Sometimes I feel like I just cannot win, no matter how I try.
One thing that I am clear about is that part of this has nothing to do with me! It's not as though I am doing things that intentionally upset her or cause stress. No, she does enough of that on her own. Then the normal things that I do just set her off.
She and I spent a significant amount of time together not too long ago and had an amazing two days together. We had lots of sex, ate, spent time together, engaged in an activity that I had planned for us -- it was absolutely amazing! I think that the real promise of who we could be together started to show itself.
Not too long afterwards, a significant work challenge came up that ended up in having her leave the firm. Part of this was supposed to be her getting herself set up to take on the next phase of her life and not be dependent upon Rick. Well, anyway, that was the intention. Seems that this intention was pretty short lived.
The last time I had talked with her, she'd been talking about a new direction which would essentially keep things in place for the foreseeable future. Needless to say, this was not a happy development for me, because I don't like the way that things are right now and haven't for a while. I guess that I should start getting used to that, huh?
Then Sally takes off for a decent road trip to handle some personal business. I had the opportunity to see her right before she departed and all was good. Of course, I don't like that this gave her a lot of "time to think" by herself. That seldom turns out well. We did talk while she was gone, but it wasn't long and part of it she was half-asleep.
By the time she returned "home," she was a mess. She told me that she was now upset and crying, about what I do not know -- she wouldn't say. Later, after a while, she started talking to me about some social media conversations that I was having with someone. She was clearly upset by my overly friendly (dare I say "flirtatious") manner.
This is garden variety jealousy at it worst. Something which she's said that she hasn't really had to deal with much throughout her life, but she deal with about me on an almost continual basis.
I tried to reassure her, but when she gets in this head space, there is no amount of reassuring that will do any good. At this point, rational conversations about things are just useless. Whether she realizes it or not, what she says and does impacts me -- a lot! I don't like seeing her upset and I certainly don't do anything intentional to make her upset.
I told her that it's hard for me to tell when she talks to me whether the topic is:
- Something that she just wants to communicate and get it out of her space
- OR something that she wants to discuss and resolve
It's especially difficult when everything starts with an offhand comment and escalates from there. As a result, most of the time, I think it's the latter. Why? It's really the safer bet, because there are always issues and going for getting them resolved is important. And I am committed to resolving issues that come up in our relationship.
Given I can't tell the difference between these two operating modes, I have a predicament:
- If I engage to resolve something, she might get pissed off and start to shut down (which she did)
- If I don't do anything, it will likely seem like I am gaffing her off or that I don't care (which I do)
In the end, even if I've done nothing more than be my natural, fun and playful self, I end up paying a price for it where Sally is concerned. This is really part of what is thoroughly fucked up about the current state of our relationship. Frankly, I am at a point where I am just about unwilling and (really) unable to continue with more of it.
The more things like this happen, the more Sally tends to pull back and then treat it as if it's just her problem. In so doing, she now also makes it a problem for me, because that's not acceptable to me.
The simple fact is that my life is now divided up into competing interests and there's not a clear winner. My life occurs like it is dis-integrated -- lacking or moving away from an integrated approach. For me, this is super tough. I don't know how to do that. A mess is a mess, regardless of where the mess is. It spills over into other areas of life, whether I want it to or whether I try to prevent that from happening or not.
It brings up some questions for me:
- How much more of this can I realistically take?
- What can I do to resolve it?
- Will trying to get it resolved just result in blowing everything up?
- Am I really prepared to walk away now?
These questions are up now and part of me is really afraid of answering them truthfully, because of what that might mean about my relationship with Sally.
It's never fucking easy, is it?
Tell you one thing for certain, I'll never EVER again have a relationship with someone as part of an "open relationship," because it sucks so damn bad.
Hmmmmmmm... seems I have my next blog post idea already, huh? :-(
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