About three months ago, Rango and I made the decision that he would move out. More than a year of tension and difficulty had spiraled us into a pretty deep pit of darkness, and neither of us could see a way out together. We decided pretty quickly that we still wanted to try to make things work. We continued dating. He still spent time at the house, still called it home, still saw the boys as regularly as their schedules would allow. For several weeks, we both thought we were on track for him to move back home.
But tensions surfaced again about a month ago. Old patterns emerged in both of us, and we find ourselves again in a depressing spiral. We love each other, but our respective needs and wants clash constantly. He feels pressured to give more than he’s able, stressing that I should just accept him the way he his—which he is not going to change for anyone. I think a caring partner makes the other a priority and tries to support their happiness, even and especially when it is inconvenient or difficult. By no means am I suggesting that one partner should kowtow to the other constantly. That’s not healthy at all. But sometimes we should do things that are best for the people we love, even when it requires uncomfortable effort on our part.
The last year has been exceedingly rife with difficulty. After my thyroid radiation, it took months before I started to feel physically and emotionally normal again, due to shifting hormone levels. By the first of the year, it became clear that my chronic neck pain had worsened, and I had a three-level discectomy and fusion in April. I was working full time and finally finishing my bachelor’s degree after twenty-seven years of on-again/off-again, half-hearted attempts. I hoped that alleviating most of those stressors would give us a fresh start toward reconciliation and growth.
I didn’t talk about it much. I tried to avoid it most of the time with the girls. The Castration Committee is amazing, and they will back me up no matter what. But bringing other people into the relationship, even tangentially, can profoundly influence perceptions—and not always for the better. Also, due to somewhat skewed perspectives, my family wasn’t always supportive and could be judgmental. Mostly I found it better to keep it to myself or between me and Rango. Mostly.
But as we’ve come again to a place of incredible conflict, I’m turning back to Muchness and Light. I haven’t written in months. I have barely written for the last two years. Much of that was due to school and work and health and child obligations. Much of it was due to my not feeling it was worth it.
DH told me years ago that I should stop writing, that blogging was nothing more than an echo-chamber. He was vitriolic in his assertion that only my friends cared about what I had to say. I know he was wrong, at least to an extent. But it also became apparent as time went on with Rango that he didn’t care to read what I had to say, although he would encourage me to write. He understood it was cathartic for me—effectively making it nothing more than a publicized diary—but that he had no interest in engaging my thoughts in this forum. This week, I’ve been told that I should just blog what’s bothering me and find a way to fix my messy head, but that he is uninterested in either climbing a wall of text intended for him or in talking about our problems.
At heart, he’s a good man. He is generally kind and generous. He loves me and loves my sons. But he often seems dramatically different than the man I met and fell in love with. Time has passed; we have changed. But where I thought we both wanted to grow and change together, he believes he hasn’t changed at all and that I shouldn’t expect him to.
When I did finally break down and really talk to Pandy, she said I deserve more. She is sweet and whole-heartedly believes I deserve to be in a healthy, committed relationship, receiving the same love I so freely give.
But she’s wrong.
I don’t deserve to be loved. No one deserves to be loved. As I said a few posts ago, the only thing anyone deserves is an eventual death. I used to believe that there was some cosmic force that somehow wanted good things for me, that maybe if I did good things then I would receive them in return. I believed in deep, abiding, passionate love that was reciprocal and maybe (just maybe!) destined. For a little while, I believed that I was worth enough to get happiness, not to be faced constantly with disappointment and hurt.
But I was wrong. There’s nothing up in the sky but air.
No matter how hard I try to be good, to be accommodating, to be considerate, I cannot make someone else do the same. I cannot make someone be or do what I think is ideal—or even what I think is a reasonable compromise. I can’t force them to hear me or try to see anything from my point of view. I can only accept them for who they are or not. I can live with their personality and eccentricities or move on.
I don’t expect perfection from anyone. I’m even learning not to expect it from myself. I have worked really hard to not overreact to emotions, to sit with them and understand their locus, to act appropriately in response to those emotions. But I can’t not respond to them.
So, there is sadness and grief, hurt and probably some anger. I’m sure more will come later. I’m sure it will abate eventually.
But I’m not berating myself that I deserve any of these feelings, either. So maybe I did change for the better, after all.
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