Venus Retrograde

A little bit of grief this spring over a relationship that was long-term and long-distance. After two years and ten months of being together, I totally faithful and trusting the man completely up until the last few months when I got mildly suspicious, he admitted he was seeing a married woman, and another woman, and maybe yet even another one (he knows how to seduce the lonely ones), and offered me a deal: We could keep seeing each other just as we had been, maybe a little less often, like every five to seven weeks. Translation: I could stay on his string. "I've never thought that love was finite," he said, not realizing that what he'd just offered me was very finite indeed.

The torch in my heart flamed out instantly. I was calm and composed. I said, "I'm so disappointed in you." I asked him what if I'd been messing with other men. He declared he'd be happy for me.

No normal man thinks that way. And anyone involved in adultery isn't very smart. If that was his chosen relationship I had no choice but to leave him.

He'd given me his mother's brooch, an amethyst surrounded by beads of millefiori glass. It was an unusual costume piece and went with everything. Unfortunately I never photographed it. I wore it near my heart as an emblem of love. I was wearing it and removed it and handed it to him, saying, "Give this to someone you love."

"I did!" he said. But his definition of love wasn't mine. I like honesty.

I wished I did not have to, but I packed up and walked out into the night and got into my car for the two-and-a-half-hour drive home. He was upset. He wanted me to stay. We could have dinner or something. I said, "Only a foolish woman would stay."And I stand by that. I drew the line. It feels much better to be the dumper than the dumpee.

In the future I will trust less, and will love less deeply. And that's what I've got to say about the planet Venus going retrograde on Tuesday.