Choice

Did I make the right choice?

I did what I thought I had to do. I made Jason choose. I told him it was time to decide. Me or The Other Woman. He's had months to get to know me and years to get to know her. He's got to figure it out either way. Who does he want to be with? What life does he want? He cannot continue having us both. He has to make a choice.

With me, he has a future, he has a life. I'm young, I'm energetic, I'm ambitious and driven and eager and hopeful and optimistic and romantic and sentimental and adventurous and excited. I'm full of possibilities and endless dreams. I'm creative and caring and fun and funny and smart and sexy and successful. I am pure, unadulterated, loyal, faithful, honest, generous, sweet, sincere, wholehearted love. That's what I am. I am love. Down to my very core. And everyone knows that love is always worth fighting for. Always.

A life with me means family and friends. It means road trips and vacations and weekend getaways. A life with me means marriage - the kind you actually want to have. Coming home to a wife who's cooked you dinner, massages your feet while you destress from your crazy day at work. Being married to me could also mean take out Chinese food and a full night of Netflix, but either way, we'd be happy just being together. A life with me means children and birthdays and first steps and anniversaries and graduations and art projects and storytime and bubble baths and learning to ride a bike. A life with me means all the major milestones, and celebrating the little every day things too. A life with me means laughter and friendship --- *best* friendship, the kind you rely on, the kind you love coming home to, the kind you can't live without. A life with me means holding hands and sneaking kisses at every opportunity and long walks on the beach at sunset. It's ice cream sundaes and sleeping in on Saturday morning and spending Friday night at the movies. A life with me is anything and everything he could possibly want it to be and more.

What the hell does she have to offer?

The Other Woman is still married. She's living with her husband, so she won't be moving in with Jason anytime soon. They won't share an apartment. They won't dance in the kitchen while making dinner together. They won't put Frank Sinatra on the radio and make love all night because she has to go home to her husband and kids. The Other Woman is in the middle of a messy divorce. She won't want to get married again anytime soon, if ever. She is too old to have children and doesn't want any more anyway. The Other Woman cannot make him a husband or a father. She cannot introduce him to her family and friends as she must keep him a secret lest the divorce get more complicated. She meets him in seclusion under the veil of secrecy. She stows him away in a little compartment, not a part of her life as a whole, not a part of her everyday. She cannot share her world with him, weave him into the fabric of who she is as a person. She is separate from him, separate from everything. The Other Woman will never go down to Kansas to meet his mother, or send his niece a Christmas gift, or go shopping arm in arm with his sister. She will not be his Plus One to a friend's wedding or the office holiday party or go in with other couples for a time share in the Hamptons. What does she have that I'm not seeing then? What does she offer that I don't understand? What is so hard about choosing to be with a woman who wants to love you over a woman who has no place or time for you in her life? Why can't he just pick me???

I refuse to defend myself any further. I refuse to present my case, compile all the evidence, argue my side to the court. I have too much self respect to sit around waiting for a man to make up his damn mind. If he really felt about me the way he's told me he's felt from Day One, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. If I was that special, he would walk away from her and that would be the end of it. If he cared about me half as much as he claims to, he wouldn't make me cry this way. It's like waiting to see if I get chosen for the grade school Dodgeball team all over again, knowing I'll get picked last. I may as well sit under a tree and read a book while they're hemming and hawing about whether to take the kid on crutches or the kid who picks his nose and eats it before me. I will not allow another person to make me feel unwanted. I am far too beautiful and intelligent and good for that.

I'm crazy about Jason and I know that there is something incredible between us. I cannot date him while waiting for the ink to dry on The Other Woman's divorce papers. Then what? He drops me like a hot potato? No thank you. I'm attached to him. I'm invested in us. I care about this man more than I thought I would, and more than I'd like to admit. I forced him to make a decision. The question is: Did I make the right choice?