7 posts tagged “relationships”
I've been gone. It's been bad.
There was a relationship. And a break up. A bad, bad, bad... bad, bad, baaad break up. And lots of drinking. There was also moving twice, and losing two family members, and getting another tattoo, and a couple more piercings, and losing a couple piercings, and spraining an ankle, and having a birthday, and making new friends, and honestly - no, honestly - laughing more often then crying.
Maybe I'll do this again. The vox, I mean. Definitely not doing the last six months again.
Sorry I haven't been around too much. Things have been insane, with a lot happening - including my mom's cat in the hospital with a massive skin infection, me actually semi-committing to a boyfriend (gasp!), and other things not suitable to mention in mixed company.
Driving down there, for the last time taking that route I used to take on an almost daily basis, looking at those keys and remembering how complimented I was that he cared about me enough to give me total access, I got so sad. Didn't cry, but just so sad and remorseful. I really did want to love him, and in the end he didn't want to be with me. I wasn't worthy enough for him to stick around during the rough shit.
So, yeah, guess it still hurts. Days and days and days go by now without me even thinking of him - but, obviously, it can still hurt when I do.
After this last year, my heart doesn't want to feel anything ever again. My heart is bitch slapping me and saying, "If you ever make me do that again, I'm going to f-ing kill you in your f-ing sleep."
I deserved better.
After consulting with friends and dissecting the two relationships I had this year, we've come up with some new dating rules for me. Both heartbreaks this year were men in their 40s: #1 stopped calling after steadily dating for seven weeks, and then defied the "He's Just Not That Into You" Rules by calling suddenly two months later desperate to re-establish contact and pleading that he'd just been terrified of the intimacy (or maybe he was with someone else and she dumped him); #2 - the one I've recently been grieving - was attached to my hip for six months before the infatuation wore off, and then ran away when my life and health were a mess because ultimately his idea of "love" doesn't include helping his partner through "drama" if it's inconvenient for him. (me, bitter? nooooo.....)
- Don't Date. Seriously, losers just fall in my lap, one right after another. It's because I'm a sucker and they can tell; and I'm secretly insecure enough that I'm just glad someone considers me worthy of affection and attention.
- No men over 35. I've been sternly instructed to curb my Daddy Complex. A twelve year age difference doesn't mean I'm mature for my age, it means he isn't.
- No men lacking direction or goals in life (especially if breaking Rule #2). The two this year weren't established and were just drifting with no real plan; a younger woman (i.e. me) would forgive that because she (i.e. me) is probably adrift herself, but a woman in her 30s and 40s will rightfully expect you to have your sh*t together.
- No serial monogamists. If he can't remember how many girlfriends he's had, that's a very bad sign.
- His relationship history should include at least one three year relationship. See Rule #4.
- He must show an inclination to selfless gifts within the first two weeks. Like flowers or a card or a love note slipped in a jacket pocket. Going out to dinner doesn't count because he benefits from that too. It also doesn't count if he says "I thought about buying you flowers" or "I started to write you a poem." When your mom said "it's the thought that counts" she was referring to bad gifts, not being too lazy to actually give one.
- He shouldn't drink more than three times a week. Swear to God, one friend said, "no matter how cute he is when he's passed out.
Today, I went to the courthouse for the petition hearing on my divorce. After the hearing - which only took ten minutes - I stepped outside and cried. Not because the marriage isn't truly "irretrievable," but just because I never wanted this for myself or him or us.
Dumped and divorced in the span of three days, I don't have much faith in Love anymore.
Tonight, friends are taking me to see Kaki King. I'll be the curmudgeonly divorcee with the black glasses and Bettie Page bangs, scowling at anything with a penis.
From Dooce
I have become depressed again. Almost as depressed as I was two years ago when I had to check myself into the hospital, and it has everything to do with stress, recent stress that has threatened to change and devastate our lives. I have often described depression as the complete inability to cope with stress, and although I think my own depression is manageable with medication — medication that I am still taking every day — it tends to flare up in a debilitating way when I’m thrust into very stressful situations. I keep trying to claw my way up out of this, but for the last month I have found it almost impossible to make it through the day without putting my face into a pillow and screaming until I cannot sense the world around me.
You deserve better than this, better than the look of absolute desperation I carry in my eyes all day long. I should be more playful, should sing more songs, color more pictures, but I’m sometimes afraid that if I attempt any of these things you will see through it and know that I am lying. Right now I can’t see the world in anything but shades of very pale gray. I had hoped that I would never find myself this low again — I would not wish this crushing emptiness on my worst enemy — but now that I am here I’m not quite sure what to do this time, except trust that you and your father will stick by me, will be here when I do feel better.
Two years ago, I became dangerously ill and my then-husband said, "I didn't sign up for this" (guess he missed that part in the vows about "in sickness and in health") and it cemented more than a decade of fears about my depression and my personal relationships. Usually I hermit - something that would be impossible when one has children - and hide away; when I was twenty, my best friend would show up in the middle of the night if she hadn't heard from me in a week just to make sure I was still alive and ticking. It's the worst thing: knowing that sometimes the depression will unavoidably, uncontrollably flare-up; knowing it won't be fair to my loved ones; fearing they will go away because of it, and not being able to blame them.
From Dooce.com:
I also dated a guy who said he couldn’t bring himself to sleep with women who had big butts. I didn’t take that stipulation very seriously because an ass is not a physical characteristic that I will ever possess, much like boobs or manageable hair. It wasn’t until I realized that his aversion to butts was just Chapter One in his memoir The Innumerable Ways I am Out of My Fucking Mind, and by Chapter Four: I Cannot Bring Myself to Sleep With Women Who Have Vaginas, I knew that I had stumbled into the wrong section of the library, if you know what I’m saying.
