I use this phrase a lot. Really. Most frequently in the context of my partner leaving. As we drove along and I listened to her deflect and dodge my questions I thought about what our relationship has become. and all it has been over the years. She is still as much a mystery at times as she was more than 15 years ago. I have learned to live with the unanswered stuff. I have learned where not to go and what is firmly off limits to me. That is okay. Has been for a long time. But as years pass and we struggle on doubts creep in. I’m human. Like every other person in a relationship with someone they love and care about deeply I do wonder if she’d bail. And thus the “I’d understand if…”. Not sure when I started selling myself short, or if it has always been this way. I looked across at her during that drive and truly thought to myself maybe she does have someone else. Not necessarily in a sexual relationship, but a confidante or a support outside this farm and us. We all need someone to talk to. So I really was perplexed by the lie. I had walked by when her phone screen lit up. I saw the name. It wasn’t like I was basing this question on a hunch or some vague paranoia. I had asked her point blank who she talked to that morning and I was getting nowhere. It was infuriating, yet I in my current near flat line state just let her go in circles. I pushed a little and backed off. tried again. nada. just a more exaggerated response from her denying anyone had contacted her. I looked out the window to collect my thoughts. I could keep grilling her but clearly it was going nowhere. I changed course a bit. “You understand why I might feel this way right? Affairs were practically a way of life in my family. I am not saying you did or are doing anything. I am just asking a question and it is really simple for you to give me an answer. Just look at your phone and it’ll show this morning’s text history.” Nope, more WTF is wrong with you. I am not doing anything. How could you think that? and I returned again to my default. “I’d understand if you wanted to go, or if you went”. “Please just give me fair warning”. That didn’t help either. and so it got left. Swept carefully back under the rug and life returns to the same unending unchanging reality we are living.
I guess I just don’t know. Would she? doubt it. Really do. Do I think she needs friends, and support. YES. We all do. I just wish she had chosen a better answer and didn’t lie. I don’t understand the decision to lie because for me you only lie if you have something important enough to hide.

and so life goes on, da da dum da da dum.