Assholes aside...
Assholes aside, this whole being single thing was working out for me really well.
Here is why:
Of course, I didn't come to this sane-seeming realization through introspection or rational thought -- it was truly something that has come to me gradually... I feel depressed. I notice myself resenting him. I drank a bottle of wine all by myself on Sunday night without really knowing why, called him, and got into an argument that came to a climax with me throwing my cell phone across the room, shattering its case and losing the call.
He called me back. Honestly, although I was really feeling DONE with him in that moment, that's what I need--someone who calls back, someone who fights like my family fights. Because I always know that my mom and dad and brother will not let me shut them out -- even though I hate it in the moment and I feel like I need to run away or get away from them, it ultimately makes me feel like I am held in a security blanket of unconditional love. Even when we call each other names or act like assholes, my family always makes up. I'm not saying it's pretty, and there are some conflicts that go on for years, but we never give up on each other.
But I need to tell the story that comes before that... so here's how we started arguing:
On Sunday night I asked J to come over because I was excited about our relationship and I wanted to spend time with him. We don't get to see much of each other during the week because of our schedules (opposites), so I wanted one more night together. He said he couldn't because of family plans... then he said he'd call or text when he was done bonding with his teenage cousin that evening. He called, and I nudged him to come by again... but he said he couldn't- he needed sleep. I believe that - that he needed sleep and moreover sleep in his own house without a cat he's allergic to (Sasha LOVES him and is always all over him, of course) or a new partner in bed next to him.
BUT even though I understood, it still bugged me. I realize now that it was tapping into feelings of rejection from Jase's constant need to do his own thing over being with me, which was compouded by the fact that Jase was also in Madison this weekend and didn't return my call or text and canceled his plans with me.
So, after a bottle of wine and watching the saddest movie I've ever seen ("The Fountain"), which J recommended, I was upset that he didn't want to come see me. After all, the film was about two people who didn't have the capacity to love each other the way the other needed and the way it tortured the protagonist for eternity (J's take on this film is entirely different, by the way). And what was really hurtful and still resonates with me, is the way that our conversation revealed that J might not know or understand me very well at all. Some of the things that he said seemed to disregard previous conversations that we've had and things that I've expressed to be important to me. It made me feel not listened to and not seen or understood at all by the one person in the world who I thought really, really was getting me after so long of feeling like I wasn't worth being gotten or understood that way.
I am realizing that being in this huge breakup with Jase has left me inflexible. Maybe as inflexible as Jase was with me (which, by the way, I HATED), and when J pushed back against that inflexibility... I retreated. But then something happened that hasn't happened in a long time. I got into an argument with my partner (Jase would never fight with me-he would just disengage completely)... and I can't remember exactly what it was all about, but I do know that some of it had to do with him being really critical of my friendships with exes and my ways of dealing with problems (ahem... a bottle of wine). I came out of hiding then with a badger-like temper! I stood my ground, and he shoved-pushing me with statements like, "I don't get why you need to have these people in your life who you've been with, you have me and I should be enough for you!" I cried, and I disagreed. I tried to explain... ineptly in drunkeness who I was and who I am and why I can't let go of people. He didn't understand, and he felt threatened and he talked fast and loud about how it was benefitless to be friends with your exes. And then I yelled. I felt unseen and unheard and threatened by his tone. I said I needed to go because this conversation is going nowhere, and I threw my cell phone against the wood panel of my door. The case shattered, the battery was ejected, and the phone shut off.
I sat on the floor between my futon and my livingroom table. Empty, cobalt blue wine glass in front of me. Bleary, teary eyes shut tight behind my hands. Sasha had dashed into my bedroom, alarmed at the crack of the cell phone against the door, and I crouched there alone with my knees at my chest. For one whole minute I thought about leaving my cell phone discombobulated on the carpet for the night. I tried to picture the quiet and calm of my apartment with no argument possible with no way for J to contact me to continue his rant. But what I was met with was the static in my head. The argument replayed like a movie scene I couldn't forget. Would I have peace and calm? No. What I needed was resolution. I crawled on my hands and knees across my apartment to my phone and reassembled it.
He called back.
