trust and suspicion – what love will do
I did a bad thing. I betrayed my own principles. And why?
“Love made me do it, your honour!”
Let us start with a little background then the details of my ‘crime’.
My girlfriend Yumi is Japanese. I am English. My upbringing was one of money, boarding schools, and parental neglect. I was raised by a nanny until old enough to be sent away to school. I rarely saw my parents and then, almost as strangers. Abandonment, physical and emotional gave me my start in life. Yumi was raised in a small village, far from the city. Her father was of the old school. Discipline was harsh and by today’s city standards, brutal. Her mother was subsumed by her husband’s power and lived in constant fear of beatings for any transgression. Yumi had no champion to stand by her. Others in her village turned a blind eye to an issue that was ‘none of their business’. Following an affair, her first of any kind, with a woman, a visiting scholar, researching old-style villages and their inhabitants, Yumi was literally, physically thrown out of home by her father, following a beating, and sought refuge, at seventeen, in the city; a place she’d never been, or even contemplated going, before.
So, you have one woman, myself, with deep-seated abandonment issues and another woman, Yumi, with trust issues and a history of self-reliance. Somehow we fell in love.
Owing to our schedules, my constant business traveling and Yumi’s almost constant traveling for modeling, television, and film, and owing to the fact that we are both gay women with very healthy libidoes; we agreed early on in our relatively new relationship that we would be free to take to bed, any girl we may meet ‘along the road’ who moved us in that way. I’ve made use of this privilege a number of times, as has Yumi and it’s never been a problem. Until Ami.
Ami is a set designer on a television show Yumi has been filming. They found a mutual attraction and spent their free hours in the cold of Hokkaido, in bed. Yumi protects herself but she can be taken in by certain people. From what I’ve heard of Ami, she’s one of those people who can manipulate and does. She, apparently, has a history of it. And I’m worried.
Sunday (February 4th) I phoned Yumi in Tokyo from my hotel in Hong Kong. Ami, who also lives in Tokyo, had followed Yumi home. I made my concerns clear to Yumi and asked her, rather too insistently I suspect, to keep away from Ami because of the things I’d heard about her. Yumi exploded and told me that she was capable of running her own life and didn’t need me to tell her who she could and couldn’t see. She shouted that I didn’t own her and she would do whatever she pleased. She told me Ami had asked her to stay at her place for a few days until shooting commenced on a project in Osaka on Tuesday. I voiced my concerns again and Yumi cut me short, told me she would call me on Tuesday but that she wouldn’t be answering the phone to me on Monday (today) at all. With that she slammed the phone down and I’ve heard nothing since, apart from a post she did on our open diary blog.
At first I was in a panic. I called Yumi’s mobile and home phones over and over, then I tried her agent, then I tried tracking down Ami’s place or number. All to no avail. I then drank too much vodka, was sick, fell down, unable to get up again for a while. I, for some reason I don’t understand at all, tore all my clothes off, flushed a picture of Yumi down the toilet and masturbated unhappily until I passed out.
I awoke an hour late, phoned the office to delegate some matters until I could get it together for the afternoon, was violently ill a few more times, then sat in a naked, hungover stupor on the floor of my suite, and thought.
My thoughs took me down some weird paths, some that made me cry. Can you picture me sitting there? Pathetic!
Then I realised, none of this was Ami’s fault, and none of Yumi’s. This fight had been all my own fault. Yumi had assured me by phone and she had written in our open diary page, that she loves me. She had made it clear that she saw Ami only as a sex partner and even that she didn’t trust her; that she didn’t need to trust her because it’s a fling, nothing more.
It was down to my inherent insecurity that I challenged Yumi’s sovereignty. I fell into that old trap. By telling her I didn’t trust Ami, what I was really saying was that I didn’t trust Yumi. I was effectively telling her that I didn’t trust her to be honest, nor did I trust her jusdgement. I was also telling her that I owned her and would tell me what she could and couldn’t do.
Trust and self-sovereignty are the basis for a strong relationship and here was I, tearing them both down. I’ve apologised unreservedly to Yumi by email and on our diary blog. Tomorrow I’ll apologise to her by phone until it hurts.
I think sometimes when one is the dominant partner in a relationship, it’s easy to become a little arrogant and to assume, even unconsciously, some level of ownership over the more submissive partner. That is a HUGE mistake! Nobody can own someone else and the roles we take in a relationship are chosen by us, whether by history or by environmental conditioning, or by something far deeper. The bottom line is, the choice of who we are rests with us,not with someone else.
Now, I just hope Yumi will forgive me and come back.
Lisa has been a complete idiot but she will not be making that mistake again. Lesson learned for life.
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