Second place was never supposed to be my permanent address, but there I was, sitting alone at our table while the man I loved talked his ex-girlfriend through her latest crisis from the sidewalk outside.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Marcus had seemed like everything I’d been looking for. On our first real date, he told me about the panic attacks that started after his dad left when he was eight. He talked about therapy like it was sacred, showing me the journal where he tracked his moods and processed his childhood wounds.
“I’m not going to waste your time,” he said, reaching across the table to touch my hand. “I’ve done too much work on myself to repeat old patterns.”
My heart practically burst. After years of emotionally unavailable men who treated feelings like contagious diseases, here was someone who could say words like “vulnerable” and “triggered” without flinching. Someone who seemed to understand that love meant showing up with your whole self.
Emma started as background noise. A name that popped up on his phone during dinner. His ex-girlfriend, he explained when I asked. Someone is going through a rough patch after their breakup six months ago.
“Her mom just got diagnosed with breast cancer,” he said after stepping away to take her call during our third date. “She doesn’t have anyone else to talk to about it.”
I nodded sympathetically because I’m not heartless. Everyone needs support during family health scares, even from an ex if that’s all they have.
But the calls multiplied. Emma needed advice about confronting her boss. Emma was having nightmares and couldn’t sleep. Emma’s car broke down and she needed someone to drive her to work. Emma, Emma, Emma, a constant drumbeat underneath our relationship.
“She’s been through so much,” he’d say whenever I brought it up. “Our breakup really damaged her self-esteem. I can’t just abandon someone when they’re struggling.”
I started making mental tallies without meaning to. Emma: seven text messages during our dinner date. Emma: a forty-minute phone call while we were watching a movie on my couch. Emma: emergency visit to his apartment at 11 PM because she was “having a bad night” and needed someone to sit with her.
Me: second place, again.
“You’re being a little possessive, don’t you think?” he said when I finally brought it up after two months of this. His therapy voice was calm, measured, and slightly condescending. “I thought you were more secure than this.”
That word, secure, became his weapon. Every time I expressed a feeling, I was being “insecure.” Every time I asked for his attention, I was being “needy.” He’d learned the language of emotional health so well that he could make my completely reasonable requests sound like character flaws.
“I hear that you’re feeling threatened,” he’d say when I mentioned how much time he spent on the phone with her. “But that sounds like your abandonment issues talking, not the actual situation.”
I started questioning everything. Was I being paranoid? Was this normal? I’d never dated someone who maintained such close contact with an ex, but maybe that was healthy. Maybe I was the problem.
The doubts crept in slowly. When I asked him to limit their phone calls to once a week, he looked at me like I’d suggested something cruel and unreasonable. When I mentioned that her “emergencies” always seemed to happen during our dates, he accused me of lacking empathy for someone who was clearly struggling.
“This is who I am,” he’d say. “I don’t abandon people when they need me. If you can’t handle that, maybe you’re not ready for a relationship with someone who’s actually emotionally available.”
The gaslighting was so subtle, so wrapped in therapy-speak, that I didn’t recognise it at first. He made his boundary-less relationship with his ex sound like emotional maturity, and my discomfort sound like personal failings I needed to work on.
Three months in, I started tracking our conversations. Not obsessively, just noting when Emma’s name came up. The pattern was staggering. She dominated at least half of every interaction we had. If we were talking about our days, he’d mention something Emma had told him. If we were discussing weekend plans, he’d have to check if Emma needed anything first. If we were being intimate, her texts would interrupt us, and he’d answer them immediately.
“She’s suicidal,” he’d say when I protested. “Would you rather I ignore her and have her death on my conscience?”
But I noticed she was only suicidal during our dates. Never during his work hours or when he was out with his guy friends. Her crises had impeccable timing, always coinciding with moments when his attention was focused on me.
I tried talking to my friends about it, but I could see the confusion in their eyes. He wasn’t cheating, not in any traditional sense. There was no physical affair, no secret meetings. Just this constant emotional tether to another woman that left me feeling like a third wheel in my own relationship.
