Universe Posted April 6, 2011 Posted April 6, 2011 I'm 32 years old and I don't think I've ever really hated anyone. If I have, then I've definitely never hated anyone for long. I think I've always been able to resolve conflicts one way or the other. But I'm finding myself in a situation where it's pretty clear that someone I really care about now hates my guts. And it looks as though she will hate my guts forever. Obviously I did something really bad that caused her to hate me. I've taken total responsibility for it and worked through my personal issues which fostered it. I can relate to the anger, disappointment, and humiliation that she felt. And I've tried to respect her need to not communicate with me. I guess I'm stubborn. When I really want something I keep at it persistently until I get it. I'll do whatever it takes. So I'm not used to losing the things that I really want. Everything I've ever lost was something that I just wasn't doing enough to keep or was something that I didn't really want anymore. I am an extremely lucky man. I was lucky enough to meet the woman of my dreams and fall in love early in life. We've been a dedicated loyal monogamous couple for 11 years. We live together and absolutely adore each other. We've had our ups and downs and issues with codependency. But we've never stopped being totally in love with each other. About a year ago I had a band that was really taking off. We just needed to finish our record and there were major booking agencies offering to book tours for us. Unfortunately around that time I had developed a deeply codependent emotional relationship with my 23 year old bass player. She was someone who'd had an extremely unfair and difficult life up until the point when she met me. I took her under my wing and tried to foster her musical and social development. She had very little experience socially and musically up to that point and was new in town. I was completely in love with her voice (she sang the harmonies and I sang lead) and very excited to have her in my band. I began to think of her as my adopted child and the codependency ran a muck from there. A few inciting incidences later we ended up making out and I gave her a hand-job. I was overwhelmed with guilt and confusion over what I was feeling and the effect this would have on my relationship. I was still totally in love with my girlfriend and did not want out of that relationship. I took some time to work out exactly what I had been feeling and to understand why I did what I did. I tried to keep it a secret but after 2 months I simply could not keep it inside anymore. I told my girlfriend everything and then it all just blew up. The band broke up. My bass player said she never wanted to see or hear from me ever again. And my girlfriend and I started therapy and on down the long road of recovery. Now my relationship is better than ever. We've both grown tremendously and have such an amazing closeness and adoration for one another. It was extremely painful for my girlfriend and I will never forget what I put her through. And I will never forget what she put up with to stay with me. I'm a different person now and feel more capable to face the world than ever before. I know I will never do something so irresponsible again. It's been 7 months now since I confessed everything to my girlfriend. People in the music business never stopped contacting me about my band. I had to tell them that we were on indefinite hiatus until we could figure some things out. The band was too good to let something so stupid ruin it. But we also felt the success of the band depended on the exact combination of players that we'd had and that it wouldn't be right to go on with a different bass player - especially since the whole thing was really my fault. It wasn't easy, but my girlfriend eventually agreed to allow me to try to patch things up with our bass player in order to follow through with the band. My girlfriend is so incredibly awesome. I will never forget how much it meant to me that she was willing to let me try that. Our bond feels stronger than anything I'd ever imagined possible. But now our bass player simply will not budge. She refuses to discuss anything with me. She wants to play music together, but openly hates my guts and will not engage in any civil communication with me. We agreed to try and rehearse together to see how it would go. I didn't expect her to be nice to me. But I also didn't expect her to be so contemptuous of the other members of the band. I felt lucky that the other members were willing to tolerate the drama they'd had to deal with so far. But now they had to deal with her being rude to them. It's one thing if she wants to be rude to me. But it's not fair for her to be rude to the other band members. They were completely innocent bystanders in all of this. So now the other band members won't play with her until she grows up. But she refuses to make any adjustments to her attitude. She feels she has a right to act that way in reaction to the history that she has with me. She sees herself as the only victim in this situation and will not take any real responsibility for her actions. It is my fault that what happened happened. But she is far from innocent. Back when everything was going down, she told me