deep thoughts, long entry
I've been thinking lately about a lot of things I usually avoid thinking about.
I originally felt (note I said FELT here because I wasn't really thinking at this point, just reacting) that Matt "not feeling the connection" between us was his fault. He admitted that he most often thinks "me" instead of the "we" I tend to think in, so if he wasn't thinking "we" like I was then he was not thinking in terms of being connected, hence, not feeling the connection between us.
More recently I started thinking that this can't be all his fault. It takes two to make a relationship work, and even though it only takes one person to unbalance it, that doesn't mean it can't be both sides making the imbalance. So if it wasn't all his fault, how was I causing imbalance? I'm very familiar with being hard on myself so it wasn't difficult to come up with lots of lacking areas. I tried hard to think impartially and give each of us our due. We both contribute....
On me for "us"; I do all the food shopping, keep the checkbook in order, I typed out our budget to keep track of where our money should be going, I pay the bills out of our joint account, I keep the kitchen clean for the most part, I clean the bathrooms most often, I sweep and vacuum the floors, change and wash the bed sheets, I cook dinner most often, get the mail and newspapers, keep the wastebaskets from overflowing, wash fold and hang laundry...etc.
On Matt for "us"; he acts as all-around maintenance and fix-it guy with the various appliances, he set up our printer and internet sharing network and keeps it maintained, he got our VOIP phone service set up and maintains it, he figured out the alarm and set up our access code, he takes the trash to the dumpster the majority of the time, he unloads the dishwasher occasionally, washes and hangs laundry, helps bring in the groceries from the car...etc.
And of course we both do a lot of things that is mostly in our own interests. We tend to do our own laundry but will dry and fold the other's. We keep our messes confined to designated areas, like I'll throw my workclothes on my side of the bed, he'll leave his clothes on his side of the bed. I make my own lunch to take with me to work while he uses his money to buy lunch instead. We spend time involved in our own personal interests, me on my keyboard or crafty things, him on his computer or the television.
Anyway, I got a little off-track there. Those are all of the things we do, my thinking progressed to what we say and how we interact. I realized some things about myself that aren't all that flattering. One of those things is that I tend to avoid anything that my instincts tell me might lead to conflict. This means voicing or otherwise acknowleging unpleasantness in any way shape or form. ...such as a difference of opinion. Mentally I tell myself that this is keeping the peace but now I know that's just an excuse not to face something I may not like.
Good example: I've been mentally patting myself on the back for keeping the apartment so neat and organized, keeping my personal messes out of communal areas, not falling into the bad habits I had at home of always telling myself I'll clean something "later" and then never deciding that it was "later" but still allowing piles to grow and filth to accumulate. Apparently, any form of clutter bothers Matt in the extreme since he moved out, he loves the clean organized look of our place and likes to keep it looking as if we just cleaned for company. So one night he gets home, I'm making dinner, and he makes a comment in passing about the place being "a mess", in serious need of cleaning. I hear this, look around at what I had thought was a very neatly kept apartment and feel hurt that what I thought was so right and good is, to someone else, whose opinion I hold in high regard, a horrible ugly mess. Do I say anything about the comment bothering me? No, that would be acknowledging that there is something unpleasant in the air and I don't do that, so I'm quiet but hurt. Matt interprets the quiet as anger, not hurt, and is miffed that I'm suddenly not talking to him for a few seconds. Neither of us bring it up later, but it festers. The next such difference of opinion brings a stronger reaction from me and a longer silence, which Matt again interprets as anger and goes away even more miffed and kind of ticked. The cycle continues.
Looking at it from my end, I know I've felt that he's being a hard-ass and not paying any attention to how I feel about whatever situation he's commented on. He should know me well enough to tell from visual clues that what he's said upsets me for some reason, and be sensitive enough to ask what's wrong instead of assuming I'm thinking he's an ass.
Looking at it from his end, he's just telling it like he sees it, straight up and without any sugar coating, because he feels it needs to be said. If I don't say anything to refute his statements then they must be true and I have no arguments.
Both of us are right and wrong at the same time, but since neither of us ever bring it up and disect why we're both bothered, we never realize any of this!!
And that was just one of the things that I find I don't like about myself.
