Why can't I stop being bitter, now that I have the perfect reason to just let go?
This entry is about women from my past (big surprise). I've been in a relationship for a while now, and I really, really enjoy it. I had pretty much given up on ever meeting someone quite like her, and then boom, one day she fell into my lap, and a whole dream sequence ensued. It's been mindboggling. And not in that novelty, you just think it's that way because she's new and you're both infatuated sort of way. That's actually the part that's so mindwrenching to comprehend. This one is actually good.
But, of course, this wouldn't be me or an entry from me if I didn't have to talk about how it's all bad and emo now. But that's just it. I really am just that broken and fucked up, and frankly I blame the women of the relationships I've had in the past. Things are great. She is great. For the last few weeks now, tho, I've been my own worst enemy, to the point that it's taken our relationship right back down to all the lows that those past relationships went to. It's clearly my fault and literally only my fault, but I feel completely powerless to just stop making it so impossibly harder than it has to be. And, understandably, it's taken its toll on her desires for me.
Problem #1 started with her having a lull in her sex drive. This is a girl that even her more casual friends have commented on the strength of her libido (which I could normally attest to quite pleasantly). Could have been situational, could have been stress, could have just been related to her cycle. But, of course, me being me, I take it personally, and confront her on her finding me attractive. Because, well, when I was with a certain someone of my past, they loved me, and sincerely so, but just didn't want me "that way" anymore, and so she stuck around, "not wanting to hurt me" because, again, she did love me. It made for a couple more of months of bad relationship and literally over a year of me wondering quite what the hell happened and why. So now, I'm all insecure because the lack of sex has me paranoid that she's cooling off, but not telling me because she's hoping it will pass or doesn't want to hurt me or who knows. So, being insecure, I turn to clingy. Which is a turnoff to just about anyone. Which makes her less likely to just do the one thing that would break me out of my cycle (read: "me"). Which makes me down about myself, that I'm fucking up a decent relationship, and even after all these years, I don't know how to keep a good thing going, etc. Which makes me more depressed, etc etc. Now we're stuck in this vicious cycle of me not knowing how to turn her on enough to get that physicality back, and her too put off by my negativity to want to get physical (yes, clinginess is negativity). It's been weeks since we've spent the night together, let alone had sex, and considering it was pretty much a given any time we spent the day together before, it's a noticable change.
So, in my efforts to "fix" whatever's wrong, I unleash the arsenal. I try pretending I'm okay. I try a romantic gesture. I try an open and vulnerable conversation with her in a tranquil outdoor setting. Lastly, I try confronting her via lengthy, angsty email, knowing full well it has at least a good 80% chance of ruining things further, just to finally get her to tell me where her head is on things. I start smoking again doing so.
I know that (at least at first; I'm less sure now that it's become so huge) it would prolly honestly just go away if I could just find a way to stop being so hung up on it, and let things be fun and happy again. But now it's to the point that even if I -were- to magically get over it, I don't know how to get the relationship back up where it belongs. It's like I took the road we were headed down, saw how nice and paved it was, and took a bulldozer to the whole shebang just to see if she'd still cross. I'm not being fair to either of us, and I don't know how to stop.
Problem #2. I've had someone cheat on me. Repeatedly. With a "friend". With a friend she once had me pick up and bring to her house, because "nothing was going to happen, I promise." That she then proceeded to sleep with. I'm sure I wrote all about it here if you go back far enough. Yet another thing that broke me for my actually decent girlfriend. She, being the type I typically go for, has a lot of male friends. I'm okay with this, and when things are good, I -do not- get jealous. Notice the quantifier there, and add it to the above couple of paragraphs. So, when she has a male friend that i've never met before over when I show up, I let it go, but I do start to feel jealous. He lives out of town, and doesn't have a vehicle, so she picked him up and they spent the afternoon together, waiting on me to come over. End of story on that. The evening ends (there were other friends over, it's not like it was weird), and I offer to take him home. She makes up an excuse (no, he lives 30 mins the other way, I'll take him; it's okay), and I let it go and leave. She asks me to text her when I'm safely home. Ordinarily sweet, and for all I know, that's what it was intended to be. But it's literally the very first time she's made any similar kind of comment to me when leaving her house. I get home (and as a side-effect out of accidentally dropping back by range), tell her I'm home safe, and ask her to do the same (trying to ignore that i'm being jealous and curtailing how long she spends at his house). She tells me that, oh, it's okay, he's spending the night, so she's still at home. Yay. And then she adds the kicker that, while still technically completely innocent, just gives the paranoia that big glaring red flag that the past gf put into place; "(he's sleeping on the couch)". Well, of course he's sleeping on the couch. Why would I have reason to suspect he wasn't sleeping on the couch, unless... oh. Right. Yay. Up the rest of the night and re-hooked smoking half a pack of smokes, wondering if I'm going to get a very familiar email the next day, apologizing for what happened.
