Tag Archives: Damage

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The Right One

I wonder if anyone truly keeps a relationship together.  I know one happy married couple, and they moved from here with their one son in 2008, and they have since had one more, so my boy and I lost some wonderful playdate potential when that occurred.  They still seem happy given posts on a social networking site, but I don’t really know because the days of our walks around the park and then coming home and watching our boys play until her partner got off work in the summer are over because they have been gone 4-years.  I knew another happily wed dyad, but they were in mediation last Thursday.  She fell out of love with him and he is behaving really badly now and has decided to sleep with her former best friend.  Their divorce will probably finalize before 2012 is gone.

I could have remained in that state of unhappiness.  We were not intimate and we were either silent or we argued, and this pattern lasted about 4 or 5-years, I believe.  Two separations and the final one was permanent in 2007.  That’s not what I’m looking for though, and I’d rather have some lasting connection that also includes sex.

She told me that we could talk f2f.  Having been angry with me because I don’t contact her much, she had left me a why bother VM while I was cleaning up on Sunday.  I had taken a quick 15-mile bike ride to warm up my body and then got back before church and jumped in the shower.  So, we talked for a sec when I called her back, and I said that I would call her in the evening and asked what would be a good time.  She told me that she couldn’t say and just to call her, but she wound up calling me when I left my kickball game early.  We made plans to see each other by meeting in between.

About two-and-half-hours later she cancelled because she said that we didn’t have a toolbox for seeing each other and that nothing has changed.  It hurt.  In fact, I’ve been crying off and on at intervals anyway, because that’s what I do now, and that is hurt.  I found out later that she was worried that we would have sex in her car, and doesn’t want that element.  I definitely gathered the latter on Memorial Day weekend.  I don’t even fully enjoy social stuff and would rather either be alone or talking with my son.  One of my best friends took me out, and then we went back to her house too on Sunday.  She is cooking dinner for my son and I tonight, but I’m so weary of this dance after nearly 5-years.  I’m ready to cook and be cooked for and live with a girl.  Joan Osborne says, “And you ask me to convince you that you won’t blow away.”  That’s a tall order…  Maintaining love and connection.

I think that keeping a relationship together requires honest and open conversations that probably should occur a couple times a week.  What I’ve noted is that I piss a girl off, and she tells me about it later after I’ve already fucked more things up.  With the drunk, we didn’t really fight, because we were quickly stagnant.  We didn’t really have any passion.  I do understand that passion comes with a price, because you will fight like that too, but I’m looking for the ability to move through conflict and to just say, “Let’s do our best to stay together in this rather wild world.”

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Gentle Cycle

I don’t know how exactly we came up with it when we talked for two-hours last night, but it’s true.  It’s not that we lost sweetness, it’s that we lost being delicate with one another and that certainly is mutual.  I explained to her that navigating January and February, which didn’t have that committed in a long-term feel to me made me unsteady, so it seemed sorted by March.  However, let’s be honest, if it’s June and I’m still grasping for the whys, it is not at all nipped or tucked.

I was talking about being delicate, and I said something like we need that delicate cycle and she made the washing machine analogy about being gentle.  That means that we need to rid ourselves of the old exchange too, and for some reason she hangs on to it.  I don’t get that.  It has that back and forth quality too, which as I have written, I can’t stand.  I get that we are a product of what we have seen and experienced in our family of origin, but I just think that moving forward based on what one wants is healthy and good.

I just come back to the fact that we need therapy to continue.  She doesn’t trust me, and has said so, which is based on an e-mail that I sent at the beginning of last October (before we had even slept together) and thinks that one more bad fight would destroy the chance for a friendship even.  I don’t see it that way.  At some point around the first of the year, she made the conscious decision to push me away, and then when she does, she can’t deal and misses me desperately.  We can work this situation out and learn to communicate well, or we can’t.  If she won’t go, we can’t continue with relationship contact and will need to just take some space.  I will hurt, but love does, right?

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Thinking of what once was

Maybe it’s harder to put the nail in the coffin rather than have a woman tell you to fuck off.  I don’t know…  I can tell you that after her texting me over and over and starting it all at 7, and telling me that she would be relentless until I get it, put me in the most messed state that I have ever been in to date.  Makes my coming out affair, which also meant that I had to tell the world that I’m gay, and switching jobs, single parenting, and living alone except for my 21-month-old all within 4-months seem manageable.  I can’t stop crying and it’s totally fucked when what her texts and phone calls have yielded is that she still is in love with me and this will be the choice that I forever regret.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W-yA_gtmDo

I have no idea.  I just can’t navigate the push-pull anymore.  I want someone into me and open with me when I trigger her.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m abrasive and straightforward.  I need a girl who asks me questions or puts the halt on me right away.  I feel like she tends to just use things later anyway.  It’s like an attorney or detective who is looking for evidentiary support for why she wins.  I don’t want a competition.  I just want to work with a partner.  I sure as hell don’t want to feel like this much longer, but I won’t be taking her back.

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Dating: My Retrospective

I had to throw out a whole pot of coffee this morning.  It was a great metaphor.  I used to be too weak.  I’d put up with shit for a long, long time in relationships that I just shouldn’t have.

I realized that I should send my five-year saga into the world today to stop giving it energy over me.  I think that it will help.  Prior to 2007, the only thing that had happened is that I had two covert gfs.  One in high school and one in college–both of whom I was “caught” with–then this buddy of mine fell in puppy (non-lasting) love with me and pursued me for quite some time, so the second time he asked me to marry him, I consented, told myself that five-and-a-half-years of my life was “experimentation” and then was married to a man for 9-years.  Then, as I had written in earlier entries, folks who had not seen me in awhile would say, “______, is married?!?  To a man?!?!?!?”

