I've really screwed up!
Hi All. I did something to my boyfriend last week and I feel awful about it. We went camping for a couple of days. On the first day when it started to get dark, he went to find some more wood for the fire in case we needed it. A few minutes later I heard him shout for me. He had fallen down a hill…he wasn’t hurt, his glasses had been knocked off. He’s very nearsighted and he can’t see a thing without them. I tried to find his glasses for him but there wasn’t very much daylight left and I was afraid one of us would step on them in the dark, so I told him that I go back and get them in the morning.
I had to guide him back to our campsite because he couldn’t see. I could tell he was really upset because he’s usually the playful and confident type, but for the rest of the night he was kinda shy and quiet and wanted to cuddle by the fire a lot, which was something he really had never been into before. When we turned in for the night, he asked me to hold him, and that’s something he had never done before. I had never seen that vulnerable side of him before and I have to say that it was a turn on for me.
The next morning I went back to where he fell down the night before and after some searching I found his glasses laying on the ground. I went back to the campsite and saw him sitting right where he was when I had left. I had really, really enjoyed the night we had together and I knew that as soon as he had his glasses and could see again that he’d be back to his old self. Not that that would have been bad, because I love everything about him. I just really liked having him be that intimate and dependent on me. So instead of giving him back his glasses that he couldn’t function without, I put them in my pocket and told him I couldn’t find them. The rest of the day he was just like he was the night before. Lots of hand-holding, lots of cuddling and whatnot. Later when it was getting close to the time to go home, I told him that I was going to go look for his glasses one more time. So I went for a walk and when I came back I gave him back his glasses and told him that they were a little further away than where I had looked before. Needless to say, he was very relieved to have them back.
He dropped me off at home and went to his apartment to get a shower. A few hours later he came over and had a dozen roses for me. I asked him what was the occasion and he said it was to apologize for how he acted. He sat me down and said that he wanted to explain why he was “such a wuss,” as he put it. He got kinda serious and told me about something that had happened to him when he was 12 or 13 years old. He was at a park and a couple of bullies were giving him a hard time. Eventually, they took away his glasses and when they found out that he couldn’t see without them, they shoved him around for a while. They finally got bored and left him, but not before they stomped on his glasses to the point where they were totally broken. He ended up getting lost for several hours because he couldn’t see to get home. It was obvious that it’s something that still bothers him even though it was about ten years ago.
I feel absolutely horrible! It was bad enough that I exploited a physical vulnerability for my own selfish reasons, but I also dug up some old emotional scars while I was at it. And he brought me flowers and apologized for something that I did to him. I felt so guilty that I wanted to confess tell him that I had his glasses the whole time but I’m afraid he might not forgive me. How could I tell him I was turned on by how he was that night when it turns out he was really trying to hide how scared he was?! Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. I don’t know. Any advice would be appreciated.
Lisa