"Don't hang up on me, Baby, OK?" He sounded sad. He sounded concerned. He tried to make me laugh. I followed his lead. He was nice now. "We're Ok, right? See we're laughing--we're ok." He tried to console us both. His voice smoothed over my wrinkled brow. I laid my head back against the futon mattress. "Ok." I said, "We're ok."
So, that was where the conversation ended.
I woke up early that morning still on the futon. I moved to my bed and slept for a few more hours before work. My mom's daily phone call woke me, and I didn't tell her that J and I had fought. I didn't want to talk about it. I petted SAsha lazily while I was on the phone with mom--talking to her about everything BUT what mattered.
I got up out of bed, and wrote some more. I wrote about the fight. I wrote about him. I wrote about my father and mother and their stupid arguments. I read what I'd written in my crazy state the night before. My words scrawled in green sharpie all over the lines of my journal's pages. I read my poems inspired by the sad movie, and then I wrote some more. I sat on the futon and wrote till I was hungry and needed to make breakfast.
I spent the rest of the morning making a mix CD for J of love songs that I really like. It was rediculously romantic... It was my apology for drunken phone calls late at night. It was my apology for not understanding him in the way he needed to be understood. It was my attempt to make good, to get out of the dog house, to ask for forgiveness.
Last night, I went over to J's place. He opened the door in a ruffled state. I think he'd been sleeping, and his place was a mess. He apologized profusely for Sunday. He asked me to forgive him for being critical. He talked fast and emphatically about himself and previous relationships and his baggage. He said things he needed to say about himself, and peppered in there were some truths he needed to communicate to me.
"I don't like some of the things that you said."
He skipped over it and then said that even if he didn't like these things, he was still wrong to be so argumentative with me. I pulled back from him, put my hand to the side of his face, and looked in his boyish brown eyes. "What is it that you didn't like? Please tell me." He said that he was uncomfortable with the fact that I said that I'm a runner and that I hung up on him and that I said that I don't know how to do or have successful relationships past a point.
In retrospect, those were sort of like disclaimers on my part, weren't they? Like - "Don't blame me when this all goes to shit because I am fucked up in regards to relationships so go ahead at your own risk."
Why did I say those things to a man who I care about?
I explained to him that these were my attempts at honesty. I apologized for scaring him. I said that I wanted things to be different with him. AND I DO. I do want things to be different with J. I want us to be good to each other, and I want us to not ask too much of each other, and I want us to not resent the other one, and I want us to have great sex for 100 years, and I want us to never get boring to the other, and I want us to always have the capacity to allow the other person to reinvent themselves over and over again, and I want to always be amazed by each other.
But this weekend I wasn't amazed by J. I did a lot of really great things for him -- I cleaned my house, made him a romantic dinner, let him pick movies that we'd watch, and took care of him when his stomach was bothering him on Saturday, while I didn't really get anything from my end of the bargain... like he said he'd go to the gym with me, but then he had to work late (surprise, surprise). He said he'd meet my friends for dinner, but then his tummy hurt and I stayed in with him. He said he'd to dancing with me Saturday night, but I watched a movie with him instead. And on Sunday morning I went for breakfast with him rather than going to see an old friend.
I made a lot of sacrifices that I don't know why I made. I was being downright altruistic when it wasn't really called for. I could have been honest with him about the way these things made me feel... but I wasn't. I was self-effacing and did what I thought he wanted me to do. WHY? All it did was make me feel worn-out and resentful by the end of the weekend.
And that is why I drank. I was pissed. I was secretly, deep-down, pissed that I'd done so much for him this weekend and now I wanted to hang out for ME reasons and he was too busy needing sleep to come over. Well, I said fuck that, I'll just drink myself into oblivion and then call him.
UGH.
When I saw him last night, I still hadn't gotten it all out of my system. I told him that I accepted his apology, but even when we laid skin on skin on his living room floor, I felt uneasy. I couldn't figure out the restlessness. Sometimes people make me nervous when they want things from me that I know I can't give them - commitments, time, sex. It made me feel like running.
When I told J that I was a runner, I wasn't lying. I almost ran last night.
We were laying in bed listening to a comedian on his computer, and I really had a strong urge to put on my clothes and get out of there. All I can hear in those moments of needing to run is "GET ME AWAY FROM HERE!" The coldness of my car's interior seemed a good alternative to the warmpth of a bed that I was not emotionally ready to handle.