No, nothing happened. At least, as far as my trust in her is concerned, nothing happened. The paranoia and fear and mistrust that's telling me I can't prove that, I don't know for sure, is all because of the last time I was in that scenario. The last time I went ahead and believed the high road. Now if only that trust in her had managed to prevent me from bringing it up, just to find out. Yeah.
So, now, I'm in a relationship with a girl that, between you and me, I really can't believe just how much I'm in love with. It was at first sight, it was fairy tale, and it hasn't faded an inch in all this time, regardless of all those "evil curses" from my past. She's loving and giving and playful in bed and good lord, she's my equal enough to keep me on my toes intellectually. :) She beats me at the games we play with each other. That's all I'm saying. And I'm ruining it. I'm not being fair to her, and it's to the point that it's having its toll on her desire to be with me. We haven't had sex in weeks, I don't know how we're going to cross the gigantic hurdle I've put between us and sex, I've "talked about it" all I can short of being that emo fuck that just drains you to be around (and maybe not even as short of that label as I'd like to think), and I've taken any steam we'd had (hint: three metric fucktons) and just let it all seep out. She works days and I work nights and we don't spend the night together anymore, so it's just like, how do I get this back to good, and even more, how the fuck do I stop letting all the bitterness and mistrust and flat-out anger that the women of my past have instilled deep in the core of my soul? I've got a good one, this time. I can fucking tell. I want to keep it. I just don't know how. And every time I make a move, it seems to be to shove her further away. :(
I sincerely worry if the next entry I write here is how I'm back to being single again. Yes, I was quite happy all that time I spent single, but I'm a damned sight happier with her around. Until I decided to fight it and kill it, anyway.
But, of course, this wouldn't be me or an entry from me if I didn't have to talk about how it's all bad and emo now. But that's just it. I really am just that broken and fucked up, and frankly I blame the women of the relationships I've had in the past. Things are great. She is great. For the last few weeks now, tho, I've been my own worst enemy, to the point that it's taken our relationship right back down to all the lows that those past relationships went to. It's clearly my fault and literally only my fault, but I feel completely powerless to just stop making it so impossibly harder than it has to be. And, understandably, it's taken its toll on her desires for me.
Problem #1 started with her having a lull in her sex drive. This is a girl that even her more casual friends have commented on the strength of her libido (which I could normally attest to quite pleasantly). Could have been situational, could have been stress, could have just been related to her cycle. But, of course, me being me, I take it personally, and confront her on her finding me attractive. Because, well, when I was with a certain someone of my past, they loved me, and sincerely so, but just didn't want me "that way" anymore, and so she stuck around, "not wanting to hurt me" because, again, she did love me. It made for a couple more of months of bad relationship and literally over a year of me wondering quite what the hell happened and why. So now, I'm all insecure because the lack of sex has me paranoid that she's cooling off, but not telling me because she's hoping it will pass or doesn't want to hurt me or who knows. So, being insecure, I turn to clingy. Which is a turnoff to just about anyone. Which makes her less likely to just do the one thing that would break me out of my cycle (read: "me"). Which makes me down about myself, that I'm fucking up a decent relationship, and even after all these years, I don't know how to keep a good thing going, etc. Which makes me more depressed, etc etc. Now we're stuck in this vicious cycle of me not knowing how to turn her on enough to get that physicality back, and her too put off by my negativity to want to get physical (yes, clinginess is negativity). It's been weeks since we've spent the night together, let alone had sex, and considering it was pretty much a given any time we spent the day together before, it's a noticable change.
