Blackouts and Breakdowns (18 page)

“I just thought you were cute,” Jake said.

“But you’re married,” I replied.

“Yes, but I am slowly realizing that I am not into women at all.”
He continued to tell me that a few months before he was on a business trip and ended up hooking up with a guy in California.
He never told his wife.

“Whoa!
That’s crazy!” I said.
“So why did you get married in the first place?”
I was overwhelmed with intrigue.

“I don’t know. I am from a small town in West Virginia.
My wife was my best friend in high school and our parents were best friends so it just seemed to be the thing to do.”

“Uh, OK,” I replied.
“You know, it is OK to be gay.”

“I know, but I just didn’t want to disappoint everyone.”

Clearly, this was not an acceptable reason to get married.
If someone had told me that was the reason they had married me, I would have divorced them on the spot. The more we spoke, the more I realized what a loose cannon he was. First of all, he was married to a woman and flirting with me.
Secondly, he was obviously unhappy with himself.
Lastly, he was a close talker.
I really wanted to hear what he had to say but there was no reason for him to be all up in my business.

I finally realized that this was going nowhere and told him to pay his check so I could leave. This was normal behavior for me at the cafe and Jake was to be no exception.
On his way out – I stopped him.

“I forgot to ask you – what do you do for a living?”
I asked.

“I’m a psychiatrist,” he replied, “in the Army.” He walked out.

I was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to pop out and tell me that I was getting punked.
Was this guy serious?
He was not only a total emotional train-wreck, but also married and a therapist in the Army.
I mean, he seemed nice enough, but breaking up a marriage was not really on my list of things to do in 2008. Going to the Golden Globes with Goldie Hawn, on the other hand was totally on that list.

The next day I was having my scheduled margaritas at the pool with my friend, Meg, when I got a phone call.

“Hey Mark,” Dr. Jake said into the phone.

“What’s up?”
I asked.

“Oh nothing, just calling to see what you are doing.”

“Uh, having margaritas at the pool.
It’s Wednesday, obvi.”

“Obvi?” he asked.

“God! Obviously!” I replied.
Jesus!
If he was going to try and date me, the least he could have done was learned the language. “What’s going on?”

“Just wanted to see if you wanted to get together.”
Wow, this guy was really determined. I kind of appreciated that.

“Well,” I replied, “I am meeting some friends later if you want to come.”
Damn tequila, always lowers my inhibitions.
Not to mention the bullshit filter between my brain and my mouth.
I would need to switch to vodka before he met us.
He agreed to meet us and I dragged Meg’s drunk, sunburnt ass down the street where my sister Kim was waiting for us.

We all sat down and drank and had a gay old time until Dr. Jake walked in.

“Damn, why are all of the hot guys always gay?”
Meg squawked.

“Oh, that’s the married guy I was telling you about,” I told her.

“You didn’t tell me he was gorgeous,” Meg said.
After the amount of alcohol she had consumed that day, Gene Wilder would have looked like a dreamboat to her.

“I thought the fact that he was married and in the Army kind of trumped the fact that he was hot,” I said.

Dr. Jake joined my sister, Meg and I as we enjoyed a few cocktails.
After the girls had parted ways with us, Dr. Jake and I were left alone. I was beginning to kind of like Dr. Jake and thought that, if nothing else, we could become very good friends.
Once again, my old friend Grey Goose had turned on me and before I knew it, I was in Jake’s marital bed, legs in the air.

It was some of the best sex I had ever had.
I don’t know if it was because he was gorgeous or because it was so forbidden but it felt great.
Afterwards, I didn’t feel so great.
How could I have done this?
I had slept with a woman’s husband.
I was certainly not raised this way and I was in no position right now to become an army wife.

For the next week, Dr. Jake and I went back and forth.
I kept telling him that I couldn’t possibly be with him.
There was absolutely no way that this was going to work out – there was so much against us, i.e., he was married, in the closet and in the Army.
He insisted that we could make it work and after about a week, it began to make sense in my alcohol filled head.
Yes, maybe we could.

Dr. Jake finally came out to his wife and moved into an apartment conveniently located two blocks away from the cafe.
For the next few months Dr. Jake and I were inseparable.
It was the best summer of my life.
It was beginning to seem as thought Dr. Jake was the one, except there was a huge cloud looming over our relationship – his ex-wife.

I think he felt bad for leaving her because whenever she would call, he answered it.
When we were at dinner and she called – he answered it.
When we were having sex and she called – he answered it.
This was beginning to become a problem so I finally confronted him about it.

“Why do you need to take her calls all of the time?” I asked.

“Because she is my best friend and I like to hear from her,” he replied.

“Even while we are having sex?”

“I just feel so bad for what I have done to her.
She is my best friend.”

“Well you have a new best friend now bitch and this is totally unacceptable!”

“No.
I don’t,” he answered.
“Megan is my best friend and if you have a problem with it, I am sorry.”