I can't handle going down the exact same path I was down with Jase--one in which my lover doesn't know me or see my needs as important. So, I need to ask J for things that I need. J does some really fucked up stuff to his body. He eats out all the time. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't really take care of himself. These patterns scare me because I can fall so easily into them too. He also has some habits that freak me out. He is MEGA critical of other people. He has anxiety attacks. He doesn't see the doctor -- like EVER. He burrows into a little internal cave and shuts the world out. He drives his car all over and just drives around listening to music, which I find deplorable as an environmentalist. UGH!
These things really frustrate me, and when I see them I don't say anything, I just try to push the feeling down like I'm jamming food into a garbage disposal or stuffing an already full trash bag.
The question is - where does the resulting emotional-trash go?
The ugly truth is that I'm pretty sure it stays inside me, building up like a landfill of fermented and confused baggage that I carry from relationship to relationship.
I think that I have to face the fact that I want to be in a relationship with this man... but only if he makes changes. He's been clear and up front with me about some of his needs, but I don't know that I've been clear about what I need.
Wow. I finally feel better after so much writing and drinking and brow furrowing all week so far! I hate that it took me this long to get down to it, but I'm glad that I got there.
So, how do I communicate in a fair, clear, non-threatening way? I have a lot of trouble with just being a pleaser and focusing on my partner's needs... then building up a wall of resentment when my partner doesn't respond to my needs and just dropping them for a new partner who I percieve will somehow magically fill my needs.
Here is why:
- I was having regular, hot (safe) sex with beautiful people. Not only that, we had lots of unique experiences getting to know each other together. I learned that dating different people - many of them strangers - is stressful, but it is also adventurous and interesting.
- I got to spend a ton of time with Katie and her daughter - so much so that I started to feel like I was part of the family. I reconnected with friends from all over my life in ways that I never have before. Usually I allow myself to get really wrapped up in my S.O. and their family and friends and I neglect my own social life. Being with people that I really care about was really rejuvinating and reminded me of what a really social creature I am.
- I spent the holidays with JUST my immediate family. There was no stress of entertaining someone else at my parent's house. There was no pressure to make my family's schedule work with someone else's family's schedule. There was no crazy traveling across the country over vacation to appease two families. There was no compromise on what I wanted to do with my vacation. There were no awkward introductions of my S.O. to my high school buddies.
- I got tons of attention from the beaus - texts, emails, and some very sexy phone calls. After feeling ignored by my ex, I felt adored in a way that I really needed. My self confidence soared; I had a great time flirting and feeling wanted and appreciated.
- I went on glamorous dates--I've never been courted before, and it was so much fun! Rather than jumping into things, I allowed them to evolve, and it was SO much better than forcing things to go faster.
Of course, I didn't come to this sane-seeming realization through introspection or rational thought -- it was truly something that has come to me gradually... I feel depressed. I notice myself resenting him. I drank a bottle of wine all by myself on Sunday night without really knowing why, called him, and got into an argument that came to a climax with me throwing my cell phone across the room, shattering its case and losing the call.
He called me back. Honestly, although I was really feeling DONE with him in that moment, that's what I need--someone who calls back, someone who fights like my family fights. Because I always know that my mom and dad and brother will not let me shut them out -- even though I hate it in the moment and I feel like I need to run away or get away from them, it ultimately makes me feel like I am held in a security blanket of unconditional love. Even when we call each other names or act like assholes, my family always makes up. I'm not saying it's pretty, and there are some conflicts that go on for years, but we never give up on each other.
But I need to tell the story that comes before that... so here's how we started arguing:
On Sunday night I asked J to come over because I was excited about our relationship and I wanted to spend time with him. We don't get to see much of each other during the week because of our schedules (opposites), so I wanted one more night together. He said he couldn't because of family plans... then he said he'd call or text when he was done bonding with his teenage cousin that evening. He called, and I nudged him to come by again... but he said he couldn't- he needed sleep. I believe that - that he needed sleep and moreover sleep in his own house without a cat he's allergic to (Sasha LOVES him and is always all over him, of course) or a new partner in bed next to him.