So, in my efforts to "fix" whatever's wrong, I unleash the arsenal. I try pretending I'm okay. I try a romantic gesture. I try an open and vulnerable conversation with her in a tranquil outdoor setting. Lastly, I try confronting her via lengthy, angsty email, knowing full well it has at least a good 80% chance of ruining things further, just to finally get her to tell me where her head is on things. I start smoking again doing so.
I know that (at least at first; I'm less sure now that it's become so huge) it would prolly honestly just go away if I could just find a way to stop being so hung up on it, and let things be fun and happy again. But now it's to the point that even if I -were- to magically get over it, I don't know how to get the relationship back up where it belongs. It's like I took the road we were headed down, saw how nice and paved it was, and took a bulldozer to the whole shebang just to see if she'd still cross. I'm not being fair to either of us, and I don't know how to stop.
Problem #2. I've had someone cheat on me. Repeatedly. With a "friend". With a friend she once had me pick up and bring to her house, because "nothing was going to happen, I promise." That she then proceeded to sleep with. I'm sure I wrote all about it here if you go back far enough. Yet another thing that broke me for my actually decent girlfriend. She, being the type I typically go for, has a lot of male friends. I'm okay with this, and when things are good, I -do not- get jealous. Notice the quantifier there, and add it to the above couple of paragraphs. So, when she has a male friend that i've never met before over when I show up, I let it go, but I do start to feel jealous. He lives out of town, and doesn't have a vehicle, so she picked him up and they spent the afternoon together, waiting on me to come over. End of story on that. The evening ends (there were other friends over, it's not like it was weird), and I offer to take him home. She makes up an excuse (no, he lives 30 mins the other way, I'll take him; it's okay), and I let it go and leave. She asks me to text her when I'm safely home. Ordinarily sweet, and for all I know, that's what it was intended to be. But it's literally the very first time she's made any similar kind of comment to me when leaving her house. I get home (and as a side-effect out of accidentally dropping back by range), tell her I'm home safe, and ask her to do the same (trying to ignore that i'm being jealous and curtailing how long she spends at his house). She tells me that, oh, it's okay, he's spending the night, so she's still at home. Yay. And then she adds the kicker that, while still technically completely innocent, just gives the paranoia that big glaring red flag that the past gf put into place; "(he's sleeping on the couch)". Well, of course he's sleeping on the couch. Why would I have reason to suspect he wasn't sleeping on the couch, unless... oh. Right. Yay. Up the rest of the night and re-hooked smoking half a pack of smokes, wondering if I'm going to get a very familiar email the next day, apologizing for what happened.
No, nothing happened. At least, as far as my trust in her is concerned, nothing happened. The paranoia and fear and mistrust that's telling me I can't prove that, I don't know for sure, is all because of the last time I was in that scenario. The last time I went ahead and believed the high road. Now if only that trust in her had managed to prevent me from bringing it up, just to find out. Yeah.
So, now, I'm in a relationship with a girl that, between you and me, I really can't believe just how much I'm in love with. It was at first sight, it was fairy tale, and it hasn't faded an inch in all this time, regardless of all those "evil curses" from my past. She's loving and giving and playful in bed and good lord, she's my equal enough to keep me on my toes intellectually. :) She beats me at the games we play with each other. That's all I'm saying. And I'm ruining it. I'm not being fair to her, and it's to the point that it's having its toll on her desire to be with me. We haven't had sex in weeks, I don't know how we're going to cross the gigantic hurdle I've put between us and sex, I've "talked about it" all I can short of being that emo fuck that just drains you to be around (and maybe not even as short of that label as I'd like to think), and I've taken any steam we'd had (hint: three metric fucktons) and just let it all seep out. She works days and I work nights and we don't spend the night together anymore, so it's just like, how do I get this back to good, and even more, how the fuck do I stop letting all the bitterness and mistrust and flat-out anger that the women of my past have instilled deep in the core of my soul? I've got a good one, this time. I can fucking tell. I want to keep it. I just don't know how. And every time I make a move, it seems to be to shove her further away. :(
I sincerely worry if the next entry I write here is how I'm back to being single again. Yes, I was quite happy all that time I spent single, but I'm a damned sight happier with her around. Until I decided to fight it and kill it, anyway.