your self. If that involves feeling crappy for awhile, do it. But don't get stuck there. See friends. Move on. You've got a life.