My coming out affair started when I touched her hand and thought, “Boy, do I have to avoid you!”  So, I did avoid her, but since I worked with her, I had “dealings” with her and I had to do things electronic or interoffice mail.  When I would have to greet her, I wouldn’t make eye contact, so I wouldn’t feel my pulse come out of my chest.  I didn’t have to work directly with her for two-and-a-half-years so it was ok.  She was at the office Christmas party about ten-months before I ever slept with her and she was in a black suit and was pretty thin, so I went up to her and said, “You look skinny and beautiful.”  And she said, “I love you,” which would become a joke later when we were together.

I booted my ex-husband nine-months after that party (We had been separated before we had our son three years earlier and he lived in another state for four-months.) and then she and I started a red hot affair three-weeks later.  She dumped me and tore out my heart, because it was a coming out affair and nothing like hs or college antics.  She was not a bi-curious straight girl who could feel my gayness, but she was a real lesbian, and then I knew right then, that I was too.  I think that after a divorce, you have a rebound.  Mine was a gay rebound, so I had to face who I really was, and then embrace it.

I did lots of shitty, sexless dating for a full year, because I struggled picking up the pieces of my heart.  She did cause heartbreak, because it was the first time, albeit silly love, that I really felt love.  She and I had a December full of push-pull and the last time we slept together was a few days before the New Year.  (I have a four stage entry that is really, really long about the whole journey.)  What really sticks with me were her green eyes as she left my bedroom after we had made love (for the last time) over and over, and she said, “I’m not convinced that this ever needs to happen again.”  She left.  The only thing that she would tell me is that she never wanted to be a mother, and that she was so far past being “anyone’s dirty little secret anymore.”  I didn’t even see her until the following weekend, and she only would talk to me on the phone about twice a week, instead of every single night as she had done for about 4-months.

Then it was over a year of dating all the Ms. Wrongs and Not-Even-Closes, and I was celibate.  I rarely smiled, got really skinny, and did other self-destruction.  My energy was saved for parenting my son and that was all that I did with passion.  Next, a year and a week later, entered my Cowgirl.  We had a “lesbian one night stand,” so it lasted two weekends.  Here is what I wrote about her when I realized that she and I couldn’t really date, because it was a mismatch:

“You get bent out of shape when I text you twice in the same day–weird.” “You have only had a ten-month relationship prior to now, and that was with a woman whose girlfriend was overseas at the time–weird.” “You don’t give me a single compliment.” There were also some other things that are superficial that would be even odder to mention, so I didn’t. I did tell her rather diplomatically that I was looking forward to seeing a woman last weekend admidst my final classes of one particular course that I’m finally done taking. However, she did not understand that when I said, “I want to be your friend,” that I really did mean just that.  Plus, we were just investigating in person chemistry and she wasn’t a gf.  I had been e-mailing one woman who I found intriguing, but she was bizarre.  Enter, the Gemini:

I wound up feeling really empty, so I e-mailed this other woman a rather ballsy thing that I wouldn’t do typically that I thought would shut down our communication… I said, “Do you want to grab coffee or a beer?” and she said, “Yes.” She showed up too. We dated for two-months and I did like her.  She was an outdoor person, a musician, and hot as shit.  Plus, she was into me.  But, she didn’t manage stress well, so she dumped me when we went on a hike.  Here it is:

I told her that a lot of her stress is coming from her work. She has a big deal in two weeks, which will involve her ex-girlfriend, her sister with whom she is extremely close, and is reminiscent of her deceased father. I also told her that it seemed like all of this between she and I was too soon, for a variety of reasons. I also told her that I had been nothing but respectful to her, and she acknowledged that it had been “all her,” in terms of making moves sexually. I’m not actually sure if she is able to be a consistent person even when she is not in the throes of this much stress. It has a flavor that leaves me full of caution.

I did, and I’m glad about this statement, tell her that I would not have been contacting her so frequently had she not held me under the stars three weeks ago and whispered that “Sunday was a long time away,” and she said, “I’m not saying that I’m right.” It wasn’t a competition, but two weeks before had confused me when she called me every night, and I said as much. I told her that I wanted to tell her something and that I didn’t want to sound patronizing. She said “Say it.” I told her that this whole interaction over the past three weeks had made me approach her with such hypervigilance that I was worried about saying it, but she told me that it was fine. I told her that I hoped that she could get healthy, because right now, she has too much going on.  I drove home and was angry, but I didn’t date her again; although, she wanted to.

Two months later, the drunk comes into my life.  We had a very fun summer fling in 2009, but it should have stopped there and would have had I not had one of the most stressful falls that I have ever had, but she contacted me on New Year’s Eve, and I had before called off a stupid friendship with her because she was not monogamous, which I could have cared less about because it was a summer fling and I really just wanted a steady stream of sex that summer, and we had no foundation for friendship.  No contact for three-months, and I was fine.  However, she broke up with this girl who pressured her to become exclusive only to three-months later text me.  I think that was because she had seen me two weeks earlier.  I had written this:

So I finally saw the woman who I slept with all summer an hour or so ago. It was odd, because I didn’t care at all. It was weird for a minute and then I settled into the bar and it didn’t matter at all. She could have been a girl who I merely met a couple of times, but it was even less warm, and I slept with her all summer and she disclosed lots of personal stuff to me. The oddest thing is that a bar owner who I know was at this cowboy bar and told my friend and I to come to her bar and we would not have to pay a cover, so we did after an hour or so, and then she was there as well–feeding the jukebox.

