When I started asking myself what I had actually lost after my experience with Jerry, one answer kept coming back to me: I thought Jerry cared about me as a person.
I don’t mean that I thought he loved me. I don’t mean that I thought we were building toward some conventional relationship. Jerry and I never had a defined relationship, and I was never interested in a long term relationship with him. I liked him. I enjoyed him. I cared about him. I thought he cared about me too.
From early on, Jerry was kind, thoughtful, and attentive. He noticed details. He remembered things I told him. He asked questions. He seemed interested in the parts of my life that had nothing to do with him.
He never made demands on me or my time or behave as though my life should rearrange itself around him. That mattered because I already had a full life. I had children, a career I cared deeply about, parents I helped support, a faith community that was important to me, and a lot of strong friendships. Jerry seemed to appreciate those things rather than compete with them.
On only our third date, he invited me to an election-night gathering with his friends. Not long afterward, he came to church with me. He met people who mattered to me. We talked about faith and theology, work and parenting, family and friendships, politics, recovery, baseball, music, and whatever else caught our attention.
He seemed to respect the things I respected about myself. He seemed to admire my commitment to nursing and the compassion I bring to my work. He seemed to respect me as a mother. He understood the support I provided my parents. He appreciated how important my friendships were to me and that I had a life full of people I loved.
He told me specifically that he liked my confidence and humor, my compassion, my parenting, my vulnerability, the way I cared about connection, and the conversations we had. He told me there was something gentle and kind about the way I touch other people, including him.
He expressed interest in my faith community and came with me to a service. We spent the entire day together, napping, talking, and watching the sunset, without mention of sex.
When he told me about the DWI, we talked on the phone for more than two hours. We had a long conversation about remorse, recovery, spirituality, and rebuilding. I was clear with him that he was responsibly for his own recovery, but he appreciated my experience and support. This conversation reinforced a sense of trust and a genuine human connection.
As we navigated the connection during his early recovery, he told me how much he appreciates that I was comfortable being myself, and that I was different from what he was accustomed to. He was delighted to learn that I love the winter solstice as much as he does, noting that he rarely met someone who even thinks about it. He shared my excitement for a local holiday musical performance so much that when I ended up with an extra ticket, I invited him because I knew he would genuinely appreciate it was much as I did.
Even after the first few months, Jerry’s attentiveness did not lessen. We talked frequently about our children, families, work, faith, sex, relationships, social issues, music, movies, and whatever was happening in our lives. He regularly cooked for me, or prepared wonderfully weird late night snacks. He needed my help threading a needle for a sewing project he was working on because his hands were too big.
He was excited to celebrate my birthday with me and he put thought and careful preparation into the time we spent together. While my birthday was a special experience, most of the time we were not living through a series of dramatic declarations and romantic gestures. A lot of what made me believe Jerry cared about me was ordinary. Eating together. Talking. Listening to music. Watching something. Sitting around. Sharing some interesting thing one of us had found. We regularly talked about every aspect of life, including our shared love of sunsets, art, and beauty. We shared similar tastes in music and he enthusiastically accepted an invite to a concert featuring an artist we both love.
Even when I questioned him during times when he pulled back, he still seemed to reinforce the idea that he cared about me. When I specifically asked him not to play games with me, he stated, “I’m not trying to play games.” At the time I took that as evidence that he was trying to be genuine and the conversation led to a lovely evening together where the attentiveness continued. I was excited to tell him about the movie Sinners that I had seen in the movie theater, and he immediately requested that we watch it together, which we did straight away, snuggled in front of his laptop. He appreciated the complexities of the storytelling, the richness of the characters, and the haunting soundtrack just as much as I did. We were back to the ordinary comfort we felt being together.
When shortly after that he abruptly suggested a break, I made it clear to him that I had never asked for more than “sex, cuddling and basic decency.” I told him plainly that I believed we had established “a certain amount of trust and respect.” Even this suggestion seem wrapped in care, expressing concern for not being able to give me what I needed and not wanting me to feel shitty.
Six weeks later, the caring and attentiveness came back instantly. He invited me over and cooked dinner for me and we talked for a long time about what had been happening in our lives. He texted asking about my day, and was delighted when I told him I had bought a moped. He immediately wanted me to come over so he could ride with me. We eventually did get to take a sunset ride together, taking silly pictures before working on a puzzle and spending the night together. The morning after our ride he was telling me about the doorframe of his living room where he marked his kids’ heights as well as other people who visited. He seemed surprised that he hadn’t marked my height yet, so he had me stand against the door, marking my name and date.
A couple of days later, I fell off Cindy and broke my ribs. Jerry was sweet when I was hurt. He was concerned about me. Again, nothing about that was some enormous declaration. I was physically hurting, and he behaved like someone who cared that I was hurting.
Not long after that, Jerry invited me over and encouraged me to attend my virtual therapy appointment at his house rather than come over afterwards. I sat in his room, in his chair, with his cat on my lap and talked to my therapist. I did not think very much about what that said at the time. Now I do. Therapy is vulnerable. His home felt safe enough to me that I could sit there and do it. He offered me that space.
Afterward, we went to an independent theater to see a documentary about slavery and racism and stayed for the discussion. It was the kind of experience that fit naturally into the connection we had always seemed to have—intellectual curiosity, social justice, history, morality, ideas, faith, and trying to understand people.
Almost a year after I met Jerry, I was still having experiences with him that reinforced the same basic understanding I had formed near the beginning. He knows me. He likes who I am. I matter to him.
That is why I was so completely dumbfounded by what I eventually had to confront. If Jerry had been incredibly attentive for a few weeks at the beginning and then stopped, I think I could make sense of this more easily.