“Maybe you’re overreacting,” my friend Jess said over coffee. “At least he’s honest about it. And he’s with you, not her.”
But was he with me? Really? Because it felt like I was dating a man whose heart lived somewhere else, who was just killing time with me between Emma emergencies.
The night that destroyed me was my thirtieth birthday.
I’d been excited for weeks. We’d planned dinner at Talisman, the cosy restaurant in Karen I’d been wanting to try for months. Just the two of us, no phones, a proper celebration. I’d bought a black dress that made me feel beautiful, spent an hour on my makeup, and even splurged on expensive perfume. I felt radiant walking into that restaurant with him.
The ambience was perfect. Soft Afrobeat music, warm lighting, and traditional artwork on the walls. Marcus looked handsome in the navy shirt I’d bought him, and for the first hour, it felt like we were the only two people in the world. He told me I looked stunning. He held my hand across the table. He talked about a weekend trip to Maasai Mara that he wanted to take me on.
We’d just ordered dessert, malva pudding to share, when Emma’s name lit up his phone screen.
My stomach dropped, but I tried to stay calm. “Can you let it go to voicemail? Just for tonight?”
He glanced at the phone, then at me, conflict written across his face. “She usually doesn’t call this late unless it’s important.”
“It’s my birthday dinner,” I said quietly.
“I know, baby. Just let me see what’s wrong. I’ll make it quick.”
I watched his face change as he answered. The soft concern, the immediate focus, the way he turned his body away from me like I wasn’t even there. I could hear Emma’s voice through the phone, high and breathless, though I couldn’t make out the words.
“Okay, okay, slow down,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
Five minutes turned into ten. Ten turned into fifteen. Other diners started noticing. The couple at the next table kept glancing over with embarrassed expressions, like they were witnessing something they shouldn’t. The waiter approached twice to check if everything was okay, and I had to smile and nod while my boyfriend counselled his ex-girlfriend through what sounded like a panic attack.
“I need to step outside,” he mouthed to me, already standing up. “The music’s too loud.”
I sat there alone, watching our malva pudding arrive with a single birthday candle stuck in the centre. The waiter looked around, confused about where my dining companion had gone. I mumbled something about him taking a call and watched the candle slowly melt into the warm custard.
Fifteen minutes became twenty. I could see him through the window, pacing on the sidewalk, one hand pressed to his ear, completely absorbed in whatever crisis Emma was having. A woman at another table caught my eye and gave me a sympathetic look. The humiliation was crushing.
When he finally came back, his face was grave and distracted.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, sliding into his seat. “Emma’s having a really bad night. She got triggered by something her mom said about the cancer treatment, and she started having thoughts about… hurting herself.”
“It’s my birthday,” I whispered, staring at our ruined dessert.
“I know, and I hate this timing, but she doesn’t have anyone else. What if something happens because I wasn’t there? I’d never forgive myself.”
“What about me?” The words came out smaller than I intended. “What about us?”
“This is just one night,” he said, but he was already reaching for his wallet. “We can celebrate tomorrow. Emma needs me right now.”
I felt something break inside me as I watched him throw money on the table. Not just disappointment, but a deeper recognition of exactly where I stood in his life. I was the woman he took to dinner. Emma was the woman he rushed to save. Second place, even on my birthday.
I paid for my own birthday dinner with trembling hands while he texted Emma that he was on his way. The waiter gave me a look of pure pity as he boxed up our untouched dessert. I walked to my car in the parking lot and sat in the darkness for twenty minutes, crying until my carefully applied makeup was completely ruined.
That night, I called my sister from my living room floor, still in my birthday dress.
“He’s still in love with her,” she said without hesitation when I finished the story. “You know that, right? This isn’t about being a supportive friend. This is about him being emotionally unavailable to everyone except his ex-girlfriend.”
I knew. God help me, I’d known for months but kept making excuses. He wasn’t cheating, not technically. But emotionally, he was completely unavailable, pouring every ounce of his care into someone who would always come first.
The cruellest part was how he’d twisted his therapy knowledge into manipulation. When I tried to express my hurt over the following days, he’d respond with clinical detachment.