The second thing I came to realize about myself that isn't all that flattering is that... ha, big surprise, I don't like the way I look. I think I'm fat and flabby, I have lumps in all the wrong places, and my own opinion of myself is that I'm simply not attractive enough for Matt to have taken any notice of me.
Yes, I have low self-esteem.
So when I look at myself and then compare my opinion of myself to my opinion of Matt, well, there IS no comparison. I wish I could borrow his eyes to look at myself and see what he sees because it's got to be better than what I see when I look in the mirror.
So my low self-esteem and bad body image makes me embarassed of myself, body-shy, and very jealous that Matt oozes attractiveness simply by being there. He's tall, trim, muscular in a lean sort of way, and incredibly attractive to me. In-cred-i-bly. You have no idea. I take great pleasure in just looking at him, listening to him talk, smelling his own personal body scent that screams "I am Matt!" to me.
But my body image gets in the way too. I don't feel attractive, and I never voice anything about unpleasantness so I don't ever ask Matt to do anything that would make me feel that HE feels I'm attractive. You know...hugs, a short spontaneous backrub, peck on the cheek, *cough* MORE FOREPLAY *cough*, any of these things that I crave from him. And again, he's left to wonder why I'm quiet, why I'm never as into sex as he is.
Those are the only things I can quantify at the moment, I'm trying to discover any other lacks in myself so I can gather my courage to confront and vanquish them and make myself a better person, and a better partner.
But just before I was ready to go to bed last night, I realized that I've been wishing Matt had said "Let's take a break from 'us' and make a time to talk. I don't think things are right between us anymore, but I want to work through it, whatever it is." Yeah, I wish he had said that instead of "I think we should be roommates."
And that brings me to another thing I don't like about myself... jealousy. Are we "roommates" not because we haven't worked on the relationship, but because he found someone else who interests him more? Argh! That's a very unfair thought for me to think. But I can't help it! If I don't think I'm attractive enough for Matt to notice me, and I know for a fact that virtually every female on two legs is attracted to Matt, how can I avoid thinking he could find someone prettier, wittier, more party hardy than me?
I'm starting to think I'm not a very good person. My faults feed off themselves and make them all worse.
I think this entry is overloaded now. Move down move down, clean cup clean cup clean cuuuuuup!
I originally felt (note I said FELT here because I wasn't really thinking at this point, just reacting) that Matt "not feeling the connection" between us was his fault. He admitted that he most often thinks "me" instead of the "we" I tend to think in, so if he wasn't thinking "we" like I was then he was not thinking in terms of being connected, hence, not feeling the connection between us.
More recently I started thinking that this can't be all his fault. It takes two to make a relationship work, and even though it only takes one person to unbalance it, that doesn't mean it can't be both sides making the imbalance. So if it wasn't all his fault, how was I causing imbalance? I'm very familiar with being hard on myself so it wasn't difficult to come up with lots of lacking areas. I tried hard to think impartially and give each of us our due. We both contribute....
On me for "us"; I do all the food shopping, keep the checkbook in order, I typed out our budget to keep track of where our money should be going, I pay the bills out of our joint account, I keep the kitchen clean for the most part, I clean the bathrooms most often, I sweep and vacuum the floors, change and wash the bed sheets, I cook dinner most often, get the mail and newspapers, keep the wastebaskets from overflowing, wash fold and hang laundry...etc.
On Matt for "us"; he acts as all-around maintenance and fix-it guy with the various appliances, he set up our printer and internet sharing network and keeps it maintained, he got our VOIP phone service set up and maintains it, he figured out the alarm and set up our access code, he takes the trash to the dumpster the majority of the time, he unloads the dishwasher occasionally, washes and hangs laundry, helps bring in the groceries from the car...etc.
And of course we both do a lot of things that is mostly in our own interests. We tend to do our own laundry but will dry and fold the other's. We keep our messes confined to designated areas, like I'll throw my workclothes on my side of the bed, he'll leave his clothes on his side of the bed. I make my own lunch to take with me to work while he uses his money to buy lunch instead. We spend time involved in our own personal interests, me on my keyboard or crafty things, him on his computer or the television.
Anyway, I got a little off-track there. Those are all of the things we do, my thinking progressed to what we say and how we interact. I realized some things about myself that aren't all that flattering. One of those things is that I tend to avoid anything that my instincts tell me might lead to conflict. This means voicing or otherwise acknowleging unpleasantness in any way shape or form. ...such as a difference of opinion. Mentally I tell myself that this is keeping the peace but now I know that's just an excuse not to face something I may not like.
