You Know I Can't Quit Ya
Hello I am back.
As I have been away I began to realize how useful a tool Livejournal has been for all these years. Not only is it a much needed place to vent, it is also a reference for going back to look for things that I can't remember. It has become a sort of library of my life and information. I wasn't aware how much I had been using Livejournal to go back and look at things in my past to jog my memory, or as a reference point in time.
So I have returned mostly because I feel like doing a brain dump.
I will have to manage it in bites. Not that the past year has been eventful, at least not for me, but for the exact opposite reason. The past year has been the most stable and uneventful I have every had. And for that reason it is more difficult to remember things. I don't have major life events on which to tag day to day memories. So I'll just bite them off a little at a time.
The biggest thing going on is that J lost her mother this year. She isn't showing signs of doing much grieving. I don't know if she is still in denial or maybe it's just her style to not dwell on things. I'm not sure. It has kind of come to a head, or as much as it probably ever will, because her father is here visiting from The Philippines. It is difficult for her to be with him only and not have her mother around. She says things like "I miss Mom" but doesn't show any real emotion. In a day or two they will be leaving to spend Christmas with the rest of the family in California. I feel that this is when it will really become difficult for her and she might experience some kind of meltdown.
She has asked me to go with her to spend Christmas there and I just don't have the stomach for it. I requested the time off months ago and only learned last week that it was approved. Of course now it is too late to book a flight without spending a small fortune. Still I really don't want to go. Over the years of taking many trips to California, at least now I can peer into the future and have a pretty good idea on how it's going to go. It only took 15 years or so for us to understand what was really happening and why we always end up fighting when we are around her family.
She makes promises that "this time you and I will go and have fun, just the two of us". We aren't there for very long before she gets sucked into family drama. I will stay upstairs in the guestroom to get away from the nattering Tagolog that everyone will remind me several times a day I should have gotten around to learning but I never did. Then she will come looking for me to vent about her family and somehow I'm supposed to maintain a pleasant attitude in the faces of people who have hurt my partner. Then the day comes when we will attempt to go off on an activity that she has promised we will do, only by then anywhere from 6 to 18 people have invited themselves along and the plans have been modified to do what they want to do and our plans have gone out the window. So now not only am I not doing what I want to do, I am being dragged along on an activity that they want to do that I'm not interested in at all, and it usually involves 8 hours of being trapped in the car with them.
Then this is where the trouble starts. I get irritable because I get irritable when I'm around anybody for more than a couple of hours, no matter who it is. She thinks I am getting irritable because I'm not getting enough attention. She responds by being flirtatious and seductive, hoping it will put me in a good mood. This makes me feel romantic and aroused and now I want to have sex. But because she has been around her family doing all the things they want her to do, she's exhausted and not up to having sex. So then I get angry because I'm sexually frustrated and so I get snippy and start slamming things. This makes her feel guilty and inadequate, and the snippiness and slamming things annoys her, so she gets sarcastic and starts name calling and accusing me of being a prima donna. This continues to spiral until we are quarreling in front of her family. She is desperate to get this to stop and does the only thing she knows how to do to get people to stop bugging her, and so she says something insulting in front of the whole room. Only I am not like anybody she has ever been in a relationship with, and I don't react by shutting up and sitting down. I get up and stomp off to another room and slam the door. So now there's awkward tension in the air and her family thinks she's abusive and I'm a spoiled, entitled white bitch.
The really good thing is that we have managed to figure out the dynamic and give each other a free pass to not get sucked into the other's drama. She is free to do whatever she wants with her family and not worry about me and whether or not I feel left out. She is not obligated to come back to me and give me extra special attention to make up for spending time with them. I am free to interact with the family on my own terms and escape to go off and be by myself when I feel overwhelmed. That way I can be around them, feeling social and pleasant, and not make them feel like I hate them. Because I don't hate them. I just can't be around them for very long. We only had to go through this process 30 or 40 times before we finally figured out what was happening.
So now that her Dad is here everything is going very well. They go off and do things. She will check in and invite me to things, but won't guilt trip me if I say I don't want to join in. When I'm feeling up to it I will join in and have a conversation with them. I will laugh and be charming, then I will excuse myself and do whatever I want to do. Eventually she will come looking for me. Instead of scowling and grumbling, I will brighten and smile at her, ask her how she's doing and if she needs anything. She may or may not, but if she says she needs something, I get up and help. No complaining. No eye rolling. No sighs. Just get her what she needs and stand by in case she needs something else. I'll give her a little hug or a squeeze and go back to whatever I'm doing. This time around it's a smashing success. She doesn't feel abandoned. I don't feel drained. We aren't annoyed with each other.
Thankfully this is all possible because she is very patient and devoted, and worked so very hard to understand why we do this instead of giving up on us. I am relieved and grateful for her logical brain that has made it possible to look at the facts of the situation instead of defaulting to the idea that we aren't good together. Because we are. Most of the time. And she noticed that it was only when we got around her family that things fall apart. She also noticed that I don't dislike them. I like them and they like me so why was this happening? She also knows that I'm generally low maintenance so why did I suddenly get needy around them? I don't know how we figured out the seduction part, but at least now we know and she stopped doing it, and then the tension went away and we are both happier.
Okay that's a lot of words to described a huge breakthrough that has helped us so much. I've been sitting at this laptop for several hours and I'm going to go put a heating pad on my neck. I do a lot of lifting at work while at the same time I'm getting older, and the two things aren't working so well for me today.
