It's Kind of a Long Story... about MY SISTER EXES (Bonus Part III.5)

It's kind of a long backstory.

I really don’t want this arc to be about my relationship with Cris or a “Cris is a cheating liar” story. Everyone has Ex stories. Everyone has dated a cheater or a liar. I really want this multi-part story to be about my Sister Exes and how they supported me.

But as they say on TV, “This testimony speaks to state of mind, your honor,” and I think this post helps explain why I needed so much support. Why I felt so compelled to meet so many of my sisters.

So I’m going to digress from our story in this “extra” post with some of the recent history between Cris and me, and where I was at when I learned what I learned from Susan. I was not in a good place.

But don’t worry, I’m not going to make you wait until next week to find out who Crystal is. That post will drop on Weds as per ushe.

And don’t worry, I’m in a much better place now. This Substack and your support are helping so much.

And don’t worry, this Sister Ex arc won’t go on forever. I have a lot more fun, funny, interesting, poignant, and quirky things to write about. I am in this for the long haul. I hope you are too.

I’m so glad you’re here,

-Lara

I don’t do clandestine…

Short story: 

The last two years of my life were very hard not only because of the tree falling and the moving around but also because while I was navigating all of that, I was also navigating a long, complicated disentanglement from my connection to Cris.

Long story:

When I met Susan in May of 2023, I hadn’t seen Cris in almost a year. I knew he was living with B because he told me. Eventually.

From the time the tree fell in June 2021, until June 2022, Cris was a consistent presence in my life. We weren’t a couple, but we were spending a lot of time together and in regular text contact. In September, he spent the first night with me at my new apartment. That fall I took him for a dental procedure and a colonoscopy. We spent Halloween together. We saw ABC at Bimbo’s and Jinx Jones at the Deluxe in November. He bought me a very nice leather Coach purse for Christmas.

On February 1, 2022, he took me out for the five-year anniversary of our first date. We went back to the restaurant where we met. He brought champagne and suggested I keep the cork. We laughed and reminisced and had a wonderful time. To anyone looking, we looked like a couple in love. I was leaving for a vacation to New York in a few days, and he gave me a tiny Coach wallet with $300 in cash and told me he wanted me to have a great time.

When I came back a week later, he came over and didn’t have his usual overnight bag with him. He said he needed to take a 30-day break from me. He was tired of treading water or doing whatever it was we were doing. I knew this day was coming. I gave him the little gift I had bought him in New York (a bookmark from the New York Public Library) and he left my apartment in tears.

He didn’t last the 30 days. He reached out after about 20 and took me out for a very expensive and romantic dinner at Bix for my birthday. Once again, if anyone had been looking, we would have looked like a happy couple.

Although… he did say a weird thing at dinner. I said something about my late husband John and he said, “How do you think it makes me feel when you talk about him?”

I said, “I don’t care how it makes you feel. He was my husband for a long time and I’m going to talk about him. And you talk about your exes all the time.” It was weird because he had never said anything like that before about John, and also, we were not a couple. He had no claim on me. I didn’t have to consider his feelings about John or anyone else. Why was he suddenly acting like a jealous boyfriend?

The next month, April 2022, he asked me to help him sell his car. He said he’d pay me a percentage of what he got for it, but he didn’t know “how to do all of that Internet stuff.” I said I’d be happy to do it as a friend, but he insisted on paying me.

That month he also told me about his plans to visit Scotland. He was proud of and super into his Scottish heritage but had never been there. At another nice dinner out at Starke’s, I said, “I’m so glad you're finally going to Scotland. I can’t deny there’s a part of me that wishes we were going together.'“

He said, “Of course, I wish we were going together too. I thought about going to Paris, but how could I go to Paris with anyone but you?”

In May 2022, he came over after he got back from Scotland. He brought me a little gift. He said he had a good time, but didn’t feel connected to the country like he thought he would. He didn’t want to show me photos. I thought it was strange. He had shown me photos of other trips he had taken without me. He did tell me stories. The stories were all about him and his friend “Swiss,” a British friend he had met traveling in Asia. He met up with Swiss in London and they traveled together to Scotland.

We finished the car-selling transaction in May, including a hilarious night in Point Richmond that was like a sit-comedy of errors involving a wad of cash, a buyer from Belgium, and a misplaced bag. When he bought his new car, a BMW convertible, he picked me up and took me for a ride and said, “Who else would I want to drive with for the first time but you?”