She was merely standing there, alone, feeding the jukebox; although there was a DJ, and she was also half-heartedly watching hockey while nearly everyone in the place was dancing. I know this is my stuff, and not her stuff, but it seriously made me wonder what she will be doing in 5-years? Sipping tequila, and getting loaded in her early 40s is a strong possibility. We didn’t talk at this location and had a stilted hug and odd interactions at the first bar.

Another interesting element is that I was just getting some bravado and telling my friend that I needed another f-buddy. I don’t need that! Absolute indifference to someone who I know way too much about and does not know shit about me… I really don’t want this level of indifference and do not desire to become apathetic. It is interesting to me, but very weird. I guess she didn’t get that job in the southeast as she is still here.

However, she did eventually get a different job, and we then did distance, which I stopped wanting to do after three-months, but we had invested money in hotels and plane trips, so I didn’t.  I didn’t want to move.  I love where I live, and then I realized that it was not that she hated it here and drank to cope, it was just that she really was an alcoholic.  She is loaded all of the time.  I’m not dating a drunk.

I met my first love right afterward.  My ex still has my heart and it is going to take some time.  What’s good is that sublimation can happen right now because I have a lot of work in my yard and doctorate, and my son is taking a theater camp, so he will have a school schedule, so I can also follow a schedule after dropping him off in a few weeks.  I’m going to chart out my whole summer and part-time work.  I’m excited and I know that it will be the best summer that I’ve ever had.  I will be free of her saying that I lack compassion, whereas, I think that I have been nothing but patient with her for five-months, and just can’t do that dance anymore.  I want to be single, or have someone who is completely into me and wants to rip my clothes off.  I will do either and this is the path that I’m currently on.  I did a lot of weird dating before I got here, and in my last relationship, I was completely in love, gave my whole heart, and I have NO regrets.

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Through Memorial Day

I didn’t need the whole weekend, and I doubt that anyone is surprised.  I had my suspicions on Thursday when she made some omissions and didn’t know immediately that I would know that she changed the garage code and offered me her cheek instead of kissing and hugging me.  I wound driving home tonight because when she moved into her spare bedroom, and I told her and meant, “I’m not kicking anyone out of her own bed.”  That she left me countless HeyTells saying how “shocked” she was and how I withdrew too soon is just part of what is our never ending cycle.  I have a friend who describes this type of imbalance as beckoning a girl with your right index finger with your arm drawn close and bent at the elbow all the while pushing your left arm completely out with the palm up (Like the quintessential STOP).  It’s like, “Come here while I push you away.”

That we biked for nearly 30-miles today and then the “I’m too sick to have sex with you,” card was played left me hurt.  You can bike 26-miles, but can’t muster any energy at any point in the day to have sex?  No, you’re just not into me, and you rather like push pull because you are always in a state of grieving and stress.  However, sex will burn stress.  But, if you’re all mixed up in your emotions about someone you can use any excuse not to do it, you can still get a charge out of being wanted.

The day was nice.  We had lots of laughs, time outside, the good bike ride, she bought me dinner, but there wasn’t any passion for each other.  She always tells me that I’m a sex maniac, and I don’t know how that can be construed because I had not had any in a week and that was initiated by her when she was sick and then she proceeded to tell me tonight how terrible she felt all week having not slept when she left my house.  I do want to make love when I haven’t seen someone in a week, and have not really connected passionately in 18-days, and I know that there is a woman who would not find that a dysfunctional request.

She is perpetually triggered by the way I say things, what my life is going to entail for the next 15-months, and gets cold and withdrawn.  I can’t navigate it.  All of her messages say that I gave up too soon and that she is an amazing lover, but the latter eludes me.  I hadn’t seen that since December.  We had a good three-months and the first five of this year involve too much of seeing what I can tolerate only to have her communicate with me and get me back.  However, I won’t go back no matter what the apology.  Honestly, I will be floored if she didn’t contact me in the next several weeks.  I will not contact her, because she is not what I’m looking for and makes me feel bad.  Tonight, she made me feel like she didn’t find me attractive too.  I just can’t.

I don’t want a friendship with her…  Period.  She lives far away and does stuff to the Nth degree, so I would even see her at sporting events or the like, because we wouldn’t compete in the same division.  Although it was fun to ride with her, I don’t want to spend time with her on bikes because it is going to take a lot for me to completely fall out of love with her.  I’m not one for self-abuse.  She said that I’m not ok with off days, but really, since January, that has been mostly what we’ve had.  The on days were rare.  It is good that we reconnected and decided that we don’t work, but I’m really looking for a bit more sweetness and ease.

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Genuine

I have sooooo much stuff to do today.  Looking back, I should have left my son with his best friend and his mother (She has a daughter too.)  and gone into work on Monday.  Had I done so, I wouldn’t feel like a ball of stress.  Because I’m not working with clients really means that I am buried with plans, billing, reports, and end-of-the-season progress on goals paperwork.  Plus, I will only have one office next year, so I am moving and combining two.  I slept well–uninterrupted–but I did wake up at 4.  I’m well awake now too. I will get everything done, but then I have to race to get to her, which will not be restful.  Or is deciding what to do with my bike while I use my truck to move all of this shit after getting paperwork done.

