Gay Golden Ticket

OK, Internet, serious question for you.

Let's say you had this disastrous first relationship years ago, I mean a real train wreck, the romantic Hiroshima against which you've measured all other romantic failures so that at least you can say, "Hell, it never got that bad again." Let's say the spectre of that disaster has haunted you on and off ever since because deep down, even though this other person was widely recognized--by his own friends even-- as a massive prick, you've harbored this hard, stinky little pea of a thought that maybe somehow you deserved the treatment you got, that something intrinsic in Who You Are invited this other person's abuse.

Are you with me here, with this hypothetical?

Let's say you've spent years turning this situation over and over in your hands because it seems that important. It's important to determine and accept your level of responsibility in disasters so that you don't repeat them-- that's something my sometimes-bumpy life has taught me. So let's say that even after sifting through the debris and claiming the charred hunks of things you contributed, after acknowledging them and burying them, you still can't let it go. You still can't look at the permanently altered terrain of your life philosophically and sigh, "Shit happens."

Something's still not right.

Just in case it may have occurred to you that perhaps I still harbor a lukewarm ember of affection for this person, let me disabuse you of that notion. My husband has a friend who hates one of his ex-girlfriends so much that he claims he could attend her funeral in a clown costume and sit in the back row honking a bicycle horn with absolutely no hesitation. Other people have laughed at this guy, thinking he's employing brilliant comic hyperbole. Not me. I nod sagely and gratefully file his idea for future use.

No, this disaster relationship haunts me for the simple reason that at the time, I was so naive that I believed that anything could be solved just by pouring enough love onto it. If, after giving everything you've got to someone, they still take joy in debasing and manipulating you, then you just didn't try hard enough. You have to dig deep for love! You have to empty the bank! This is like thinking Hitler would have stopped the Holocaust if we had just sent him enough Hanukkah cards.

So my question, Internet, is this: If you later learned that perhaps this person had decided he was, in fact, gay, would you feel a final measure of relief?

Would you, perhaps, feel the kind of small tired joy that comes from finding the one missing piece of your billion-piece Jackson Pollock puzzle when you checked the dark dusty recesses behind the water heater? Is it wrong of me to think that perhaps my greatest fault in this relationship was not being male? Because not having a penis is the kind of thing I can let myself off the hook for. All the other faults-- being naive, refusing to protect myself out of the narcissitic belief that I could make anyone love me if I just tried hard enough, being addicted to drama and victimhood, inviting and encouraging abuse because I agreed that I was at fault for whatever was irritating him-- I can accept those because I can name them and I've worked to correct them.

But that one little nagging nameless thing, that I couldn't accept. But, but, but!-- if that haunting little missing piece was this?? Tiny little this?

I feel like Charlie from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," the old whacky Gene Wilder version, when he skips through the streets singing, "I've got a golden ticket, I've got a golden ticket!"

Golden Ticket: Finally, that last little part is Not My Fault.