Circling for the Kill

The posts and comments of the past couple of days got me thinking about other men in my past who have had way too many women hanging around.

Emotionally-Unavailable-Emil had dated many women in the five years following his wife's death before he met me. He quickly fell in love with me, talked about where we would go for our honeymoon, talked about where we would live, talked about how we would adjust our grown-up lives to make things work.

But there were many nights when I would call him when I got home for making beautiful music to shop by at Nordstrom, nights when his phone would be busy for half an hour or forty-five minutes until I'd just give up and fall asleep. And there were many nights when I'd suggest we get together and he'd have plans (which he was consistently unwilling to define).

A widower with children is such a chick-magnet! And his children were absolutely beautiful, sweet, well-mannered. Every woman who met him dreamed of a romantic life with him, filling the void left in these 8- and 5-year-old children's lives by the death of their mother.

He would fall quickly for each of these women, have wonderful dreams of being happy again, of having a life again. Then he would get scared and break it off. But the women (myself included) would feel a responsibility not to abandon these children, so would stay in contact with him, sending birthday gifts and Christmas gifts for the children.

(I went to his house to say good-bye to the children after one of the times he broke up with me. And instead of apologizing to me for the way his mother had bad-mouthed me, he apologized to his mother for my having come over! I saw him again two years ago. He expressed great interest, wanted to see me as much as possible, then *wham* slammed the door shut yet again, this time via e-mail. Who invented e-mail anyway?!)

Emil would see nothing wrong, nothing out of the ordinary about his extended and continuing relationships. Just as Mr. Match sees nothing wrong with insisting the ex-fiance call him when she arrives at Sky Harbor after driving up for a flight. Just as he sees nothing wrong with running to her side every time she calls, having dinner with her once or twice a week, picking her up from the airport whenever she needs a ride.

It's truly not for me to say whether there's anything wrong with what he's got going with her. It's truly none of my business. But I'm not going to spend my life in a relationship where I must worry about what ghost is going to fall out of a closet every time I open a door!