Just Don't

[greenstorm]

Angst Warning

Chris says my totem is the salmon. Salmon are all about the birth/death/rebirth cycle. Maybe he's right.

Rebirth is always grounded in death. The corpses of the old, more or less, nourish the young.

Death hurts. Birth hurts too.

Everything hurts right now. I told you i an old post about how Juggler didn't say I love you to me the other night. I saw him for lunch today.

I got a CD the other day, Up by REM. It's about things that are dying.

I'm crying so hard right now. I don't cry in public anymore; I don't know when that started. I got back from the skytrain and I'm sure I looked normal.

Why is it like this for me? It hurts so much.

I asked him to give me some clear guidelines as to what would jeapordise our physical relationship when (at the time I said when) it restarted, to avoid stuff like this. I couldn't get an answer out of him. He basically said he needs to trust the person and my judgement, and he doesn't, right now. Understand, he still won't kiss me, but he won't say: if you kiss someone I consider it to be risky behaviour and it will impact on my relationship with you because then I'll stop kissing you. He won't help me put stuff in place to help avoid this case again, and that's pretty painful to me.

He's working thirteen or fourteen hour days lately, and he will be for the next four months give or take a week or two here and there.

He's been pretty emotionally distant lately; he says to protect himself, though I don't remember what from.

So we talked about all this a bit, and ended up calling tonight off. I ended up saying, I couldn't deal with another overnight that was emotionally distant, and I knew it was sort of counterproductive but I just couldn't.

Where does that leave us?

I don't want this to die. I don't care if there's a birth going on at the same time. I don't care if it was good in the past. I want it to continue now and in the future. I fucking want to be able to live my life and do stuff with him too sometimes. He thinks seeing each other once a month for one weekend is a bad idea, and won't do it. Instead he offers... what, an hour for lunch once in awhile, and a couple of hours in the late evening once in awhile, and once in a longer while a bit of time during the day, during a weekend, which he refuses to set aside more than a few hours for.

I don't know. When I talk about this it's all hours, numbers, that you're getting. This an evening, and this a week. That's not the important bit. What is?

I don't know. I don't know. Love and desire to be together aren't enough to make a relationship. I don't know how to make a relationship. Something abotu negotiation? Something about patience? But I don't see what I'm doing wrong, here. I feel reasonable. I feel like I'm saying, give me guidelines to make this comfortable, and I'm getting a bunch of nos. No about having relationships with other people, no abotu deciding how much time to allot, no about how much emotional energy to expend.

I don't wanna let go of this one. I really don't. It seems like it should be so simple; a couple of people who want to spend some time together doing fun stuff, right? But it's not. There's some sort of a priority/punishment list going on, like this.

Priorities:
1) wife
2) work
3) time with self
4) angst free time
5) not having to schedule/plan
6) me

"Punishments" where if I do X he doesn't want to interact with me for awhile:
1) I get upset
2) 'physical interaction with other people'-- undefined. Now that he 'no longer trusts my judgement' it might be anything, but who knows?
3) I am distant
4) I am needy/want emotional interaction

I don't notice any positive priorities anymore, you know? Like... oh, fuck, never mind.

This is just me ranting, so you know. I'm not trying to think it through right now, cause I'm not in a state to do that. It hurts so much right now. I really wish there was someone to hold me right now, but chris is at school, and... well, Juggler views my feeling this way as something to be avoided, and I need to be at work in about an hour anyhow.

I just don't know what to do. I feel so bad. Seriously, I don't know, if you've been following this, if you haven't, and if you think there's something I should/could be doing differently, can you tell me?

I'm so scared. There's enough stuff hurting me right now that I don't know... I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen, or if I'll be able to deal with it when it does. I already spent yesterday, at work, thinking: relationships all go bad and end anyhow, so I should beat them to the bad part and just ditch both of them now. I laughed at the time, but why...? I keep feeling like he should turn around at some point and go: hey, yeah, aaaactually I'm not giving you very much time or energy or emotional support right now, and yeah, it's gonna stay that way, what are you gonna do about it? Instead he just goes on about how stuff hasn't changed.

I don't know. I'm useless right now. I don't want to face life, to go out and do fun things. If you can't share them with people, what's the point? Every joy, every moment of connectedness, just gets deducted later by someone with a very sharp object. I can't even tell if I'm asking a lot from him or not; predictability in exchange for a little stability? A bit of a heads up? Or is it something totally stupid and restrictive that I'm asking? Is it a ridiculous amount of work for very little payback? Impossible work, or... I don't know.

Is this him getting me back? You're not predictable in starting your relationship, so I won't be in letting you know what I want from you or how I respond? Is this him pulling away because he's hurt? I don't think he'd tell me, if it were the case, but I think it would be more arrogance than I have in me to think I could hurt him with what I did right now. The only way I can do that is to be in his presence a bunch and unhappy.

Do I want a relationship where I don't knwo the rules? It's not good for me. How do I get him to understand that what I'm asking for is reasonable, or is it reasonable? Is this totally unreasonable, to know what sort of things might impact on stuff in the future? Why should I expect him to tell me now, when they couldn't figure it out in the year prior?

Why do I want to be with him so much? Why can't I just say, he's cool, that's fine, I'm glad he's aliove somewhere? Is this just a case of me wanting the impossible because it's impossible?

I remember talking with him in the livingroom until the sun came up in the morning with Kynnin and Mouse in the other room, cradled against each other. That's all I want, really, some time like that once in awhile and a bit of shiny sunny stuff during the day to look forward to. He won't open to me, though, not anymore; whether it's stress with Mouse or stress at work or something different, he'll talk about superficial stuff but not about anything important.