Because she took my not doing treatment as being free and clear, she is not sympathetic at all about what Tuesday – Thursday entails.  It is a 40-hour work week.  I have think that I have been to lend an ear about things that she can talk about, but she is so jealous that I will only now be working part-time through the end of July, that she basically tells me to get over myself and that I’m going on a vacation.  She didn’t respond to the details that I left about steps that I have and nuts and bolts.  I’ll be stressed when I finally reach her, but I don’t want to appear that way.  So, I won’t.

I’m not a good “stuffer.”  I need to be me and say what is on my mind.  It helps to be validated and listened to as well.  I know that Friday will be really fun.  Getting to tonight is a stressful, busy, and an overwhelming venture.  I will give myself some deadlines this morning.  Whatever is not documented by 11:30 will have to be at least addressed, so I will stop computer work by 10:45.   Then I need to move things and drive them over to the new site.  I will just make it so I must leave at 4:30.  Deadlines are good for me.  I hope to laugh and be light, and kind this weekend.  Those will also be my requirements, and if I am being completely honest with myself, without those things I’m just not sure if I can continue this at all.

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Synchronicity

I was thinking about Pat Benatar (Thus my subject line in this post, which evokes her box set.) earlier in the day because I’m going to sing on Friday night.  I am going to do that too, and am committing it to the Internet now so that I have accountability.  What could happen is just tons of sex and never leaving the house, but I want to go out, and think that if we can really make a fresh start, we should date.  Like really date.  We don’t do that.  With the infrequency that we can see each other we mainly wind up having sex for hours and hours and then not sleeping much, which kills her because she only gets two nights off and her son is MUCH younger than mine and has crummy sleep patterns.  My boy is at an easy and fun age.  I can sleep when I’m not nursing microbrews and staying up waaaay too late.  People who tell you that 0 – 3 is great should be at least maimed.  They are probably telling you that because they want to delude themselves into thinking that raising children is fulfilling 24-7.  Newsflash…  It is ANOTHER ft job.  That’s the plan for Friday (karaoke), but clearly the universe is putting ex’s and suitors into the lives of those who I know (and me) as of late, so I’m brought to my next topic, which in a slightly buzzed state shall be more stream of consciousness that my usual voice (fair warning).

So, one of my friends from MS who knows my real ex (not to be construed with the woman who I thought was my ex who I’d give anything to make love to tonight, but have to wait 2-more days to have) had this guy drop off the face of the earth for weeks and he just reconnected with her.  I don’t trust that he will stick though, because he presents like a flake per her descriptors.  My BFF who lives in the same state as my buddy from MS is falling in love with this guy (Sorry, many of my friends are str8.) who is being super casual with her right now and is at a breaking point with him–which was like my holding pattern in early 2010–with my real ex–and she is messed about him, but her ex in addition to several other “dark horses” not-so-much in the running, are suddenly and concurrently texting her.  And  while we were talking about that via phone last night, my REAL ex e-mailed me.  She e-mailed me because my BFF took my I-thought-you-were-an-ex off her Friends List and my real ex is kinda stalker-ish and scary.  No contact since Christmas Eve.  And then her e-mail comes through right when I’m talking to my BFF who is falling in love and doesn’t want to (with Mr. Casual).  Lovely.  I have never mentioned that my real ex is now armed, have I?  Even better!

So, I needed my girlfriend.  Not my ex.  She is my girlfriend, even if she is so scared of me and taking a chance.  She called me and we talked it through.  She thinks that I need to sleep on the unsettling, and not-so-out of the blue e-mail and then approach her with compassion.  As it is me, I don’t think I’ll engage, but I will know tomorrow.  I know in my heart that because my BFF took my current girlfriend off of her social networking friends list last week that my ex now thinks she can get back into dating me.  That is crazy.  1) She is a drunk.  2) She is pretty scary and I’m glad that she lives 6-states away from my son and I.  3) She thinks I am single and is contacting me now, and 4) She is armed.

No full moon, but ex’s coming out of the woodwork and suitors wanting to all get their game on with the women who I know.  My girlfriend’s ex-partner “dropped in” on her last Tuesday (We had reconnected intimately that Monday) and tried to talk to her about her failing marriage.  My girlfriend approaches her with compassion, but it is weird that she dropped in the day after we decided that calling it quits was not an option.  Furthermore, all of this relationship dissension is bizarre.  I’ll look at the patterns tomorrow after I sleep.  This week is weird, weird, weird.

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16-days

I hadn’t seen my ex in 16-days, and I hadn’t had a single interaction with her in 12-days.  She kept up the contact, and I knew that she was being driven slightly crazy because I would not respond to anything that she texted, e-mailed, or HeyTell’ed.  Then I had something very odd happen to me, which occurred in church.

Having woken up on Sunday morning, and realizing that despite my “single” status, I was not going to be able to date anytime soon, I decided that the girl who I met was a mere distraction and someone who I could tell my friends that I could date if I wanted to, but wasn’t ready to do the leg work.  In truth, although she texted me later that morning, I don’t have it in me to pursue and do all the “getting to know you” stuff at this juncture.  So for that Sunday, I was going to work in my yard, and then spend sooooo much time in church.  I texted the girl who I had met that right away too.  So, it was then the day of church.  I had mine–I read stuff for the service there–a class at my church, and then was attending a night service in a dear friend’s church.

My friend goes to what is a traditional and progressive church in an fairly upper-class neighborhood.  I did like how easy it was for me to fall back on what had been familiar to me in terms of my original faith, but I found it academic and political in terms of how “queer” focused it’s parishioner-base clearly was.  I had a good time though, and the minister is beautiful and charismatic.  I was clearly “the single girl” there with my friend and her husband, and women were looking at me.  I suppose that always feels good.

