In January you had full on cyber sex with an old friend who moved to North Carolina last year. Cyber sex, like it's 2002.

On St. Patrick's Day, after all but two of our friends had left, you tell them that our relationship is not doing well because of your recent behavior. Why you brought this up, I have no idea. Before I can even process what's happening, it's two hours later and the three of us are trying to convince you that we should have an open relationship. Odd turn of events, but that's life for you.

You said you don't want to break up, you love me, we're best friends, and you also simultaneously think you aren't really a relationship person.

I said that I'm not really a relationship person either, but I make a choice to be monogamous because that's what we have agreed upon. I said that monogamy is not remotely important to me, but trust and honesty are, so maybe it's just time to adjust our boundaries.

You don't want an open relationship. You don't want to break up. And while I won't assign a desire that you have not explicitly expressed, you have not yet unfriended your Cyber Sex Friend, which was a condition of us staying together (monogamously, anyway). You made excuses, saying you haven't had the time, that I need to give you time. I reminded you that the reason I haven't mentioned it until now is because I was giving you time - and it's now been 7 weeks. 8 weeks, at the time of this entry. You just kept saying, "But I haven't talked to her at all." And our friends kept saying, "But that wasn't the agreement."

The other condition, which I did not bring up in front of them, was that you start therapy. That was your idea, not mine. You mentioned it before I decided to give you another chance. You said that you needed to get your drinking, depression, and relationship issues in check and that regardless of my decision about our relationship, you were going to look for a therapist. That statement was a major factor in my decision to keep trying. But 8 weeks later and you haven't taken any steps towards that, either.

I didn't get angry until you started saying that the reason you haven't unfriended her yet is because you feel bad for her and don't want to hurt her feelings because she is totally innocent in all of this.

Our friend said, "Oh, did she not know you have a fiancee?" I said, "Yes, she knows. She's met me a few times. And at the beginning of the conversation, she asked if we were still together, and he said yes. She then wondered several times how they could plan for him to visit her and fuck her without me finding out about it." Friend said, "Then what the fuck, TL?" And you had no answer but to repeat that you don't want to hurt her feelings and she didn't do anything wrong and you need more time.

I said, "Out of the three of us, the only person who didn't do anything wrong in the incident of you and her having cyber sex is me. I was sitting here minding my business. She might not have any obligation of loyalty to me, whereas you do and are more culpable from my perspective, but to say she's innocent or didn't do anything wrong is absurd."

The four of us talked for hours. Finally you said you didn't want to talk about this anymore because it was late and we'd all been drinking, and that we could talk in the morning when we were both sober. Our friends left. We talked some more about it, then went to bed.

The next day you wouldn't talk to me. First, you pretended that nothing was wrong and that I must be misinterpreting your sullenness and one word answers to everything. Finally, you started yelling that I was a total dick the night before and that I attacked you and picked on you.

I said I disagreed. I said that you were the one who brought all of this up in front of our friends, and if you didn't want to talk about it in front of them, you shouldn't have said anything in the first place. I pointed out that everything I said was said in the calmest and most respectful way possible.

You said you didn't want to talk to me, and that you weren't going to talk to me until I apologized. I told you I was not going to apologize because I wasn't sorry. It's one thing to apologize over something silly, like a fight over the dishes or if someone is snippy when they get home from work. I'll disingenuously apologize for those things any time, just to be done with a frivolous argument. But I'm not going to apologize for being honest in a respectful way. I'm not going to apologize for standing up for myself in terms of how I'm treated. I'm not going to apologize for expecting you to live up to promises you make.

So we hardly spoke all day. Monday we just went back to normal.

It's taken years, but I'm finally starting to feel less ambivalent. I'm starting to feel less and less like I both want to stay and want to leave. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to feel like this anymore.

It all just feels like wasted energy. Why am I exerting so much energy trying to keep a monogamous relationship functioning when I don't even want to be in one anymore?

I don't want to love like this anymore. I hate feeling restricted, and I hate feeling like I'm restricting someone else based on rules that don't seem to suit either of us.