The daily breakup

[greenstorm]

He sends me a picture of himself, which that's not the thing. The thing is he's glowing and covered in hickeys. It's unfathomable to me. Josh will come up and I'll probably cry every time he touches me; I'll probably cry every time I have sex for months on and off. I don't know how it works. Doesn't his body remember me?

I guess I let him in more deeply than he did me, so I get more collateral damage. On the other hand when he says he won't let it ruin his visit with her, I guess that version of intimacy is so different from anything I can imagine. Imagine being with someone you love and putting on a face for both yourself and them because experiencing your feelings would ruin time with them. For me, putting on a face is ruining time with someone and being held and heard is the point.

In this, as in everything else, we are so different. Remember, Greenie, you don't want that relationship dynamic. The actual whole point of this is that he feels that you sharing your feelings, that holding you for more than a little bit here and there, he feels that's ruining it. And the actual point is that you feel that him hiding those feelings is also ruining it. There's no room. Everything is woven together for me; for him I'm a box he can put in a closet and forget, even if maybe it falls out once in awhile inconveniently or gets in the way of finding the box behind it.

When we talk I can hear him trying and that trying has always mattered to me. I know he loves me, whatever that means to him-- I don't know what it means to him and he's never explained. All that disguises just how complete his emotional rejection of me is and always has been.

And the physical contact part is hard. Our bodies have always been our strongest connection. An accidental touch and the communication within that is how we started sparking-- so much could be said. But it speaks volumes that he'll let that lapse with me and not try to maintain it or pursue it. I said in a comment that he's not a jerk, but it was a huge fucking jerk move to say that his physical contact with Sarah had so much intention and meaning and communication in it and that we didn't touch like that anymore when I asked what was special about her, but never to bring up with me that it had stopped between us and he was missing it with me. He was willing to let the core of our relationship die and replace me with someone else who could provide it without once mentioning it, without bringing it up, without saying "hey, we used to do this thing, I'd like to do it again". Just like he was willing to put that bid on the condo and inform me he was moving, back when, but not bring up that he was thinking about moving out of Fort and did we want to chat about it.

In both cases I was like, "hey, this seems important, maybe we should talk about it" and we did and I think he was happy with the result. In neither case did he thank me for doing that work, for rolling with his lack of communication.

And maybe that's the problem. I act like I'm doing him a favour by communicating, by keeping the relationship going. He doesn't think it's a favour; he's indifferent to whether it happens or not. Even now he says he'd still like to continue some aspects of it. Which aspects? If I want to know I can figure it out. That's not how you treat something important. "If I stop doing his end of the work the relationship would have been dead long ago and he would have been gone" I think as if that's helping him or what he wants. He hasn't asked me to do it. He hasn't thanked me for it. It's convenient to him that he doesn't have to find someone else but it's sure not earthshaking enough for him to do some of that work himself, to say "hey, this might make the relationship better, maybe I'll try it".

And I go along with it because I don't believe I can find someone who will meet me halfway. I don't believe I can find someone who will do that work for me as I do for them. I've trained people to do it in the past but have met few folks who are proactive in communication to start with. Thinking more on it there have certainly been some. It's such a relaxing thing for someone to do, to shoulder the weight part of the relationship along with me.

Greenie, he does not to this in a functional way. If he doesn't do it and doesn't support you in doing it, he should not get the benefits of you doing it. It's not an equitable situation.

I hate letting someone's best not be good enough.


And how much of this is really him not being good enough, anyhow? How much of it is me having isolated myself without a community to support me, and thus leaning on few people for most of my needs, and breaking them under those needs? As one of many this relationship would sink or swim, he would learn to participate more fully or he'd just be gone because I would tend to respond to folks who reached out and worked with me.

I know I've never been able to support anyone fully emotionally. Granted, I'm not asking him to. I need him to verbally flag when stuff is up, or else ascertain through other means when stuff is up for me if he wnts me to do that for him. Or at least make me a nice dinner or give me some gratitude for doing it. Saying "hey, this is too heavy" is one of those verbal flags I need.

So yeah, whatever is wrong it's probably wrong because of the lack of communication and general fixing energy. No relationship is going to never have issues to address. If there's no good means for addressing the issues, they'll sink the relationship eventually. That means that even if there are issues related to the pandemic, to isolation, to whatever-- I can't chalk this up to them if they haven't been brought up or discussed. It's not like I haven't left space or invited those discussions.

Ugh. I'm tired and I'm not doing any of the things I'm supposed to. That's enough writing for now.