If everything had revolved around sex, I could tell myself I confused sexual attention with care.
If he had never shown any interest in my children, my parents, my friends, my faith, my career, my recovery experience, my ideas, my values, my injuries, my weird interests, or the things I found beautiful, I could look back now and say that I filled in blanks that were never actually there.
But that is not what happened. This unfolded over almost a year. The attention was not narrow. It was expansive. It touched nearly every part of my life. And it lasted a long time. That is what I have such a difficult time reconciling with what I eventually learned.
During that same period, Jerry was withholding information I needed in order to make informed decisions about my own life, sex, intimacy, and safety. There were things happening with my body that I later came to understand very differently once I had more information about consent, negotiation, and risk. There were choices I had believed were fully mine that I now understood had been shaped by information I did not have. He had put me directly in danger without me being able to see it.
Then, after I began telling Jerry clearly what I believed he had done and how I believed it had harmed me, he never acknowledged that he had done anything wrong at all. He simply refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, offering the laughably insufficient “that’s fair” when I told him how disrespectful it was to intentionally withhold relevant information from me.
That is where my understanding of the previous year started to come apart.
I could understand someone caring about me and still hurting me. People hurt people they love all the time. I have hurt people I care about. Care does not make anyone incapable of selfishness, terrible judgment, avoidance, or harm.
What I could not understand was the complete lack of acknowledgment afterward.
How could someone spend so much time noticing me and knowing me and still make choices that treated my autonomy as expendable?
How could someone seem to respect my compassion, faith, values, recovery experience, parenting, work, and relationships, and then seem so uninterested in understanding the impact his own choices had on me?
How could someone be sweet when my ribs were broken but show no concern when I told him I had been harmed in ways that were much harder to see?
I have tried to answer those questions.
Maybe Jerry cared and compartmentalized. Maybe he cared until caring conflicted with something he wanted. Maybe he genuinely enjoyed knowing me but did not understand care the same way I did. Maybe some of what I experienced was completely genuine and some of it was performance. Maybe he believed himself to be deeply caring and did not see the contradiction between that image and his behavior. Maybe that early message about what he liked about me was written with AI and he still meant every word.
Maybe he did not. I will likely never know.
There are times when I almost wish I could decide that all of it was fake. It would certainly make the story cleaner. But I do not actually know that, and I am trying very hard not to manufacture certainty simply because uncertainty is uncomfortable.
What I know is the thought that eventually hit me with a force I was not prepared for:
Maybe Jerry never cared about me as a person at all.
That hurt more than the idea that Jerry did not love me ever could have.
My expectations of Jerry were so minimal. I had never asked for grand promises or made huge demands of him or his time. I never thought he owed me love or commitment.
But I thought I mattered to him as a human being.
I thought my body mattered because it belonged to me. I thought my choices mattered because they were mine. I thought my safety mattered even when protecting it might interfere with something he wanted.
I thought that when Jerry paid attention to my life, he was paying attention because the person living that life mattered to him.
Once I began questioning that, something very strange happened to my memories.
They did not disappear. All of those things happened. What changed was what I thought they meant.
That may be one of the strangest things I have found myself grieving: not the disappearance of the memories, but the loss of confidence in the meaning I had attached to them.
For almost a year, I understood all of those moments as variations of the same message:
I see you. I know who you are. Who you are matters to me.
Now I do not know what they meant to Jerry. The lack of acknowledgment afterward has made that uncertainty much harder to live with.
For me, care becomes especially important when harm happens. If someone I care about tells me that something I did hurt them, I want to understand. I may disagree with them. I may be defensive. I may wish they understood my intentions differently. But their experience matters to me because they matter to me.
That process never began with Jerry. When I named harm he did not acknowledge that he had done anything wrong. He literally said nothing when I directly told him “you don’t even feel bad about it.”
Without acknowledgment, there was nowhere for understanding to begin. Without understanding, there was no real foundation for repair. And that has made me think differently about what I mean when I use the word care.
I still believe kindness can be care. Cooking someone dinner can be care. Remembering the thing they love can be care. Sitting beside them at church, worrying about their broken ribs, making space for their vulnerability, or sharing something simply because it matters to them can all be care.
But care has to mean something when it becomes inconvenient too.
Does another person’s autonomy still matter when respecting it means you do not get what you want? Does their pain still matter when acknowledging it forces you to reconsider your own choices? Does someone else’s humanity still matter when it threatens the story you would rather tell yourself about who you are?
I know I cared about Jerry as a person. His well-being mattered to me beyond what he could give me. His recovery mattered. His children mattered. His future mattered.
He still matters to me. Part of me wishes that were not true, because caring about someone who has hurt you can be incredibly inconvenient. But I do not seem to have an off switch for caring just because a connection has ended or because I have needed to put boundaries around it. I can be angry with someone. I can decide they no longer get access to me. I can tell the truth about what they did. I can want accountability from them. And I can still care what happens to them.
Sometimes that feels like a curse. Other times it feels like a superpower. Mostly, I think it is just part of who I am.
What is harder is that I once believed Jerry cared about me in much the same way. Not because I expected him to love me or choose me or build a life with me, but because for almost a year he behaved in ways that made me believe I mattered to him as a person.
I may never know what all of that meant to him. I may never know how much of the kindness was care, how much was something else, or whether those distinctions even existed for him in the way they do for me.
I know what it meant to me. I know what I believed. I know what his choices eventually made me question.
Maybe that is the loss I have been trying to name.
I thought I mattered to him as a person.
And I may never know whether I ever actually did.