BUT even though I understood, it still bugged me. I realize now that it was tapping into feelings of rejection from Jase's constant need to do his own thing over being with me, which was compouded by the fact that Jase was also in Madison this weekend and didn't return my call or text and canceled his plans with me.
So, after a bottle of wine and watching the saddest movie I've ever seen ("The Fountain"), which J recommended, I was upset that he didn't want to come see me. After all, the film was about two people who didn't have the capacity to love each other the way the other needed and the way it tortured the protagonist for eternity (J's take on this film is entirely different, by the way). And what was really hurtful and still resonates with me, is the way that our conversation revealed that J might not know or understand me very well at all. Some of the things that he said seemed to disregard previous conversations that we've had and things that I've expressed to be important to me. It made me feel not listened to and not seen or understood at all by the one person in the world who I thought really, really was getting me after so long of feeling like I wasn't worth being gotten or understood that way.
I am realizing that being in this huge breakup with Jase has left me inflexible. Maybe as inflexible as Jase was with me (which, by the way, I HATED), and when J pushed back against that inflexibility... I retreated. But then something happened that hasn't happened in a long time. I got into an argument with my partner (Jase would never fight with me-he would just disengage completely)... and I can't remember exactly what it was all about, but I do know that some of it had to do with him being really critical of my friendships with exes and my ways of dealing with problems (ahem... a bottle of wine). I came out of hiding then with a badger-like temper! I stood my ground, and he shoved-pushing me with statements like, "I don't get why you need to have these people in your life who you've been with, you have me and I should be enough for you!" I cried, and I disagreed. I tried to explain... ineptly in drunkeness who I was and who I am and why I can't let go of people. He didn't understand, and he felt threatened and he talked fast and loud about how it was benefitless to be friends with your exes. And then I yelled. I felt unseen and unheard and threatened by his tone. I said I needed to go because this conversation is going nowhere, and I threw my cell phone against the wood panel of my door. The case shattered, the battery was ejected, and the phone shut off.
I sat on the floor between my futon and my livingroom table. Empty, cobalt blue wine glass in front of me. Bleary, teary eyes shut tight behind my hands. Sasha had dashed into my bedroom, alarmed at the crack of the cell phone against the door, and I crouched there alone with my knees at my chest. For one whole minute I thought about leaving my cell phone discombobulated on the carpet for the night. I tried to picture the quiet and calm of my apartment with no argument possible with no way for J to contact me to continue his rant. But what I was met with was the static in my head. The argument replayed like a movie scene I couldn't forget. Would I have peace and calm? No. What I needed was resolution. I crawled on my hands and knees across my apartment to my phone and reassembled it.
He called back.
"Don't hang up on me, Baby, OK?" He sounded sad. He sounded concerned. He tried to make me laugh. I followed his lead. He was nice now. "We're Ok, right? See we're laughing--we're ok." He tried to console us both. His voice smoothed over my wrinkled brow. I laid my head back against the futon mattress. "Ok." I said, "We're ok."
So, that was where the conversation ended.
I woke up early that morning still on the futon. I moved to my bed and slept for a few more hours before work. My mom's daily phone call woke me, and I didn't tell her that J and I had fought. I didn't want to talk about it. I petted SAsha lazily while I was on the phone with mom--talking to her about everything BUT what mattered.
I got up out of bed, and wrote some more. I wrote about the fight. I wrote about him. I wrote about my father and mother and their stupid arguments. I read what I'd written in my crazy state the night before. My words scrawled in green sharpie all over the lines of my journal's pages. I read my poems inspired by the sad movie, and then I wrote some more. I sat on the futon and wrote till I was hungry and needed to make breakfast.
I spent the rest of the morning making a mix CD for J of love songs that I really like. It was rediculously romantic... It was my apology for drunken phone calls late at night. It was my apology for not understanding him in the way he needed to be understood. It was my attempt to make good, to get out of the dog house, to ask for forgiveness.
Last night, I went over to J's place. He opened the door in a ruffled state. I think he'd been sleeping, and his place was a mess. He apologized profusely for Sunday. He asked me to forgive him for being critical. He talked fast and emphatically about himself and previous relationships and his baggage. He said things he needed to say about himself, and peppered in there were some truths he needed to communicate to me.
"I don't like some of the things that you said."