In June 2022, I found out that I would have to leave my apartment and that my house wasn’t ready to move back. I had to cobble together housing. It was very stressful. He said, “I’m coming right over. I’m not making the same mistake I did last year.” He came over and said, “I’ve been wanting to move. What if I offered you my apartment?”

There were so many things bad about that idea I didn’t know where to begin. I declined.

It was around this time that I started seeing a therapist. As I told my friend, “I’m not feelin’ and dealin’ like I would like to be.” My stress level was so high and had been for so long that I didn’t know what was normal anymore. I needed help.

In mid-June 2022, Cris took me out to dinner. When I started telling him about the housing plan I had put together, he said, “I don’t want to hear about that. I thought we were here to take your mind off it and have a good time?” I said, “Well, it’s on my mind and important to me.” He wouldn’t talk about it. He said it was my own fault. that I wouldn’t be in this housing mess if I had moved in with him last year after the tree fell.

What. The Hell?

There was no way I was going to have moved in with him. I was very clear on that. I would not live with an alcoholic. We had discussed it and he said he understood. Where was this coming from? Why was he acting like this?

He went on to say, “Everything’s coming up Cris. I’ve got money in the bank, work’s going great…” My Spidey Sense kicked in. I interrupted him and asked, “Are you seeing someone?” He just looked at me smugly. He wouldn’t answer. I said, “It’s OK if you’re seeing someone. I just want you to tell me.”

He finally said he was. I was furious that he hadn’t said anything and seemingly hadn’t planned to. I can handle the truth. But, as I would learn, he’s not big on truth.

Back at my place, I calmed down and he let down that asshole attitude he’d had at dinner. We had a more heart-to-heart talk. I said, “I’m not naive. I figured you’d start dating. I’m not mad you’re seeing someone. I’m upset you didn’t tell me.”

He said, “You are naive.”

That is one of the two things he said to me in our relationship that I absolutely know for sure was true. The other is, “I don’t have the emotional maturity you need.”

I said, “You set the bar high for how I want to be treated. You made me feel like the prettiest girl in the room for the better part of five years. I will always be grateful for that. I have no regrets. Even for the hard parts. I learned a lot and am proud of myself.”

He said, “You set the bar for how deeply I could feel for someone. I never thought I could feel about someone the way I feel about you.”

A couple of weeks later, he invited me over on the 4th of July, “I don’t know if this is a good idea, but do you want to come over? I can BBQ hamburgers.”

I said, “I don’t know if this is a good idea either, but yes I do.”

We had a great time. Casual, fun. It wasn’t any different than any of dozens of other nights we had spent at his place. And yes, I knew he was seeing someone, but I only knew for a few weeks. I’ll admit there was some “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” on my part, but for all I knew, his relationship was new, casual, and/or open. He and I didn’t sleep together until two and a half months after we met. We weren’t exclusive for 10 months. It was within the realm of possibility that he wasn’t cheating. Besides, he had told me point blank, in his words, “I’m not a cheater.”

Over the next few weeks, he reached out a lot. He missed me. I was special.

There was one Monday evening (Monday is a day of Drinking) he texted because he was bored. He had gone out with his friend Roger and didn’t have a good time. He thought about to invite me over, but he was “tipsy.”

I said, “I was hoping you were reaching out to engage in witty text banter.”

He said, “No witty text banter. You didn’t want the cow. You don’t get the milk for free.”

Ouch. He was right. I didn’t want to buy the cow, but if “everything was coming up Cris,” why was he acting like a petulant child? I admit there was a part of me that was thinking, “Ha! He must be getting sub-par milk from whoever it is he’s seeing. Or maybe she dumped him.”

He dripped and dropped information over the next few weeks too. He was moving, but he wouldn't tell me where. He literally said he was moving to “Nunya” as in “None ya’ business.”

What. The. Hell?

Why wouldn’t he tell me where he was moving? We were friends. We sold his car together. That hurt and was confusing.

In mid-August 2022, he invited me over on one of his last nights (maybe the last night?) in his apartment. I said, “If I came over, it would be with the understanding that I wasn’t contributing to anything dishonest between you and your girlfriend.” He said, “It would have to be clandestine.”

Boom. That’s it. No way. I would not contribute to infidelity. I declined the invitation.

And yet… dear reader, here is where I admit there was a part of me that was thinking, “Look at you, Femme Fatale!” It was kind of exciting to think he would risk his relationship for a night with me. I have never been involved in anything like that before.

He eventually told me he was moving to Santa Rosa. And then eventually told me that he had moved in with his girlfriend.

