2005-09-06 - 11:52 a.m.
I am torn between wanting to ask my friends and family for advice, and not wanting to involve them in my drama because I don't want to tell them too much, a, and b, I don't want to have to talk to them about it if things work out. I've been especially sensitive to this lately--I've told my friends and family too much about my relationship in the past, and it's not worth it--they don't really know what's going on between us, only he and I do, and then when we stay together I feel even more like I'm lying to myself.
Last night dt and I had the worst fight ever, pretty much. This weekend we went away to my parents' house, and it was pretty calm--no fighting once we left the city. We had hot sex for the first time in a while, I actually felt really into it. I was happy to have someone to do things with--walk in the woods, walk to town, talk to about hurricane katrina, talk to about my brother-in-law's worsening health. But in another way, it made me realize that I don't think I want to marry him. Listening to my sister and her husband talk together and mostly, laugh together, even though he's so sick and their relationship is in a crazy state right now--she has to help him shower, eat, and take a shit--they still laugh so much and she loves him so much too. I don't feel that way about dt. I mean, okay--they've been together for 15 years. That's no joke! Dt and I only have been together for 2. But sitting next to him on the couch, I felt little good feelings other than creature comforts coming from him. I like to put my head on his shoulder and feel his arms around me, but when it comes to talking I'm so bored. And we don't laugh too much, hardly ever. I don't think he's funny, though he makes jokes.
Then at home we had an awful, awful fight. I actually hit him! I feel really bad about that part. I don't even want to go into what the fight was about, it's so dumb and would take too long to explain, but it's just that I feel like I have no freedom in this relationship, and that I talk but he doesn't hear me. He doesn't think I make any sense, when I say, "Hey, can I go out on Tuesday and see my friends?", and he thinks he has the power to say no to that--why would that be? He doesn't want me sleeping over at someone else's house, he thinks it's stupid...but the weird part is that I think it's stupid sort of too. But that's not the point. The point, for me, is that this just isn't working! How can he feel like he can [almost] forbid me to do something? why can't he be laid back, and just be like, "That's weird to me and sort of lame, but whatever. I'll be fine. Go ahead." How hard is that? I tried really hard to be empathetic last night and let him know i understood why he was bothered, because I do, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to do what I want to do--he said that at one point, "You're just going to do what you want to do anyway, so what's the point?" But how on earth can he say that like it's a bad thing? Yeah, I'm going to do what I want to do, because it's my life. I would never do things like stay out all night drinking without him, try to sleep with other people, purposefully not be there when he needs me--so if I am not disrespecting him by doing things, why should say with such hate and sarcasm, that I'm just going to do what I want to do anyway so why bother trying to reason with me? He acts like I'm so bad, like I hurt him all the time by doing what I want to do. I know I am selfish in some ways, and definitely I could be more sensitive and less self-involved. But why can't he realize that arguing with him about my doing silly things like this--a sleepver with my three best girlfriends on the eve of one of them moving across the country--just makes me feel trapped and stifled in this relationship?
On Friday night we also had a bad fight. That wasn't even a fight really, just a blow-up, coming from him, all these things he hasn't been saying to me, reasons why he's mad at me. First, sex. He feels like I've ruined sex for him, he never wants to have it, and I have sexual problems, which have since become his problems. At first I was like, "I do, I'm so screwed up, I can't believe I made him this way too..." but then later, days later, I started to think about how mental sex is for me--when I'm really turned on, it's all so hot and easy, and when I'm not, it's horrible. But it's not that he doesn't turn me on--he does, he's like a little indie rock porn star, but I've never felt that consistently great about our relationship--only in fits and starts. I never lose myself in sex with him, and I think about how he'll be mad at me, feel like a failure if I don't come, I don't know, it's just not natural between us for me. And I think I can have sex with other people, I know I can, and hopefully it won't be so head-casey. I came all the time with previous boyfriends, so how can it not be us and not me that's causing this problem? I don't think his skills are lacking, really, but I just think in my mind I know that I'm faking this relationship--I love him, but I'm faking a lot of it.
He calms me, certainly he does, and I like how he sort of takes care of me. But there's something missing, maybe I just want to be single? Fuck, I don't know. I do want to see my friends more and do things like go to different museums and things that he would never want to do. But I know I'll be lonely, I'm certainly romanticizing the single life. Especially the single, living at home with your parents life, which is what I'll be doing if we break up. I'm not ready for this, the almost-marriage. Is he?
And this doesn't even mention the money situation! He's always bitching about how he hates his job, he can't believe he has to work it, and how much longer will he have to work it for--he also sort of blames me for this, like I'm forcing him to work shitty jobs, a slave master. But otherwise how can we live together with any decent standard of living? I don't like the idea of living, sharing a life with someone who doesn't have any money. My job is crap, I seriously know this. But I have a few thousand saved and I have health insurance...I think we fought about this on Friday too. He just basically said that he feels like I enever have anything to say to him, and I have so much to say to my friends, and I guess that he's feeling a little bored in our relationship, now that we've reached the 2 year mark he's sort of freaking out. Like, he feels old because he can't flirt with girls any more, old because we talk about the rent and utilities and where we want to move, bored I guess, we don't have sex that much anymore...he certainly didn't sound like he was all thrilled about us and in love and wanting to get married anymore. That's understandable. I don't know how much of that is coming from me--because I'm not happy enough with this, I do get quiet and monosyllabic and bored, which makes me boring. And I don't want to have sex that much, because I feel sometimes like sex is just all about his big old dick, me worshipping it and them it sliding into me and being too big and kind of hurty, then him coming explosively into me, making me smell like funky sperm, him bending me over and there never being enough foreplay, just something we have to do on the weekends because we've got no other time together, though neither of us is so hot for it anymore. Is this just what happens at this point in a relationship--2 years in and living together? Or are we at the end of our rope?