During the service, I prayed for my ex and her son.  I knew that I had forgiven her of her treatment of me.  I wanted her and her son to be happy and healthy.  I got done with my participation and time there and I got in my car, because my own son would be home soon, I had to rush out and could not stay for the community dinner that they were hosting.  I will do that sometime.  I was angry, because she had called me.  I assumed that she had left a VM too, but that turned out to be a wrong number.  (How does one leave a message for someone who identifies herself in the greeting?)  When I got home, my landline was flashing an indicator and I knew that it was from her.  She had left me an apology and another plea for friendship.  Her admission that she had been “awful” was what made me realize that my having broken up with her and not talked to her at all again was the right thing for us.  She needed to be free of me and our contact to reflect.  I HeyTell’ed her thank you for the apology and that I wanted us to really extend some space and time.

Then, I went outside and weeded.  Having gotten back into my yard and planting, seems to help my mental state.  I create and have a beginning, middle, and end that I can see.  Relationships are not like that.  While reflecting, I realized that there were two people in our relationship and that my definition of space until fall was merely a limit that I had set, and that she had not say in it.  I decided to send her a text to invite to talk on the telephone based on her schedule.  About half-an-hour later she texted back another apology that she was not by her phone, and that she was not trying to manipulate me into talking based on my need for space, but she knew that she had been critical and was apologizing for her part in our end.  Again, she explained that she was just genuinely sorry, and figured that I would never choose to speak to her again.  So, after I got my son down, I called her.

It was nice to tell her things that have gone on for me.  I received an award at work, and there were some funny things that had happened over the course of the past two-weeks as well, which I relayed to her.  After some time she told me that our talk was not going how she had imagined it.  I asked what she wanted?  I said that we could reconnect in the fall.  She told me that she was going to come and sit on my porch and hope to get a piece of quiche.  I told her that I would leave my son and hop the fence and with my old bike and get out of Dodge.  We laughed a little.

She kept trying to pin me down on when we could see each other, and I told her that we would have to come up with a compromise, because fall was obviously not working for her, and now would not work for me.  Then she started getting flirtatious, but I didn’t bite.  She told me that she couldn’t lie and was still in love with me, but was confused and didn’t know what she wanted, and that she didn’t understand why I didn’t miss her.  I told her that all I really missed was our fall.  It is probably not surprising that after we hung up after two-hours that I didn’t sleep a wink.

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Embrace healing

I have had two very low days.  I have been very sick again too, which is getting very old and work has been a complete hell for two days.  I can blame just the latter on the full moon.  I’m thinking that at this stage, I will start to feel some pain, and I think that I am.  Part of me gets like Missy Higgins lyrics at times as well. “I’m a little tired of feeling like the bad fruit nobody buys.”  I know that I will be fine on my own and without a partner, but it does get old.  Very old.  Having not tired of single parenting to the degree that I would be with someone who says awful things to me and thinks of me in disrespectful terms, I won’t respond to her or do I want her back per se, but I do feel a bit hollow.

I think that it is honestly time for me to embrace this part of my journey anyway.  I should reflect on everything that I learned from this seven-month relationship.  In fact, I think that before I go to bed, I’ll read one actual handwritten journal entry that I completed and then I will reflect on what I learned and how I have evolved.  I know what I’m looking for and most of it still entails compromise.

Unsettling to me is that both of these last two women (3-years of my life) have been control freaks.  I don’t want that aspect, but rather want to be with a woman who talks through things with me.  I think that I backslid with my last one, actually.  The drunk did want to do what was right for all parties, but she couldn’t.  My last ex thought that she had all the answers.  I’m fine with learning and discovering.  I think now it’s time for me to learn and discover what I have gathered from my last relationship so I can heal.

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Human Behavior

We tend to reflect on what didn’t go right when we end a relationship.  I think that it is fairly natural to sort through things that occurred in our previous love relationships and then be able to list hosts of reasons that they didn’t work based on interactions.  I think that my last girl was deliberately provocative, and not forthcoming with what was irritating her, so it was easier for her to lash out.  I really liked this picture–I think that it is accurate too:

I think that is why I blog about it, because it will be an aspect of my self-of-therapist activities and help me get rid of some of the negativity that I swallowed up instead of saying, “I’m having trouble putting up with this criticism.”  I don’t wish that I had done that, because I think just letting her go forward with rage and reckless abandon is probably how she is when she is under duress, and that is not someone with whom I want to build a life.

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Coming down the world turns over

I’m doing well today and was during this week in general.  Monday she just couldn’t leave me alone.  I kept my line mostly firm: we should take a real break with no communication, but she continued, and I just didn’t respond.  One of her HeyTells was awful too.  I think that a small dog bled to death in her arms as soon as she got home on Tuesday night, as it had been attacked and stripped from it’s owner.  I couldn’t get follow up information because I don’t want to give mixed messages–no communication means just that.  So then of course she texted me at 5 in the morning yesterday and HeyTell’ed me too, but since we have all of our shit back from each other it’s not necessary to communicate and she is going to have to get used to that.

What’s distasteful to me, and is at least somewhat responsible for my firm line of no communication now, is that she not only continued telling me how selfish and negative that I am, but on Friday, she said, “I was creeping her out,” and that was a direct quote from her most recent partner who sent that to her in a text when she thought that she was cheating on her.  She just does not seem to sort much out, and lets previous experiences color who she is currently dating.  However, we must note that she has not ever dated…  She has had long-term relationships.  That’s all.  I’m looking for one, but won’t force it with a woman with whom I constantly fight.  She is my ex-girlfriend and we need this strict space, but I’m incredulous that we will ever have anything.  A Christmas card style relationship is comfortable for me right now, and I don’t see much shift.  She said simply horrible stuff to me and it frankly makes no sense that she’d want a friendship.

