I’m sure it comes as no surprise that we eventually broke up. He was entirely too raw to truly enter a new relationship with a healthy mindset, and I was the loony who used our most intimate conversations to dredge up his past. I coaxed complete honesty, hoping against hope that he would someday say what I wanted hear, whatever that was, and that the specter of his ex-wife would finally be laid to rest. My defense mechanism became a battering ram that smashed through the walls that protected us from our own dysfunctions.
Soon my little bedtime barrages exposed tales of excessive promiscuity, homosexual forays, secret wishes for deviance within our own relationship, and an even deeper well of hatred for his ex. I could try every ambush in the book, but I wasn’t going to scare up a confession that felt good. I only grew more knowledgeable of all the painful darkness in his heart. And, because I had used that intimate space and his trust to serve my own competitive purposes, his confessions were not healing for him—they were just ammunition for me. It’s a horrible, ugly way to be, but it might be gratifying to know that I suffered painfully for my sins.
Two years into our relationship, following countless breakups and stormy fights, the confessions still continued. No matter what the price, we both trudged back to the front lines of our bedroom and spilled our guts. The amount of truth that got bandied about could have been a beautiful thing, but the combative way that we approached our pillow talk drew blood, time and again.
Finally, exhausted with the constant fighting, I took an internship in Italy. We both promised fidelity, but it was a strange commitment considering the hatred that intermingled with our passion. It didn’t matter. We’d wound ourselves around each other, using our naked conversations to sink roots deeper into each other’s psyches. It could have been a beautiful thing, but it was more like a creepy scene from a Tim Burton film. We were intertwined like tiny saplings planted too close, limbs intermingling in each other’s bark—the kind you can’t tear apart without killing both.