Right.
I don’t think that Jake knew exactly what this relationship was doing to me.
I was basically living in his ex-wife’s shadow and I didn’t like it.
Dr. Jake had made it seem as if we were married.
We spent every day and night together and were never separated except when we were working.
My feelings for Jake were real but all of the secrets were starting to pile up. I had never met any of his friends because they were all in the Army and no one knew he was gay.
The fact that he was still legally married and his wife was constantly calling began to become a bit too overwhelming.
I felt it was time for a brief trial separation.
The next week we spent separately.

Dr. Jake and I eventually did get back together.
He had planned on going on vacation with his family for a week, leaving me alone in the apartment.
I figured that this time away from each other would be good for us because he was smothering me and I could not breathe.
He was turning into a child I had to baby-sit and he was incapable of living a life on his own.
It was almost as if he had to be guided along in life. This was the perfect time for him to go on a vacation – without me.

He was gone for a week and called that Friday to tell me that he had to come home early because a hurricane or typhoon or something was nearing the beach where he was staying.
I told him that I would be working that night but would see him when I got home.
I did work that evening but after I was done, my boss asked me if I would join him for a drink when I had finished.
I agreed, not thinking it was going to be the cause of World War III.

After the drink with my boss, I returned home and greeted Jake with a few vodka perfumed hugs and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up to find Jake sitting in bed next to me, arms folded.

“I don’t want to date you anymore,” he said

“It’s 8 am.”
I hadn’t even had my coffee yet and this douche bag was giving me this shit?

“I know, I set my alarm,” he replied.

“You set your alarm to break up with me?”

“Yes, I wanted to catch you before you went to work.”

“How thoughtful of you!”

“You knew I was coming home last night and you were at the cafe, drinking and having a good old time.”

“I was with my boss.”
Wait a second.
How the hell did he even know that?
Did he implant a tracking device on me?
“How did you know I was having a drink with my boss last night?
Who, by the way, I don’t even like that much.
He asked me to help him out with something.”

“Whatever, I went by last night and saw you sitting there.”

“Why didn’t you come in?”

“I was mad.”

“You’re a borderline stalker.
What the hell is wrong with you?
I couldn’t say ‘no’ to my boss.”

“Yes, you could have.
I haven’t seen you in a week.”

“Big fucking deal Jake, we aren’t married.
I am NOT your wife.”
Not only had he set his alarm to break up with me, now he was stalking me and pissing me off in general.

“I don’t want to do this with you anymore,” he said.

“Fine,” I said.
“I have to go to work now.”
I got in the shower and went to work. I guess I was ready for this relationship to be over, because I didn’t seem to care all that much that we were no longer together.
I really cared for Jake, but he was a mess and I was increasingly becoming messier.
However, our story does not end there.
In my usual destructive fashion, I continued seeing Jake after we broke up.
My drinking had taken a dangerous turn and I was really beginning to get out of hand.
I tried to stop talking to Jake and I tried to stop drinking but nothing worked.
He kept popping up everywhere and in order to deal with him, I needed to medicate myself.
On one particular night, I bumped into him outside of a drug store.

“Oh, hey,” Jake said as I bumped into him, “funny meeting you here.”

“Yea. What are you doing here?”

“Just walking home,” he said.
“Wow, I wish this drug store was around when I was making out with that kid the other night. If I had had some condoms I totally would have fucked him.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

He was. I could not believe this.
Who says that to someone they just broke up with? Someone they broke up with at eight o’clock in the morning nonetheless.
Was he for real or was he just socially retarded?
Perhaps it was the four glasses of wine I had had before bumping into him, or my sheer disgust at his comment, but something had come over me and I ended up punching him in the neck. I was aiming for his face, but after four glasses of wine, I thought that was a pretty good shot.

Jake eventually apologized and we tried to become friends, but it never really worked for me. I was very hurt by everything that had happened between us and my drinking was reaching its breaking point.
One night when Jake and I were supposed to get together, I ended up drinking all night and showed up at his apartment at five in the morning.
The next day, I woke up in Jake’s bed at five in the afternoon.

“I think I have a drinking problem,” I told him as the room around him was spinning.

“Really?”
He acted as if he was surprised; as if I had just told him I was pregnant with his baby.

“Well Jake, I did try to crawl through your window to get into your apartment last night,” I said. “ That’s not the point of entry a normal person uses when trying to enter someone else’s home. Don’t you think I have a problem?”
I asked, thinking Jake, a therapist would be able to help me. Since he was once my boyfriend, I figured he would at least be willing to help me.

“Not really,” he replied. “I think you’re OK.”

It was then that I realized that Dr. Jake was an emotional mess and I was an even bigger one. It made him feel better about himself to have me come around because seeing me, an even bigger mess than he, made him feel better about his ridiculous life. I knew that I could not continue seeing Dr. Jake as he was bringing me down and I knew that I had to get help with my drinking.

I did get help with my drinking but Dr. Jake did not stop.
He was determined to bring me down, make me miserable and fail and what I was doing.
I finally had to threaten him with a restraining order to get him to stop contacting me.
This relationship really hurt me.
Someone who told me they loved me was clearly going out of their way to hurt me and bring me down.
I could not believe that a therapist would tell anyone who drank every single day and tried crawling through their very own window that they did not have a drinking problem.