I said, “I’m happy for you. I figured you’d find someone pretty quickly.” I guess that set him off, because he blathered something I didn’t understand about slandering him and, “I have been seeing my girlfriend for over a year.”

What. The. Hell?

While we were spending nights together and he was buying me Coach bags and taking me out to fancy dinners and complaining that I talked about my late husband and I was helping him sell his car and he was “How could I go to Paris with anyone but you”-ing and “Who else would I want to drive in my new car”-ing me, he was seeing someone the whole time?

That meant he started seeing her right around the time the tree fell.

I wish I could say that was the nail in the coffin, but it wasn’t. I still held out the hope that we could be friends. I had had his presence in my life for a long time. I was living in strange places and having a lot of other challenges and problems and really needed as much normalcy as I could get. I wanted his humor and support and to feel the way I felt about myself when I was with him: pretty, smart, funny, loved, understood, appreciated, special.

And I absolutely would not violate another woman’s trust, even if she didn’t know she was trusting me.

I suggested we could be Facebook friends to stay connected (we never were, which I now know is another red flag) and he said, “Any friendship would have to be clandestine.”

He had told his girlfriend he would have no contact with me. Which I absolutely respected. I respected it more than he did.

And it was a punch in the gut.

The reason it hurt so much was not only because he was dumping me as a friend, but because there was a time I saw him sexting with his friend F. I was livid, but somehow he managed to convince me that it was just a joke between them, they had known each other for years, and that he had no interest in her, and maintaining their friendship was important to him. (I know, I know, as I’m writing this I can’t believe how foolish I was)

So he insisted on maintaining his relationship with F when I was his girlfriend, but wouldn’t do the same for me now that he was with someone else.

If he would have had said to me, “Lara, I need to focus on my relationship without the distraction of our friendship.” I would have absolutely understood.

If he would have said to B, “Lara is no threat to our relationship, and her friendship is important to me. I want to maintain it in an appropriate way.” That would have meant a lot to me.

But, that’s not how Cris operates.

I can’t fully explain how much or why it hurt me so much to lose his friendship in a way that makes sense. By then he had revealed himself to be a cheater. And a liar. And not there for me when I needed him. I should have been glad to be rid of him, but I wasn’t. I felt hurt and worth less. I wasn’t worth staying friends with. I no longer mattered to someone who mattered to me for a long time.

We texted each other sporadically over the next couple of months. He called me when his friend Roger died in September. He’d ask me how I was and I was vague.

I said to him, “I don’t know what you want from me. I honestly can’t figure it out.”

He said, “Nothing. I just want to know how you are.”

Um. No. You don’t get to know how I am.

Giving him any details or information about my life felt emotionally unsafe. Like a one-way flow of a valuable and finite resource. He would gain and I would lose. And, he had said flat-out it was beyond the boundaries of his relationship. It was a boundary I was going to respect even if he didn’t.

And, it’s also important to keep in mind my mind was under almost constant assault during this time. I hit a deer with my car. I had painful TMJ. I went on a date with someone who turned out to be a psycho. I got a parking ticket on another date. I had family issues and friend issues. At the memorial service for a friend’s young adult son, I was shocked to find that my grief counselor, who I knew had moved to Virginia, was delivering a eulogy. She had been the young man’s therapist. My working relationship with her ended when she referred me to a bogus psychic (and yes, I will be telling that story)

I had housing offered and then taken away and cobbled together a sitch that had me moving 5 times in four weeks. I was down to two suitcases, two boxes and a bag of shoes.

He texted me on Halloween when I was at my absolute lowest and I don’t remember the content of the conversation, but I remember it was frustrating and crazy-making. I went to sleep on Halloween thinking, “This is what a mental breakdown feels like.”

When my friend asked, “Why don’t you block him? He’s got nothing to offer you.”

I said,

“My life is like a bowls of Skittles

My Fun & Friendship Bowl runneth over

My Home Bowl is full of M&Ms instead of Skittles

My Work Bowl is half full of flavors I don’t like

My Love and Romance Bowl has one, sticky, grimy, stale Skittle clinging to it and I just can’t let it go.”

She said, “He’s not even a Skittle. He’s just Skittle Dust!”

And I said, “Yes. And every time we text it’s like snorting Skittle Dust. I know it’s bad for me, but it’s a rush.”

I also researched the science of breakups. Your brain literally reacts the same way to a breakup as it does to withdrawing from heroin. It’s a hard habit to kick. Beyond all logic.