over and over that she was completely in love with me and that if I left my girlfriend for her that it would just be the best thing ever; that she would make me so much happier. She repeatedly told me that my girlfriend was really bad for me. But I maintained throughout that I was still very much in love with my girlfriend and that I wanted to stay in that relationship. I told her that I loved her. Even worse, I told her that I "may well be in love with her", but I also made it very clear at every turn that I was more in love with my girlfriend. But to this day she maintains that she did not try to steal me from my girlfriend. She says she can't trust me because I "sold her out" by confessing what happened to my girlfriend. I know this was all very horrible on my part. There's absolutely no excuse for what I did and I know that. And this was a poor young inexperienced girl who was clearly infatuated with me and I acted extremely irresponsibly. I knew better. But instead I let my emotional confusion get the better of me and I ended up breaking my girlfriend's heart along with the heart of someone I cared deeply for. So now it all seems to be over and I'm having to move in a different direction with my music. But the stubborn part of me that wants what I want won't let me forget it. I still feel like there must be a way to get through to this girl. And at the same time I'm genuinely hurt that someone I care so much about hates me so much and will probably hate me forever. I guess I deserve it, but that doesn't make it any easier to confront. It just makes me want to fix it. It sucks to know you did something to someone who you cared about that makes them hate you so much. Regrets are heavy things to shoulder.
LeaningIntoTheMuse Posted April 6, 2011 Posted April 6, 2011 My guess is that your bass player hates you, because she's in love with you. And she hates the fact that you're in a relationship, and that she can't move on past the infatuation. It's a love triangle that dead ends at her. I don't see anything changing, unless you drop your gf and start dating her. But it's clear that she was just a fling, or a mistake. In which case, you'd be better off auditioning for a new bass player.
Author Universe Posted April 6, 2011 Author Posted April 6, 2011 LITM, I think you're probably right. That's the only thing that makes sense. Everyone close to the band says that if my girlfriend is able to get over it, then my bass player should be able to get over it. It was an unfortunate situation and she has a right to be upset. But it's been over 7 months now and she's still stonewalling any reconciliation. It begs the question, why was she really in the band in the first place? We all thought she was in to the band and in to the music. But her actions now seem to be proving that she was only ever in to me. I guess I'm hoping that if I give her more time that she'll eventually come around. But now that I see how little she's grown in the past 7 months, it's hard to feel any real hope.
Emilia Posted April 7, 2011 Posted April 7, 2011 the young ones tend to see things in black and white much more than us 'oldies' do so she is likely to be more emotional rather than rational. it's possible that you will never be able to get through to her
Author Universe Posted April 7, 2011 Author Posted April 7, 2011 it's possible that you will never be able to get through to her I think that's what's bothering me the most - knowing that I'll likely never get through to her. And accepting that is so hard for me right now. It's hard knowing that I messed things up so badly that this is the outcome. And it's stirring up all the guilt that I've spent the past 7-9 months working through. She said I was the first person she'd ever been in love with. Her behavior reminded me a lot of myself when it was my first time. I know I made it really hard for my ex. It took me almost two years to really get over it. Every time I saw her for that two years it sent me off into that longing heartbroken depression. Now this girl is just like me. She reminds me so much of myself at her age. That was part of the attraction. That's how I came to see her as my adopted child or my younger sibling in the first place. I guess I assumed that she felt brokenhearted the same way I did when it was my first time. But this situation is much different than when it was me. I fear it could last as long or maybe even longer. I didn't hate my ex or shut her out or refuse to communicate when she was willing to reconcile a level of friendship. But I guess I'm dealing with another animal here. The problem is that my bass player feels betrayed by the fact that I confessed what happened to my girlfriend. She hates me for that. And like LITM said, she hates that I'm in a relationship. It's just so hard for me to accept that this band is over and that she will no longer be playing/singing with us. The combination of us really had the "it" factor. Without her we'll just be very very good. I don't think she has "it" on her own and I don't think we have "it" without her. We need each other. But I've gone an ruined it. It sucks when you ruin something so important to you and you have no one else to blame. And there's just no way to fix it.
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