Good example: I've been mentally patting myself on the back for keeping the apartment so neat and organized, keeping my personal messes out of communal areas, not falling into the bad habits I had at home of always telling myself I'll clean something "later" and then never deciding that it was "later" but still allowing piles to grow and filth to accumulate. Apparently, any form of clutter bothers Matt in the extreme since he moved out, he loves the clean organized look of our place and likes to keep it looking as if we just cleaned for company. So one night he gets home, I'm making dinner, and he makes a comment in passing about the place being "a mess", in serious need of cleaning. I hear this, look around at what I had thought was a very neatly kept apartment and feel hurt that what I thought was so right and good is, to someone else, whose opinion I hold in high regard, a horrible ugly mess. Do I say anything about the comment bothering me? No, that would be acknowledging that there is something unpleasant in the air and I don't do that, so I'm quiet but hurt. Matt interprets the quiet as anger, not hurt, and is miffed that I'm suddenly not talking to him for a few seconds. Neither of us bring it up later, but it festers. The next such difference of opinion brings a stronger reaction from me and a longer silence, which Matt again interprets as anger and goes away even more miffed and kind of ticked. The cycle continues.
Looking at it from my end, I know I've felt that he's being a hard-ass and not paying any attention to how I feel about whatever situation he's commented on. He should know me well enough to tell from visual clues that what he's said upsets me for some reason, and be sensitive enough to ask what's wrong instead of assuming I'm thinking he's an ass.
Looking at it from his end, he's just telling it like he sees it, straight up and without any sugar coating, because he feels it needs to be said. If I don't say anything to refute his statements then they must be true and I have no arguments.
Both of us are right and wrong at the same time, but since neither of us ever bring it up and disect why we're both bothered, we never realize any of this!!
And that was just one of the things that I find I don't like about myself.
The second thing I came to realize about myself that isn't all that flattering is that... ha, big surprise, I don't like the way I look. I think I'm fat and flabby, I have lumps in all the wrong places, and my own opinion of myself is that I'm simply not attractive enough for Matt to have taken any notice of me.
Yes, I have low self-esteem.
So when I look at myself and then compare my opinion of myself to my opinion of Matt, well, there IS no comparison. I wish I could borrow his eyes to look at myself and see what he sees because it's got to be better than what I see when I look in the mirror.
So my low self-esteem and bad body image makes me embarassed of myself, body-shy, and very jealous that Matt oozes attractiveness simply by being there. He's tall, trim, muscular in a lean sort of way, and incredibly attractive to me. In-cred-i-bly. You have no idea. I take great pleasure in just looking at him, listening to him talk, smelling his own personal body scent that screams "I am Matt!" to me.
But my body image gets in the way too. I don't feel attractive, and I never voice anything about unpleasantness so I don't ever ask Matt to do anything that would make me feel that HE feels I'm attractive. You know...hugs, a short spontaneous backrub, peck on the cheek, *cough* MORE FOREPLAY *cough*, any of these things that I crave from him. And again, he's left to wonder why I'm quiet, why I'm never as into sex as he is.
Those are the only things I can quantify at the moment, I'm trying to discover any other lacks in myself so I can gather my courage to confront and vanquish them and make myself a better person, and a better partner.
But just before I was ready to go to bed last night, I realized that I've been wishing Matt had said "Let's take a break from 'us' and make a time to talk. I don't think things are right between us anymore, but I want to work through it, whatever it is." Yeah, I wish he had said that instead of "I think we should be roommates."
And that brings me to another thing I don't like about myself... jealousy. Are we "roommates" not because we haven't worked on the relationship, but because he found someone else who interests him more? Argh! That's a very unfair thought for me to think. But I can't help it! If I don't think I'm attractive enough for Matt to notice me, and I know for a fact that virtually every female on two legs is attracted to Matt, how can I avoid thinking he could find someone prettier, wittier, more party hardy than me?
I'm starting to think I'm not a very good person. My faults feed off themselves and make them all worse.
I think this entry is overloaded now. Move down move down, clean cup clean cup clean cuuuuuup!