I know that she will contact me more.  If I’m so creepy, selfish, and negative and her life is perfect with all kinds of support, why can’t she leave me alone?  Also, I found another thing really unsettling.  She told me that she could be the best friend who I have ever had.  I guess that she never heard me say that my friendships are concentric circles and there are just a few people in that center circle who are truly my family and in my heart.  I had a dinner party when I turned 37 last year and every friend who is part of my soul was there.  It was amazing and the food was fantastic.  I love cooking and feeling the energy in my kitchen as my friends and family are conversing and vibing off each other’s actions and words.  That’s my life and I’m grateful.

It does give me pause though…  The timing…  To be very happy to get home early from work, hear “Help,” and see a woman running.  Then having your work clothes covered in blood from a little dog who you are trying to save.  That is macabre and frightening.  The timing is strange though, and knowing her as well as I do, she will say that because I didn’t reach out and connect to her when she told me what had happened on Tuesday night that I’m selfish, negative, etc.  That’s good, because she is not the best friend who I have.

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Day 2

Well, last night she texted.  She told me that I was being sterile and basically forcing her into my definition of “space.”  I don’t know what else taking space and time is.  But, I did text back and told her how sad and furious I was.  Then, this morning, we actually spoke, and I read her my e-mail.  She was quiet.  She always is when I express tons of emotion and when I ask her what her reaction is she always says the same thing, “I’m listening.  I do that a lot.”  The implication is that I don’t.

So, I did leave her a VM tonight which is unacknowledged right now wishing her and her son goodnight and good sleep.  My own son is not here again and my house feels so empty.  My nanny had a conflict and I don’t have two anymore and I can’t take tomorrow off because it is required day to get paid.  My father can take him in tomorrow for me and I’m grateful to have their help.  My Mom will make him a proper breakfast that I never have time to do because I have to be in my office by 7.  Honestly, it will be good when next week comes and I have a full week of work and some space of my own back into my typical routine.

I think it’s just the assumptions that have made me so pissed.  She says that she just wants me to tell her things without asking questions, but usually what it amounts to is that she tells me how I am.  I am fairly open.  Not completely open, but it is a derivative of trusting her so fully and then having to pick of the pieces of my heart in Jan and Feb.  March helped me sort it all out myself.  I’m sorted.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still in love with her, but I don’t want all these conclusions about me to be drawn without simply first asking me how I feel or why I reacted the way that I did.  She thinks that she is the expert on everyone who she knows and that just isolates people.

It is interesting to me that after I told her that my e-mail was full of rage and I read it to her that my anger mostly subsided.  Then after my own real therapy session (Meaning one that I pay for.) was over, I felt pretty good.  I still miss the way that she smells and feels and our intimacy.  I don’t miss her assumptions and the way that I feel like she sees me.  Also, I am not sure that although she doesn’t want to be alone (She admitted this to me today.) that anyone will ever meet her standards or simply be good enough for her.

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Day 1

Won’t it be funny and a good therapeutic exercise to post days after being newly single?  I think so.  So, after the shitty convo I left three messages (not psycho dialing), but with HeyTell, and that’s all that I wrote.  I’m good.  I got a love letter last night.  I was at the Club.  I had a good time with my friends too.  I’m not going to respond.  Actually, I did already and some of it was really sarcastic.  I just didn’t send it.  I’m not impulsive.  I’m not going to send it either.  She and her best friend have a “pet theory” about me.  Just goes to show that when she fills in the gaps and is the expert on me that she doesn’t know anything.  Here is something that I wrote in the e-mail that I didn’t send.  I like it.

“You seem to have me all figured out.  It’s not a charitable view of me either.  I don’t approach you like this, and I’m looking for a woman who takes me for what I am.

All your love?  WTF does that mean?  If this is how you talk about your loved ones, then I really don’t get it.  I just don’t.  I’m not sure what our future holds.”

I guess that I’m in the Anger stage of grief right now.  It’s because she can be cruel.  Tori Amos says, “Don’t give me respect.  Don’t give me a piece of your preciousness.”  And it’s not.  Her terms of endearment are for everyone and she says, “I love you,” to people that she freely talks shit about.  It’s like my local BFF told me once, “Don’t ever assume that people are any different with you as they are with others you see them with.”  Got it.

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I think that I’m falling out of love

On the second of this year I texted, “You should not incessantly irritate your one.”  And it’s worse than that now, because she can’t really have a single day with me when she doesn’t say what will not work for her long-term.  I can’t really do this, because one, how do you know what works and doesn’t work for you with the exception of abuse or cheating until you have learned how each other works, and two, isn’t this stage supposed to be more romantic than hard, cold facts of non-negotiation?  I’m sorry, but at the six-month mark, you don’t really have enough under your belt to know, but she knows what won’t work.  Well, I really want to save her the spiel.

So, what will I do?  Tomorrow I will check in on her when she gets the rest of this medical procedure done.  I drove her to part one tonight as an emergency basis.  Honestly, I want to say something sarcastic about that fact, but I won’t.  I’ll just say that is what a girlfriend should do for you.  You should be with her when that happens and not rely on your neighbor.  Your neighbor will never be  your partner, and I’m seriously starting to wonder if she actually wants one.  Bitching at someone constantly and concentrating on a person’s shortcomings is just sick.  Look at the good, build from there, and talk about how you want communication to look.  Focusing on what you DON’T want just makes you feel negatively toward your significant.