He skipped over it and then said that even if he didn't like these things, he was still wrong to be so argumentative with me. I pulled back from him, put my hand to the side of his face, and looked in his boyish brown eyes. "What is it that you didn't like? Please tell me." He said that he was uncomfortable with the fact that I said that I'm a runner and that I hung up on him and that I said that I don't know how to do or have successful relationships past a point.
In retrospect, those were sort of like disclaimers on my part, weren't they? Like - "Don't blame me when this all goes to shit because I am fucked up in regards to relationships so go ahead at your own risk."
Why did I say those things to a man who I care about?
I explained to him that these were my attempts at honesty. I apologized for scaring him. I said that I wanted things to be different with him. AND I DO. I do want things to be different with J. I want us to be good to each other, and I want us to not ask too much of each other, and I want us to not resent the other one, and I want us to have great sex for 100 years, and I want us to never get boring to the other, and I want us to always have the capacity to allow the other person to reinvent themselves over and over again, and I want to always be amazed by each other.
But this weekend I wasn't amazed by J. I did a lot of really great things for him -- I cleaned my house, made him a romantic dinner, let him pick movies that we'd watch, and took care of him when his stomach was bothering him on Saturday, while I didn't really get anything from my end of the bargain... like he said he'd go to the gym with me, but then he had to work late (surprise, surprise). He said he'd meet my friends for dinner, but then his tummy hurt and I stayed in with him. He said he'd to dancing with me Saturday night, but I watched a movie with him instead. And on Sunday morning I went for breakfast with him rather than going to see an old friend.
I made a lot of sacrifices that I don't know why I made. I was being downright altruistic when it wasn't really called for. I could have been honest with him about the way these things made me feel... but I wasn't. I was self-effacing and did what I thought he wanted me to do. WHY? All it did was make me feel worn-out and resentful by the end of the weekend.
And that is why I drank. I was pissed. I was secretly, deep-down, pissed that I'd done so much for him this weekend and now I wanted to hang out for ME reasons and he was too busy needing sleep to come over. Well, I said fuck that, I'll just drink myself into oblivion and then call him.
UGH.
When I saw him last night, I still hadn't gotten it all out of my system. I told him that I accepted his apology, but even when we laid skin on skin on his living room floor, I felt uneasy. I couldn't figure out the restlessness. Sometimes people make me nervous when they want things from me that I know I can't give them - commitments, time, sex. It made me feel like running.
When I told J that I was a runner, I wasn't lying. I almost ran last night.
We were laying in bed listening to a comedian on his computer, and I really had a strong urge to put on my clothes and get out of there. All I can hear in those moments of needing to run is "GET ME AWAY FROM HERE!" The coldness of my car's interior seemed a good alternative to the warmpth of a bed that I was not emotionally ready to handle.
I can't handle going down the exact same path I was down with Jase--one in which my lover doesn't know me or see my needs as important. So, I need to ask J for things that I need. J does some really fucked up stuff to his body. He eats out all the time. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't really take care of himself. These patterns scare me because I can fall so easily into them too. He also has some habits that freak me out. He is MEGA critical of other people. He has anxiety attacks. He doesn't see the doctor -- like EVER. He burrows into a little internal cave and shuts the world out. He drives his car all over and just drives around listening to music, which I find deplorable as an environmentalist. UGH!
These things really frustrate me, and when I see them I don't say anything, I just try to push the feeling down like I'm jamming food into a garbage disposal or stuffing an already full trash bag.
The question is - where does the resulting emotional-trash go?
The ugly truth is that I'm pretty sure it stays inside me, building up like a landfill of fermented and confused baggage that I carry from relationship to relationship.
I think that I have to face the fact that I want to be in a relationship with this man... but only if he makes changes. He's been clear and up front with me about some of his needs, but I don't know that I've been clear about what I need.
Wow. I finally feel better after so much writing and drinking and brow furrowing all week so far! I hate that it took me this long to get down to it, but I'm glad that I got there.
So, how do I communicate in a fair, clear, non-threatening way? I have a lot of trouble with just being a pleaser and focusing on my partner's needs... then building up a wall of resentment when my partner doesn't respond to my needs and just dropping them for a new partner who I percieve will somehow magically fill my needs.