“I hear that you’re feeling abandoned,” he’d say in that maddeningly calm voice. “But that’s your attachment trauma talking, not reality. I was there for ninety per cent of the dinner.”
“I understand you need reassurance, but I can’t compromise my healing process by abandoning someone in crisis just to manage your insecurities.”
It was psychological abuse dressed up in self-help language. He’d learned just enough about mental health to gaslight me with compassion, making me feel like my completely reasonable need for partnership was actually a personal failing I needed to work on.
Two weeks after my birthday, Emma had another crisis during a movie we were watching at his place. This time, I didn’t try to be understanding. I picked up my purse and walked out while he was on the phone with her.
“Where are you going?” he called after me.
“To be somewhere I’m not competing for attention,” I said.
He showed up at my apartment later that night with flowers and apologies. He promised to set boundaries with Emma. Swore he’d make me his priority. Said all the right words about commitment and choosing me.
But I was done believing his words. I needed to see actions, and his actions had been consistent for months: Emma would always matter more.
I broke up with him on a Tuesday morning in my kitchen. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, and he was drinking coffee from the mug I’d bought him, one with little cartoon therapy dogs that said “Good Boys Heal Everything.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” I said. “I can’t keep being your part-time girlfriend while Emma gets all your emotional energy.”
He looked genuinely shocked, like this was coming out of nowhere. “But I’ve worked so hard on myself. I’m nothing like the man I used to be.”
“Then why am I competing with your ex for your attention? Why do I feel like a stranger in my own relationship?”
“You’re not competing,” he said, that familiar condescending tone creeping in. “That’s your insecurity.”
“I spent my thirtieth birthday alone because she needed you more than I did,” I interrupted. “On my birthday, Marcus. If that’s not competing, what is?”
For the first time in our relationship, he had no therapy-speak response. He just sat there, staring into his coffee mug.
“I love you,” he said finally.
“No, you don’t,” I said, and I meant it. “You love the idea of me. You love having someone who makes you feel like a good person for being there for Emma. But you don’t love me enough to actually choose me.”
He left twenty minutes later, taking his toothbrush and his therapy journal and his promises to change. I kept the mug, though I’m not sure why. Maybe as a reminder of how easy it is to mistake emotional awareness for emotional availability.
I found out six months later that they’d gotten back together. A mutual friend mentioned it casually, like it was inevitable. Maybe it was. Some people are addicted to being needed, to the drama of rescue and crisis. Marcus had built his entire identity around saving Emma, and letting go of that role would mean confronting who he was without it.
The worst part wasn’t the breakup itself. It was the months afterwards, when I questioned everything I’d felt and experienced. Had I been unreasonable? Too demanding? Not understanding enough? It took therapy of my own to recognise that wanting to be prioritised in my relationship wasn’t a character flaw, it was basic human dignity.
I still have that ruined birthday dress hanging in my closet. Sometimes I look at it and remember the woman who wore it that night, so hopeful and trusting and willing to accept second place as long as it meant being loved. I feel tender toward her now, that version of myself who tried so hard to be understanding, that she forgot to be heard.
I’ve dated other people since Marcus, men who turn off their phones during dinner, who remember that my feelings matter, who save their rescue fantasies for actual emergencies instead of manufactured drama from exes who conveniently need saving every time we’re together.
But sometimes, late at night, I still think about that chocolate soufflé with its single melted candle, and I wonder if he ever told Emma about the birthday dinner he ruined for her. I wonder if she felt guilty, or if she even knew. I wonder if they’re happy together now, or if they enjoy the familiar dysfunction of their endless cycle of crisis and rescue.
Mostly, though, I try not to wonder at all. Some stories don’t have satisfying endings. Some people don’t change, no matter how much therapy they’ve had or how well they can articulate their emotional patterns. Sometimes the best thing you can do is walk away from someone who’s already chosen someone else, even if they’re too afraid to admit it.
Check out:
We Met At Heaven’s Gate Prayer Retreat. The Chemistry Was Not Holy
We Met At A Funeral, And For A While, Grief Felt Just Like Love
