Define happiness. Temporary or Permanent. (Revised)

MM turns 51 today.  Perhaps turning age 50 was cataclysmic because as usual, he was straddling 2 women in his life and pissed off at both for not keeping it a secret.  I was just a summer romance revived, an escape or distraction to deal with his stress.  The first time I took him home last summer in June, his girlfriend called his cell 17 times and told him to come home ...and me because she eventually called my cell phone.  It was that teeth gritting Spanish telenova drama that gives one a high.  3 months later, he stood in his kitchen window pissed off.  He had snuck me through his front door the 3rd Saturday in August, days before his 50th birthday, while his girlfriend sat in the back in her SUV wondering why their rift grew wider.  He made a small attempt to fry excellent meat but it fell through because they both could not figure out how to please the other.  Back then, he wasn't super serious about patching things up and his gf wasn't lenient of him to be around other women.  I filled a role of the scandalous lover but it wasn't completely gratifying because eventually, someone would get hurt.  I sometimes drew pics on his marker board and left a purple marker in a cloth mail pouch.  He became angry at me b/c I eventually had to provide proof like some kind of witness to a murder for his gf.  Deep down inside, she knew I didn't need to do this.  The half eaten steaks were proof I had been there.  This chaos was my life and after a 3 month summer romance, it was wearing on me.

Now it's been a full year since we made love and it's his 51st birthday.  I know in some ways, he has grown and taken more responsibility for his life.  He has not stopped drinking or even attempted.  His father isn't dead yet so he can make that excuse that he will delay it.  In the last year, I have moved on partially because I did not want to live a compromised life and for 2 other reasons.  No matter what good woman was in his life, he wasn't going to change his drinking patterns for anyone.  He refused to change.  So I really couldn't do him any good as a friend or lover.  

I met his former brother in law at a second group home I was working at.  He candidly told me some past family secrets I won't repeat.  It led me to examine that Mike is a self ritualized hermit that really doesn't want a lot of people or family around.  And yet, he expects 100% loyalty from his girlfriend but can't give back what she wants.  People can go years in a compromised existence and accept their partner for their marginalized version.  And that's just fine.  But its been 12 months since I've graduated from the school of MM and the only thing I miss is how he made love to me.  He was emotionally in tune with that side of himself, and he excelled at it.  Nobody ever asked me how this whole thing affected me except for once in Sept. his gf did.  Now you can read about it like headline news.

This last paragraph is how I felt.  Did anyone ask me how I felt?  Yes, I could have gone on dissing his gf and making love to him, even into October but I chose not to.  He didn't obey his gf out of loyalty, he did b/c I didn't settle.  AW sent me a video 11 months ago of him flipping both of us off.  He can make choices but no one asked me how I overcame certain hurdles.  I did through "social distancing."  AW did help me heal and I did.