I don't know. Too much death, though, isn't good for the rebirth. It fouls the water.

Comments

[breklor.livejournal.com]

I don't understand where he's coming from. I'm trying to read between the lines of his actions and I'm seeing someone who's lashing out, but I don't get why. I always hesitate to bring up jealousy, because it's the Cardinal Sin of Polyamory, but alas, that's my first guess.

And it is reasonable to expect some kind of correspondence between event and impact. That's a big part of what the relationship contract is supposed to be: "if you do X, the consequences will be Y." We can't always predict what our emotional reactions will be, so it's fair to cut each other slack - every now and again we will say, "Holy CRAP, I don't like that" about something that's not in the relationship contract - but that's what "processing time" is for. That said: the contract is a malleable "document", but it is reasonable to expect at least a sketch of one. And it is reasonable to expect a discussion when an unforeseen "ick" event occurs.

I don't know what's going on in his head. Obviously he's avoiding real intimacy with you. His behaviour is consistent with that of a boy who wants to cut loose but doesn't have the guts to say it. But I don't want to say that's what's going on, because I don't know him, I only have the vaguest picture of your previous relationship with him.

[saxifrage00.livejournal.com]

It's not unreasonable to want at least a sketch of the guidelines for a relationship. It's not reasonable to demand it right now, whenever "now" happens to be, even though it's reasonable to want it now. By extension, it's also not reasonable to demand to know right now when you can know, either. That's not very comforting, I know, but if you believe it, then it answers your question.

On the flip side, I know/suspect that his collection of tools for dealing with relationship stress is not very large—not by any real fault of his, but for lack of needing to collect them until recently. If you've never needed a pipe-cutter and there's nowhere to sells them, building one from scratch is hard, frustrating, and sometimes feels impossible even if you have an idea of how to start, let alone the difficulty if you don't know how to build one.

I'm not saying you or he are doing anything wrong, exactly; rather that you're both in a situation that you don't know how to deal with. One or both of you will either change the situation so you know how to deal with it, or figure out how to deal with it as it is. Neither of you can force the other to make the changes first, though. At least, trying is unlikely to succeed and would likely just add more trouble.

advice I've probably given you before.

[estrellada.livejournal.com]

This is reminding me of some seriously hard times I went through.

What became clear, through those events, was that sometimes, it doesn't matter what the other person is feeling, or why they're feeling it. You need to take care of yourself first and foremost.

So look at the stuff that's bugging you. Decide what your limits are. Enforce those limits, even if they mean: not seeing people, putting out conditions, etc.

you've been suffering from a particular set of complaints for a long time, and no, I don't think you "should", "need" or "deserve" to have a part of your life make you this consistantly unhappy.

Re: advice I've probably given you before.

[saxifrage00.livejournal.com]

The biggest trick I've seen in giving a conditional is accepting that the person can take it or leave it. Most people, starting to practice setting limits and conditions, don't yet have practice leaving their hopes out of it, and that muddies their communications and reactions when the ball comes back to their side of the court in a disappointing way.

So, I would say that enforcing limits and setting conditionals and increasing acceptance of whatever ends up happening is all important together.

Re: advice I've probably given you before.

[silverseastar.livejournal.com]

Yes, for sure. If you can't deal with the consequences, then don't make that particular choice. But at some point, it is often more an acceptance of needing to look after oneself (emotionally, psychologically) first and foremost. We're the only person we can change.

Re: advice I've probably given you before.

[estrellada.livejournal.com]

yeah, I take it for granted that this bit isn't explicit...

I learned HARD that if you say something like "Do X or I will leave", you'd better be prepared to accept that you might be leaving.

Re: advice I've probably given you before.

[saxifrage00.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was pretty sure you meant it implicitly, but I still need to remind myself, sometimes, and comments are good for that. :)

hey...

[fishgoddess.livejournal.com]

i remember what you were like before you started cleaning for me, and hon, the changes i've seen in you are incredible...i may be an occasional observer, but i keep tabs on everyone around me, and i think you've got more strength and wisdom than what you may feel...once the pain and emotion dials down (and there are tricks you can do to help this), the 'what' and 'how' and 'when' will come...'why' of course, is always a tricky one...keep on truckin', it'll come.
ps. big hug on demand!

[devi-sage.livejournal.com]

I can’t say that I know or understand what exactly you are going through, Greenie, or what you’re feeling. But so, so, so many of the things you’re expressing here are like a direct reflection of what’s occurring in my life. Deaths. Not wanting to let go – not to this one, and not caring about anything else so long as you can have that.

I tend not to believe we choose who it is we love. We just do. But ultimately we have to follow our heads and our spirit to guide us where it is we need to go for our own sanity, our own health.

Whatever the case, I’m here with hugs.

[dunfalach.livejournal.com]

Coming into this late, and maybe all this is past now. But I have to think it'll come up again. You and I know where each other stands in beliefs, so I'll just say this. You've got a friend that loves you and cares about you even when we don't agree.

Allowing for the fact that it's filtered through your eyes, it seems like he's trying to arrange things so he has complete control, it's there when he wants it, but the relationship leaves him alone unless he has a need for it. That doesn't sound like much of a relationship. Love involves caring about the other person's needs too. I'm not seeing that anywhere in what you've said.

Am I telling you to leave? I'm stopping short of that, because it's not my decision to make. But aside from our moral discussions, this one disturbs me on a personal damage to you level. I don't like seeing friends hurt.