I’m not making any plans with her.  I’ve said that before about other girls and that scares the shit out of me, actually.  The thing is that above all, I want to be valued.  I’m not here.  I don’t need her.  I’m looking for a partner.  I’ll miss her son, but I can’t take the complaints about me all the time and then the “I love you,” texts afterward.  That is too weird and not what I’m looking for.  She may be my one, but it is like that damn Ingrid Michaelson song, because “it’s one day in the future,” and does not seem to be now.  I’m honestly fine with that too.

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We shall see

So, I have a date tonight.  It will be great to actually see her because it’s been five-days.  My psychologist said that we are just in the basket of relationship, which can get scrunched, and we have to just show up each day.  Yesterday was not a very good day.  I was exhausted having worked 7 – 4:30 and then had to rush to get food and take my son to sports.  When we got home, we were just a few minutes from his bedtime, but he was hungry again.  I read to him and got him squared away and then was chilling, and listening to music.  She said a couple of things that were nasty.  I was just tired.  “Baby, you sound exhausted,” would have been easier for me to receive than a completely unfounded accusation and telling me had it been true that she’s dump me.

That is not a goodnight.

However, being naturally pragmatic, I am keeping my date tonight and seeing if we can also see each other on Sunday as well.  I need to tell her that was a poor message to have last before I did drift off to sleep.  However, I slept great, and did get up in time to workout and even lift a little bit this morning.  My goal that I want to start this week is developing my upper body.  I have definition, but overall I’m weak and when you consider how strong my legs are, that should be more even.  More…  Balanced.

I do not feel balanced in terms of my relationship right now.  Again, I had said that I would develop a mantra a couple of weeks ago, which now I see more as a broken record.  I would like her to be my future, but I don’t know where or when.  I know that she only wants one thing, but I’m hoping that we can just enjoy.  Honestly, if it gets really caustic like it has been, that is not enjoying.

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Need for me

I know that I need to write today, and I knew that before she left me her message.  She will begin a cycle of grief.  I think that is completely personal.  So, I’m going to write what I know right now.

I love her.  I want to build a life with her.  She is like no one.  She has the highest standards of anyone who I’ve ever met.  I’m not easily intimidated.  I’m so good on my own too, so we will see what our future holds as some more time passes.  I know that if she breaks up with me for good that I’ll be just fine and will keep on doing what I do.

I was a bizarre shell of a human being for a year and still exhibited some questionable behaviors afterward after I finally came out.  Why didn’t I come out sooner?  The funny thing is how big of a lesbian I am.  I would say that in terms of femininity, I am pretty middle-of-the-road, and certainly men look at me and the ballsy ones will approach me and hit on me, but it’s pretty rare that I have to come out to anyone.  The quintessential Tomboy, and very much into playing hard, laughing and being physical are part and parcel of who I am at my core.  When kids from high school found out that at 23 I had married, the common reply was, “______, is married?  To a man?”  I stayed in that marriage for nine years too, which was baffling given how little we had in common and our playmate role even had fallen away after about 5-years of knowing each other.  This fall I have known him 18-years.  He’s ok, but doesn’t have any goals so I sometimes I have trouble respecting his decisions.  I have not missed living with him for what will be five full years this fall.  That’s the thing, I’m loyal and want what’s best for others…  Historically…

We had started working through this relationship and couple’s text and some of the preliminary chapters combined with my blogging and my own therapy has lead me to know that part of me has fallen away.  I’m only still loyal.  Now, I want what is best for me and my son.  I broke up with my with ex because she was a drunk and a control freak.  I don’t think that she ever loved me.  The woman who I had my coming out affair with didn’t ever really love me either.  I know, too, that my ex-husband never loved me either, but was young and interested in propriety and doing right by his family.  I get that.  We have some similar values.

Now, I want what’s best for me and my son.  The stupid dating shit that I’ve done isn’t good for either of us, and yields my feeling empty.  I like how circumspect I have become based on my lessons yielded from dating hell.  I’m a lesbian version of a “Sex in the City” character, seriously.  I’m just not an empty sex afficionada, so I can’t be Shane.  Of course, I have had sex most months for two years, so that’s probably easier for me to say, but I would prefer not to have another FB.  Those kinds of unions do not yield a relationship.  Even if I try, those kind of girls that you start out just doing are not the ones who I want to settle down with because I’m pretty concrete.  If I get together with you because I want to have sex, that’s what I want.  If something organically develops, it still probably was based in lust and not in being compatible.  I’m looking for settling down with someone and growing together, or I’ll just have sex occasionally and do my thing.  I’m an independent and strong woman and won’t settle.  Not even a little.

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Ready for whatever my path unfolds

Who knows?  I don’t.  She is going through a horrible time.  Simply awful.  I can just show up for her and her son, and be who I am.  Even if that person is one who is defensive and wonders about how likely it is that I’m going to get some concrete or for sure stuff so that I can feel safe, or if I can continue on this path with a woman who is like no other.  I don’t know a person at all like her and I have tons of friends and work with the public.  She is unique and awe-inspiring.

I spent most of this weekend with her.  I’m tired, but feel pretty good on the whole.  I just wish that we had some time just with us, but with both of us being mothers, that will always be few and far between.  I think that I could have supported her more if we hadn’t been parenting her boy–who I simply adore–all weekend, but I think that at times of crisis, that kids are a very good distraction.  He is a sweet, funny, and a cheerful little guy.  They help.  I can remember playing with Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars with my son when I was on autopilot for about 7-months when I had just come out and finally moved my heart and mind away from my coming out affair.  The latter is difficult.  I was really messed for some time.  Then with lots of dating, I really weeded out what I don’t want.