Around Thanksgiving 2022, he texted, “I miss you. We had something special in the bedroom”

I replied, “It’s not appropriate for you to reach out to me like this.”

He invited me out for dinner. And… more than dinner.

I said. “Sure, just have your girlfriend call me and tell me it’s OK with her.”

He said, “The dinner will be. I call the shots.”

I declined that offer.

He reached out a few times again. To asked if I wanted to help him sell some records and books, “It worked out pretty well when we sold the car.”

I declined that offer too.

We texted at Christmas and New Year. All brief. Casual. Appropriate.

In mid-February, I found out I had HPV. Yup, on our last night together, he gave me a souvenir. A fitting one considering how our relationship ended and what I would later find out about him.

In late February 2023, he texted me an early happy birthday. Suspiciously early. My birthday wasn’t until mid-March. He said it was because he was going to be in Paris on my birthday.

Uh-huh. Yeah. You can text from Paris. There was no reason for him to text me so early other than that he wanted me to know he was going to Paris. It fleetingly crossed my mind that he might propose to his girlfriend. It would be a very Cris thing to do. At one point he had told me he was planning to propose to me on the trip to Thailand we planned but didn’t take (that’s another story) I remember thinking, “I am soooo glad you didn’t because I wouldn’t have said ‘yes’ and that would have been really awkward.”

At the end of March, he told me he was engaged. I said I was happy for him. And, part of me was. Love is love. She’d likely seen him very drunk and for whatever her reasons that wasn’t a deal-breaker. He found someone who loved him and was OK with his drinking. Mazel Tov.

He also said he was doing more consulting. He was planning to buy a new car and a second home (she owned the home he moved into) and was doing great.

That was another punch in the gut. Since I’d last seen him I had been through some of the most difficult and stressful times in my life, had moved many times, and gained more weight than I was comfortable with.

In March I also had another housing situation fall through last minute, had to scramble to find something, and was living in a friend’s basement. A nice basement, but a basement.

A very nice basement.

I wasn’t sleeping well. My Restless Leg Syndrome was painful and kept me awake. I was very stressed at work. I was weepy a lot. I’m never weepy. When I look at my journals from that time it’s a little scary.

When you break up with the lying, cheating alcoholic, their life is supposed to spiral, not yours.

It wasn’t fair!

A few weeks later, in early April, he reached out again. He incredulously and pompously said he had, “Decided and let it be known that he was available for a friendship with me.”

What. The. Hell?

He wanted to take me out for dinner. That night. In a couple of hours. It was a Monday, his usual day off, and I can only assume he’d been drinking.

I once again said, “Sure, have your fiance call me and tell me it’s OK with her.”

He said I’d have to take his word for it. I literally laughed out loud.

He claimed they had had a discussion and come to an agreement about his being able to have a relationship with me, “the nature of which is up to us.”

Unbelievable. Literally. I didn’t believe it.

Within a few weeks of getting engaged, he said to his fiance, “Honey, I know we agreed that I wouldn’t have any contact with Lara, but now I want to renegotiate that.”

Or, he lied to me about having that conversation.

Either way, I declined.

I mean really, that even in his drunk-ass state, he thought I would drop everything to rush out to have dinner (and whatever) with him and forget all of the ways he had hurt me, lied to me, and let me down. Without an acknowledgment or apology.

And… there was a part of me I’m not proud of who was reveling in it. See? I really AM the love of his life. He really did settle for someone less than me. I still got it!

I’d hoped that would be the end of it, but a few days later, I found out that the HPV he gave me on our last night together would require a procedure to treat. I felt obligated to let him know so that if his fiance wasn’t up to date with her cervical screenings she should get one.

That opened the door to a few more brief, casual texts.

In early May, he reached out about something or another and I admit, I sort of led him on. Not flirting or anything like that, but the sort of witty banter and wordplay I knew he loved. I told him a funny story of a bad date I had been on. It was the rhyme and rhythm of when we were at our best. I knew it would hook him. Yes, I was messing with him.

At the end of that week, on Friday, May 5th of this year, he asked me about my weekend. If I had a date. I said, “Yes, with Mr. Nunya ;) Seriously though. You have forfeited your right to those kinds of details of my life.”

He said I had a “shitty attitude”

The next day, I met Susan.

To be Continued…

Know someone who would get something out of that story? Please share.

Lara sez…

Wait!

The recommendations you’ve come to love will continue in the next post!

Before I let you go…

If you’re reading this, you’ve read to the end of a very long post, and I am grateful. Thank you so much for stickin’ with me.