The Price

This is the price I will pay.

When I begin looking in earnest for “serious” dating partners, at some undetermined point in the not-too-distant future, there will be men who would shun me immediately if they knew how I handled myself during the last few near-dead years of this marriage.

They will find my behavior repellent, appalling, revolting. They will believe (probably rightly so) that my choices should have been vastly different.

If they know of my behavior.

It’s one of those aspects of The Future that I’ve not figured out how to handle. Everyone asks about my plans and in myriad ways large and small, I have no bloody clue. Will I move house? I don’t know. Will I look for different employment? I don’t know. Will I reclaim my former surname? I don’t know.

I know little beyond the fact that the marriage has been pronounced dead. For now, that’s enough. It’s relief enough that I’ve not yet dealt with many of the other questions.

I’ve certainly not made an issue of my past with any of the men under current consideration. There’s no reason to discuss it yet. But at some point, history will come up. Questions will arise and I’ll have to come up with answers. The simple answer is that I wouldn’t want to be with anyone who wouldn’t accept and understand the choices I’ve made.

Sounds good, but will it work? Will I manage to work myself into a situation where I’m with a highly-desirable Somebody who recoils in horror when certain aspects of my history surface? Somebody who won’t have the background or the empathy to understand?

If I do, that will be the price I pay (to the universe? to God? to karma?) for my past actions.

______

See the Flickr badge in the right sidebar? What do we think of it, hm?

______