I don’t see drawbacks with her.  I do think that she is more sensitive than I, so I have to watch how I react and ensure that I’m doing what is asked, but I’m not sensitive, so we don’t always see situations the same.  Frankly, I’ve had enough relationship experience to know that she is hard to find.  She is sexy, an incredible dancer, smart, funny, quick, athletic, and has the best body and eyes that I’ve ever seen.  I want to be with her and build our life.  That does not waver.  She is the one who I can see being with for the long haul and raising our complete family.

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It’s actually hard

Want to know how you really are in love?  Because I’m trying desperately not to call and text because she wants me to slow down, and it is difficult.  I took down my old blog, but because it has so many entries and in my opinion illustrates my personal growth, I continue to reference it.  I used to be able to either walk away from a relationship or just wait to be contacted.  I can’t do that now.  It is agonizing and I also need her arms around me and to feel her kisses.  Here is how I felt in 2009:

“So, we have spoken…  And not texted, but we actually had a 45-minute convo on the phone, and with the exception of the end, it was really nice, and made me think that I probably should have called her some while we were f-buddies, but that was likely not meant to be.  The unsettling part of it to me was not that she and the other girl are now exclusive, because as I told her that was the natural order of things because she has known her nearly two years, and been sleeping with her for seven months, but it was rather her response.  She said, “Well, I won’t have to do this very long anyway because I want to start that new job (out-of-state) by November 1st.”  Ouch–made me glad that I wasn’t the one who is “exclusive” with her.” (me)

I didn’t talk to her after that.  She texted me on the last day of that year and texted her back.  It was a NYD reconnection, which was what I thought to be romantic at the time, but I was on to her by the end of January and went back to no contact unless contacted or just not saying anything.  I’m good at it.

I was.  I’m sure not now.  I want her.  I’m prepping for next year for my son and it feels so false.  We don’t talk too much about it either.  She started going upstairs yesterday when we spoke in the morning and said she’d call me back when I told her about the public school lottery.  We didn’t talk about it again yesterday and she is being causal with me right now.  It is so painful to 1) hear that, and 2) I know somewhere that it’s that she is scared of getting over-extended with me.

She needn’t.  I don’t know exactly what she sees that is scary in me, but I can tell you that I’m not.  I can even back up and be respectful when I’m told that I need to just wait and see.  Do you remember in the screenplay by John Irving and the film, of course, too, when the male character tells the super hot Cherlize Theron, “Maybe if I just wait and see long enough, I won’t have to DO anything?”  That’s where I won’t compromise with a woman like her.  It’s too hard to not admit and continue to state how madly in love you are and how you are hopeful that it will work.

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Fucking up

We of course continued our fervent e-mailing, which was now punctuated with calls and texts.  I will be the first to admit that it was obsessive and consuming.  I had not felt remotely like this in four-years, and the thing was that we had simply made out and not gotten physical.  She knows women for about 6-months before the deed.  I was working an angle for splitting the difference.  I was falling fast, and I have never done that.  I always let things grow organically and don’t force anything.  I wanted her and knew that she was one of a kind for real.  Never have been exposed to a woman like her, and don’t think that I ever will be.

Two of my friends were really concerned.  I had been a wreck of a person for nearly a year in 2008, and they were freaking out somewhat.  Here is what happened for me at that time:

“So, we texted a little bit that night, and I didn’t sleep at all.  Nary a wink for a night, which would be what the next four months would mostly be like for my sleep, which also meant that although I had already lost 19-pounds that fall that I would loose another 8 and you’d be able to count the ribs in my back.  I was only able to sleep in four hour stretches from that point forward until spring came” (me, 2010, written about 12/2007).

My friends didn’t want to see that girl again.  This woman who I had fallen in love with from afar and avoided like the plague for over 2-years consumed a fall and part of winter for me in terms of an affair.  The aftermath was worse than that song by Tricky.  Of course, our fling and what would become of my coming out affair was inevitable.  When she freaked, we had an odd month, and started the following New Year as distant as the sides of a canyon.  So, two of my friends were wigging somewhat because I was falling quickly.  This situation was so different though; although, I had a recent break-up.  That one was eight-months in the making though, and I was glad to be completely freed of her.

My new love had some entanglements too.  A recent partnership had broken up and not been physical at all for just two months, and she had a week-long fling with a woman who fell for her.  Learning about the latter freaked me out, and then those feelings combined with my friends’ concerns, resulted in my sending a casual, slow down e-mail.  It was a sucky thing to do when everything else had been so hot–the texts and e-mails.  It put the halt on “us” and really fucked things up.  It has veiled all as well.  You can’t take back what you write or say.  Accountability can bite when you fuck up.

It took us two days to get partially on track.  I say partially, because when you do that stop-start thing, you really can alter your course even with your one.  We decided to keep our original date, but there was some hesitation throughout the night.  Things got way better after we had a late dinner and went to a buddy’s restaurant for a glass of wine.  She let me hold her hand and had embraced me when she walked in with me.  We had a great talk in there and were much more loosened up overall.  When we went back out into the warm late fall night we held hands again and hers felt perfect in mine.  She opened my car door, and then she closed it.  We kissed and it got really hot.  The night almost ended and she took me back to my car in hers.  Then she looked at me and said, “Drive back with me?”  What a change of events and best end to my fuck up.