This is an email that I sent to my friend, Brenda, yesterday when she made the error of asking me how things were going! Poor Brenda - we have been out of touch for two years and I lay all this on her. Anyway...
Hi Brenda!
Blech! I'm having a poopy day... poopy month. Be careful what you ask... I have a feeling this is going to be a long email!! But I would love to have your opinion... you've always been such a good ear/shoulder!
I've been at odds with the main squeeze for a bit now and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. I met and dated Ian years ago... a couple of weeks after I left Karl in 2001, actually. We dated very casually for about 7 months and I stopped seeing him when I met the newfie, Fabian. You heard about the ups and downs of the whole Fabian saga over the years... we finally had a "shit or get off the pot" conversation last March and I decided that it was time to get off the pot - my feelings for him hadn't changed but I finally realized that nothing else was going to change, either, and we just wanted different things (i.e. he-sex, me-love).
Ian called in June last year and we went out to lunch and quickly started dating again. First, I should point out that I am quite different now inside (that's a longer story than anyone has time to read but maybe some day over a couple of beers!!), I am more confident in who I am and what I want, I like myself in a way that I never have before and, for the last year or two of living alone, I was happier than I have been since I was a little kid. And I really saw Ian differently this time than I had when we first met. I always thought that he was nice and funny but this time he kind of swept me off my feet and did all kinds of the things that I had always wanted a man to do: cooking for me, actually listening to the things that I said, going out of his way to do things for me. He also started saying the "L" word within about a month... which freaked me out a little but was flattering at the same time.
So, by mid-August he was badgering me to move in with him. I was there most of the time anyway so I kind of half moved in and stayed there every night but kept my own place, too (even though I rarely went there). Within about a month or so I was so frustrated with how things were going that I moved back to my place. It was too much, too soon and there was a lot of pressure to conform to his life and I really felt that I was losing mine. In addition to that, I had just finished redecorating my condo when we started dating and was absolutely IN LOVE with the place; his place was a house that a single man had lived in for 14 years or so, if you know what I mean (read:dump!). So, I went back to my place and we didn't communicate at all for a week because my dad was visiting and I didn't want to deal with it.
Things got somewhat back to normal after Dad left; I was still living at my place but spending a lot of time at his place. Ian's brother came to help him put down some new flooring in October and promptly took a chainsaw to Ian's couch because it was in such bad shape. So, of course, I decided that - seeing I was totally in love with him and we were going to be together forever anyway (!) - I would move most of my furniture down to his place and rent my place out. And that's what I did.
Fast forward to current times and I still love him (I think) but we are having serious problems and I am considering moving back to my place. I always tend to run when a problem arises (as I did in September) and that's why I am having so much trouble figuring out what to do. We have gotten a long pretty good over these months... however, I feel the need to point out that we have been stoned almost every evening and all weekends over these months. Godamn awesome BC greens! Good at the time but they cause me to have some serious mood swings. In May I decided that it was time for me to stop smoking it so much and get my shit back together. He continued to smoke it and eventually I got back into it... only on the weekends at first, and that turned into most every evening again. So here I am again, totally off the stuff and not getting back on it because I hate the waste that it turns my life into.
He still smokes it... and I find him irritating as hell all the time now. I get pissed off with him pretty much on a daily basis and the mood swings have caused me to be quite difficult to live with. Again, I will back track a bit here to tell you that I told him that I could be difficult to live with long before I ever moved in; I can be moody without the pot, too (except I am better able to control what I put out there when I am sober, of course). He was confident that he could deal with that and he was really good in the beginning by giving me my space and backing off when I needed him to. Now he just gives me guilt about it. Now he punishes me by either badgering the hell out of me when I don't want to do something that he wants to do or by ignoring me or withholding goodnight kisses and stupid stuff like that.
I also told him before I moved in that my personal time was extremely important to me and, during all of those years that I was alone and basically single (because Fabian and I were apart much more than we were together) I put a lot of work into developing a social life. [My very best friend, Stacey, is single and we spend a lot of time together - in 2005-2006 we went to a million concerts and plays and short trips and anything else that we could find to do (I even went bungee jumping if you can believe that!!) and I didn't want to give that up.] I get a guilt trip every time I want to spend time with my friends and when Stacey and I try to include him, he says that I ignore him and jump on everything he says (which is most likely right). I also get crap when I am on my computer in the evenings and not out in the living room with him or if I do my Sudoku puzzles instead of watching tv- even though I am next to him on the couch - or if I go out for supper or, god-forbid, I might want to go see a movie by myself (which is one of my absolute favorite things to do). My sister, Debra, moved to Victoria last June and I hardly get to see her because he never wants to go over there. I have been over a few times and she has been over here a few but we really haven't been able to spend time together as we had planned to do. She will be leaving BC in less than a year and I feel that I have hardly been able to see her - and she is my favorite person in the world. We had such big plans!
I will also mention that Ian doesn't work. He has diabetes and had a kidney transplant a couple of months before we started seeing each other last year. He is on disability but able to go back to work and periodically looks for a job but gets frustrated with it quite easily. He also has taken to getting stoned by noon every day and staying that way until he goes to bed; most nights he has a few beers, too. I go to bed at 10pm, he goes to bed after midnight; I get up by 6 or 7am, he gets up by noon. He's bored and lonely being by himself all day and maybe that's why I feel bad when I leave him alone. But I now I feel bad about it - and I feel pissed off. I feel like we barely even speak and, when we do, I get irritated with him very quickly. I hardly want to go home anymore. I keep fantisizing about my condo and how nice it was and how much I loved living alone. I lie awake in the night going over the good and the bad, the whys and the why nots and I don't know what to do. And I'm frustrated about that.
Oh, crap, Brenda. I hate this. Boys truely suck! Life is so much easier alone. Maybe I am spoiled by always being able to do what I want and when I want. I am a control freak after all and I lose my mind when someone tries to control me, even if it is only by making me feel guilty for something that I should have no reason to feel guilty about. And I know I am getting more and more difficult to live with because of that. It's causing a vicious circle and I am spinning. It's 6pm here now and, even though the office closes at 4:30, I don't want to leave work. I don't want to deal with it anymore, I just want to pack up and sneak out in the middle of the night. Like I said, I tend to run.
But of course I have to talk to him about this. I don't know if I am more afraid of ending the relationship or of letting him convince me to stay. I wanted to leave Karl for 4 of our 5 years together and I won't do that again... I just don't have that kind of time to spare now! So, dear Ann Landers, help! Actually, just writing this out makes it pretty clear what I want to do. I just don't want to hurt him. And I love him and I love our dog and his family and now I am bawling my face off which makes me think that maybe I don't want to leave. Argh!! I miss being alone but part of me wonders if I am glorifying that as well. Gee... do I sound confused to you? Now are you sorry that you asked how it's going? Never expected this book in reply, did you?
Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. I will figure it out or it will work itself out in time. Now I guess I should go home. Sigh.
Love ya xxx
