i haven't decided what i'm going to do yet. still reflecting/detaching/mourning. i think i got fucked over here. but my intuition tells me that, yes, he fucked up, but he isn't a bad person.
the question is, do i want to take this journey with him, already having been hurt. it just saddens me that he has no idea how blind he's been, and what a good partner i could be. he said once that if i walked away from him, he would respect my wishes but come back when he was ready for a relationship. and that i might turn him down, and that he would go away and come back again later. he then said maybe i would be the one that got away. i looked at him in shock that he could even verbalize that possibility, and seem melancholy but accepting of it. that tells me he is on some level ok with it, and i'd rather be with someone who has what it takes to fight for a relationship.
life isn't perfect and pretty. people get sick. lose jobs. become humbled one way or another...and having a loving, supportive companion is what matters then. who knows...perhaps he has that in his ex, and anything else is auxiliary. just comforting sex.
how very sad. i don't want to be a casualty, which is why i'm trying to detach. the option to walk away from him now obviously exists. i could say "come back when you're ready for a relationship." and maybe i do that. maybe now, or maybe in two months after i've taken a hard look at him and catalogued his strengths/weaknesses, and made a rational decision about whether or not he has what it takes to be a good partner to me. i kind of feel like i don't have all the information i need...just a big ol' smoking gun (his sleeping with an ex in parallel with me, and subsequent denial of any wrong-doing) combined with the lovely things i see in his personality. things which exist in all of us, perhaps, but which i appreciate in him. but those things combined do not a relationship make...and yet i am compelled to want to investigate further. i am a mess. but, a silent mess, as i haven't succumbed yet. still, for now, trapped in my deliberations.
i read here that the ENFP's hidden agenda is "to know":
http://www.socionics.com/articles/hiddena.htm
and there's the rub. i want to know, i hate having identified a possibility, even a faint glimmer of one...and walked away without knowing. i'm just trying to achieve the knowing without having my heart kicked to the curb like an old shoe. i'm a wonderful, loving, loyal person. it is so sad to me that this one man says he realizes it*, but doesn't know what to do with it.
ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT NOTE: he has repeatedly told me that his ex doesn't get hurt when they have sex after their break-up (which he precipitated citing reasons of incompatibility). i told him that is b.s., that women *always* feel emotionally bonded after sleeping with someone they used to love (and in her case, currently loves). i told him that, every time he sleeps with her, it prolongs the pain of their breakup and makes it impossible for either of them to fully heal. at least, perhaps for her. am i alone in this belief? can some women please comment?
* i've been told that i'm awesome. that he's excited about me. that he hopes to have me in his life one way or another for a long time to come. that he has started to love me (most recently). but why the f*ck don't i merit an acknowledgement that he hurt me by sleeping with his ex on my birthday?! or a revision to his position on being exclusive, as a result of seeing that it hurt me and is jeopardizing a relationship with an awesome person? are we so common that he can gamble...is he so broken that he can't be any different.