http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?p=412568#post412568
Some posts here really hit home. This is one of them.
I don't say this in judgment, because when we love someone, we want them to stay. When we've been with someone a long time, it's very hard to let go, to lose them, to change the pattern and rhythm of our lives, to face that empty spot they filled for so long, and that made us happy.
The feelings are not selfish. But to act on them, to try to keep someone in your life when you know it is hurting him and keeping him from a greater happiness, in fact to keep him from the same happiness you yourself enjoy, yes that would be selfish.
I see the value in forums like this in being able to learn from each other, to read someone else's story and understand our own from another angle, so we can make the best possible decisions.
I have been on the receiving end of someone trying to hang onto me.
Before I broke up with Byron, I was clear on what I needed to change: Iago has to stop playing games. If I'm your girlfriend, I expect to be treated with the same respect as any other girlfriend and that includes expecting everyone involved to behave like adults.
When I broke up with him, I was clear why. Her behavior and his failure to expect her to do poly well and with respect for his girlfriend.
He had two decent options: Let me go gracefully or tell her to behave.
Instead, he hung on without doing the hard work. He repeatedly used 'business' contact to become steadily warmer. His words and manner were screaming I love you and miss you. He did and said things that suggested he was ready to deal with the problems, that we could really move forward.
I'll give him this--I think in some fantasy part of his mind, he did want to walk away from it all and be with me. He lied to himself before he lied to me.
But he failed to consider, or didn't care, how his actions impacted me. I still believe he loved me in a way he has never loved anyway. But he was too invested in his pain and what he wanted--to admit that he was deliberately leading me on, hoping his fantasy of keeping me in his life, of getting back to what we had, would miraculously come true. To admit to himself that it couldn't possibly happen unless he made hard choices.
To admit to himself that he was not going to make those hard choices.
Day by day, he craved the contact with me. So he kept doing it. Refusing to admit to himself that in the process, he was making it difficult, if not impossible, for me to move on with my own life, to find someone else.
Hindsight is 20-20--largely because by then we have all the pieces to see clearly. Yes, I should have cut him off cold. Had I known then all I know now, I'm pretty sure I would have.
I don't judge someone (the OP of the linked thread or Byron) for wanting to hang on. It
is human nature. It
is hard to let go of someone you love.
And that's the same reason no one can be judged for not cutting contact sooner--because it
is human nature to hope and believe in the love you know existed, to hope and believe that the person with whom you shared such deep love
will fix the problems, to hope and believe that you can get back into the pages of that beautiful love story that brought you so much happiness.
And in many stories, that's what happens--one or both people do value each other enough to fix the problems. But you can't know whether they really will until you've given them that chance.
He took advantage of that hope.
The moral of the story is that people need to face the themselves and make the decision: Are they
capable of fixing the problem? Are they
willing to fix the problem? Or are they going to continue trying to have it all, choosing to blind themselves to how that affects the one they love?
If you can't or won't fix the problem and meet the needs of the one you love, if you can't give them the same things you yourself have and won't let go of--then let them go. Leave them alone and stay out of their lives so they can move on. Yes, it hurts. But if you love someone, you must think of their needs and their happiness.