I'll be back tomorrow for some more history making and insight into life.
As I have been away I began to realize how useful a tool Livejournal has been for all these years. Not only is it a much needed place to vent, it is also a reference for going back to look for things that I can't remember. It has become a sort of library of my life and information. I wasn't aware how much I had been using Livejournal to go back and look at things in my past to jog my memory, or as a reference point in time.
So I have returned mostly because I feel like doing a brain dump.
I will have to manage it in bites. Not that the past year has been eventful, at least not for me, but for the exact opposite reason. The past year has been the most stable and uneventful I have every had. And for that reason it is more difficult to remember things. I don't have major life events on which to tag day to day memories. So I'll just bite them off a little at a time.
The biggest thing going on is that J lost her mother this year. She isn't showing signs of doing much grieving. I don't know if she is still in denial or maybe it's just her style to not dwell on things. I'm not sure. It has kind of come to a head, or as much as it probably ever will, because her father is here visiting from The Philippines. It is difficult for her to be with him only and not have her mother around. She says things like "I miss Mom" but doesn't show any real emotion. In a day or two they will be leaving to spend Christmas with the rest of the family in California. I feel that this is when it will really become difficult for her and she might experience some kind of meltdown.
She has asked me to go with her to spend Christmas there and I just don't have the stomach for it. I requested the time off months ago and only learned last week that it was approved. Of course now it is too late to book a flight without spending a small fortune. Still I really don't want to go. Over the years of taking many trips to California, at least now I can peer into the future and have a pretty good idea on how it's going to go. It only took 15 years or so for us to understand what was really happening and why we always end up fighting when we are around her family.
She makes promises that "this time you and I will go and have fun, just the two of us". We aren't there for very long before she gets sucked into family drama. I will stay upstairs in the guestroom to get away from the nattering Tagolog that everyone will remind me several times a day I should have gotten around to learning but I never did. Then she will come looking for me to vent about her family and somehow I'm supposed to maintain a pleasant attitude in the faces of people who have hurt my partner. Then the day comes when we will attempt to go off on an activity that she has promised we will do, only by then anywhere from 6 to 18 people have invited themselves along and the plans have been modified to do what they want to do and our plans have gone out the window. So now not only am I not doing what I want to do, I am being dragged along on an activity that they want to do that I'm not interested in at all, and it usually involves 8 hours of being trapped in the car with them.
Then this is where the trouble starts. I get irritable because I get irritable when I'm around anybody for more than a couple of hours, no matter who it is. She thinks I am getting irritable because I'm not getting enough attention. She responds by being flirtatious and seductive, hoping it will put me in a good mood. This makes me feel romantic and aroused and now I want to have sex. But because she has been around her family doing all the things they want her to do, she's exhausted and not up to having sex. So then I get angry because I'm sexually frustrated and so I get snippy and start slamming things. This makes her feel guilty and inadequate, and the snippiness and slamming things annoys her, so she gets sarcastic and starts name calling and accusing me of being a prima donna. This continues to spiral until we are quarreling in front of her family. She is desperate to get this to stop and does the only thing she knows how to do to get people to stop bugging her, and so she says something insulting in front of the whole room. Only I am not like anybody she has ever been in a relationship with, and I don't react by shutting up and sitting down. I get up and stomp off to another room and slam the door. So now there's awkward tension in the air and her family thinks she's abusive and I'm a spoiled, entitled white bitch.
The really good thing is that we have managed to figure out the dynamic and give each other a free pass to not get sucked into the other's drama. She is free to do whatever she wants with her family and not worry about me and whether or not I feel left out. She is not obligated to come back to me and give me extra special attention to make up for spending time with them. I am free to interact with the family on my own terms and escape to go off and be by myself when I feel overwhelmed. That way I can be around them, feeling social and pleasant, and not make them feel like I hate them. Because I don't hate them. I just can't be around them for very long. We only had to go through this process 30 or 40 times before we finally figured out what was happening.
So now that her Dad is here everything is going very well. They go off and do things. She will check in and invite me to things, but won't guilt trip me if I say I don't want to join in. When I'm feeling up to it I will join in and have a conversation with them. I will laugh and be charming, then I will excuse myself and do whatever I want to do. Eventually she will come looking for me. Instead of scowling and grumbling, I will brighten and smile at her, ask her how she's doing and if she needs anything. She may or may not, but if she says she needs something, I get up and help. No complaining. No eye rolling. No sighs. Just get her what she needs and stand by in case she needs something else. I'll give her a little hug or a squeeze and go back to whatever I'm doing. This time around it's a smashing success. She doesn't feel abandoned. I don't feel drained. We aren't annoyed with each other.
Thankfully this is all possible because she is very patient and devoted, and worked so very hard to understand why we do this instead of giving up on us. I am relieved and grateful for her logical brain that has made it possible to look at the facts of the situation instead of defaulting to the idea that we aren't good together. Because we are. Most of the time. And she noticed that it was only when we got around her family that things fall apart. She also noticed that I don't dislike them. I like them and they like me so why was this happening? She also knows that I'm generally low maintenance so why did I suddenly get needy around them? I don't know how we figured out the seduction part, but at least now we know and she stopped doing it, and then the tension went away and we are both happier.
Okay that's a lot of words to described a huge breakthrough that has helped us so much. I've been sitting at this laptop for several hours and I'm going to go put a heating pad on my neck. I do a lot of lifting at work while at the same time I'm getting older, and the two things aren't working so well for me today.
I'll be back tomorrow for some more history making and insight into life.