Dear Roger: Foolish, Foolish Heart

A long time ago I vowed to never let myself fall in love again. I was tired of being hurt and I felt I was just too badly damaged from the past to be able to provide anything of value to anyone else, and it was also after the realization that while I had loved, I had never been loved in return with the same depth and devotion. I am one of those people that are easily forgotten when I am not around. I have always been a guardian and a caregiver, and someone who enjoys taking care of others, but I never seem to find the like. For close to four years I have lived a solitary life, even limiting the contact with friends to very casual internet based relationships or intermittent social engagements that mostly revolved around music. My life has been; work, support the kids, clean the house, write, and repeat up until about a year ago.
I am not a person who makes friends easily, I tend to be judgmental and wary,(especially of men), and for someone to catch my eye they have to be pretty damn special, and he is special. Its not that I found him to be drop-dead handsome, or even close to what would typically catch my interest, but the kindness in his eyes and his humor caught me, and then over the past year just getting to know him as we became closer and closer friends and he became more and more involved in my life, and I in his, he unintentionally found his way inside my cold stone heart and he cracked it.
Ill admit it, against all reason and logic and sanity, my stupid, stupid heart fell very badly in love with him. I have fought it very hard. I have spent time trying to help him move along his path in the world so he could one day achieve his dream, and I've been helping him remake himself and get into shape and improve his self-image so he would see the beautiful and wonderful man that he is, in the hopes that I would be happy for him when he found Mr. Right. Yeah...MR. Right, he's gay. See what I mean about my heart being stupid? In its defense he is the most hetero gay man we have ever met, but hes gay and we know that, but it didn't listen and every day we fell a little deeper, even when I helped him adjust his profile on a dating site so he could start meeting people after a breakup with his last horrible ex.
He lives with me, I drive him to work,and I look forward to him getting home in the afternoons so I can hear about his day before we take our evening walk. Prior to this weekend we had fallen into the rhythm of an old married couple, with the kids counting on him for help with homework and he had stepped up as a father figure to them. We consulted together on shopping and household expenses and we made decisions together, and made plans together to go camping and take vacations after the drama of this stressful month of work was over, but then the reality of just what and where I am came slamming home to me.
Some people from Texas I have known for a very long time came to town for a Gay social event called,"Bear Town", wanting to visit with them and increase his social circle, I introduced them thinking they would keep him safe and introduce him to some people. We had a good time the initial day they arrived and then we made plans to attend a Burlesque show Thursday,(which we did and had fun), but then Friday he got invited out to a more risque party along with some guy he met online and he went,(I drove him), and I got a text at midnight that he was not coming home.
Devastation? Shockingly, Yes.He had always seemed to have a stronger moral code than someone who would just engage in a random hookup, one night stand after a first date. Trying to process all the feelings that went through me will take weeks but first and foremost was anger. Not at him, never at him. I still love him as much as I ever did because he would not want this and he would be upset if he knew. Hes always been honest and direct about what he is and his predilections. I am angry at myself and I hate myself and my stupid, weak heart for allowing this to happen.
I don't know what to do at this point other than to just shut myself off completely. I wrap myself up in my work already as much as possible, and I had relished the times with him because he is the one thing that makes it all worth it, the one person who never complains or gripes at me or gives me a hard time, and who seems to actually appreciate what I do. I don't even get that from my kids. We do things together,(well, we did), now that he is out doing who and whatever, I wonder if that will stop? Or when the older and somewhat more loosely moralized gays leave, will he go back to the way he was?
I gave up on love because I quite believing in it because it never came my way, and because its just obviously not meant to be for me, and I am doomed to be the one forever supporting others on their way to finding it elsewhere.