Back to the Black

 Sometimes I don't know why I even get up in the morning. 

That last post yet again was full of hope, but anyone can see underneath is a train wreck. 

The night was fun with Anne and Vic, but R was weird a few times and even though Id said that we "connected " the night before it was pretty much ruined by the way he acted the next morning. 

R left pretty early on Tuesday. Not surprising, and totally fine. That night, after thinking about it non stop all day, I told him that I thought I needed a couple of weeks to myself to get my schedule and routine back on track. He didn't take it well. I even told him it didn't mean that I didn't want to talk to him at all, I just needed to not have the weekend interruptions of sleep and whatever else. 

The next day I thought about it again. Maybe I panicked, I'm not sure, but I told him I was sorry and should have talked to him about it first, and that I didn't really want to not see him but that I could understand if he was pissed so I left the ball in his court to decide if he wanted to come over. 

I initiated texts and got short responses if any at all, and by the first part of this past week I was just over it. Id also gotten some pretty devastating news about my back after seeing a Dr, and tried to text him about it but he wasn't even curious enough about it to ask me what was wrong. This made me mad. REALLY mad. So when he asked me to play Diablo with him one evening last week, and I begrudgingly did, I recognized the problem I was having. Anger, frustration, and just plan disappointment is what I feel when I talk to him. 

Why am I angry? Am I angry at him? Is this just me being unreasonable yet again according to him? 

I'm angry...not with R but with myself, and no, its not unreasonable, its a cry for help that I have got to listen to from my very soul. Its telling me to get out. Its telling me this is not working, has NEVER worked, and never will. Its telling me that ever since I met this man in 2019 my life has been on a slow decline of self esteem, work ethic, self care, and self confidence. 

There's a lot of "self" in that I get it. Is that SELFISH? Maybe so, but I'm at the point where I need a life raft badly and no one is going to throw me one so I have to save myself. 

The last 2 years especially with the pandemic, moving, my work drifting away, my friends being mostly absent (just living their own lives, not in a bad way), and now having the new year come in the way it has with sad news and new physical and mental issues, has been way way too much. With all that heaped on top of an already struggling relationship, I just cant anymore. I must save myself. 

I MUST be selfish.

I did give this a lot of thought. I even talked to my mom about it, which I didn't really want to do but she lives here too so its really only fair to get her real opinion of R. Turns out she's not really a fan. She doesn't NOT like him, its more the way he treats me, she said. 

She told me the fact that he's never introduced me to his family makes her think that he's ashamed of me, and I said , "you know what? That's how it makes me feel too." That was really it. That feeling I've had from the beginning that this is somehow a sham, or that I'm being manipulated to bend to the way he wants things to be. Maybe all of that is just my general mistrust of people, but after almost 3 years, I should trust him, and the bottom line is, I don't. 

My hesitation on ending it permanently is the same as its always been, especially since moving up here. I'm sliding into 52, I live with my mom, and at the moment I'm not even working, AND now to boot I've got to deal with potential back surgery and god knows what else. So yeah, I fear...REALLY fear that if I break it off with him Ill be alone the rest of my life. Its a real, and valid fear. What about the way you feel about him you ask? Well that's difficult too, because I really do care for him. Love him even in some ways, but I default to the thought that we were never meant to be more than friends. 

Our personal relations are just bad. There's no other way to say it, and even after this last attempt in the fall to talk to him about it, and work on it, at the first opportunity it went right back to his old way of doing things, or NOT doing things I should say. 

So on Wednesday, when I texted him asking if he'd made any decisions about coming over he said he was playing by my rules, yet again, putting it off on me, and I snapped. 

Did he just IGNORE the part where I said I was sorry and that I really didn't want to be without him and was leaving it up to him? No, he was just punishing me. I'm sure I did hurt him. I'm sure he is tired of all this, and I am too, but when we did finally talk about my new back issues, he said he would be here for me, and I thought to myself..."you mean like you were when I broke my elbows?" Because he wasn't, at all. Not until it was convenient for him to be here. 

One of the things that happened that Monday night when Anne and Vic were here was me having these thoughts after Vic told us about how when Anne fell at work and she called him he couldn't get there fast enough. Since my accident, I have thought many times about how after I managed to get back to my car, and called him, that I asked him...begged him really...to come help me, and is response was, "I'm an hour away". So in horrible pain, and crying I managed to drive myself home then spent the next 6 hours in the ER with my 82 year old mom, who had absolutely no business being there especially with the Covid risk. Hell, he didn't even call me, or even text me. I had to text him and let him know what was going on. Then the next 2 days were the absolute worst trying to figure out how to even wipe my own ass, but he didn't come until Friday afternoon...just like usual. That was also the weekend that I just cried in frustration because his lazy ass just sat there while I tried to prepare dinner and clean up. 

So when I thought about all this, and the new issues at hand, and the way he was punishing me...kicking me when I am down really is more accurate, I snapped.

Oh I've snapped before, but this time was different. I didn't blame him, I didn't tell him what a jerk he was being. I texted him back and told him he was right, I was the problem, not him. I told him I was sorry that he had wasted all this time with me, and this was all my fault, 100%.  He told me I was being an ass hole and a few other really not nice things. I didn't respond. 2 days later when i was on line playing Diablo, he texted me that he would join me. I simply sent him back the texts he had sent me. His response? "I guess I could have worded that differently." Not Sorry...so basically just a different way of saying Fuck You? No thanks. 

Then next morning I packed up all his things and they are currently residing in my car. I haven't heard from him since that last text and I haven't reached out. Truthfully it hurts my heart to think this is really the end. I care for him like I said, I even have love for him and I honestly cant imagine him out of my life. Hell, I have spent 3 years with the man, but I have to remind myself that its been a very hard 3 years and my life is a mess partially because of it. I'm not blaming him for my messes, I am simply realizing that I have a lot of things to fix within myself, both physical and mental, and I don't have room for it anymore. Its too much. Its taken over and the other things have been sorely neglected. The last 2 weeks without him I have been sad, but I'm almost relieved too. I have only myself to be accountable for, and I have only myself to blame if I fail at what looks' to be a very hard road ahead. 

If I thought for a second that I really could fix this between us Id never stop trying, but its been the same thing over and over and its getting worse instead of better. Meanwhile I'm 3 year older, 25 lbs heavier and facing so much stuff with my body that I cant even get my head around it. If he stayed, he would be here for me, but only on the weekends when its convenient for him. He'd still be living a different life until HE is ready to change that, and Ill just keep going down hill and by the time he decides he done with me...or me with him... Ill just be a shell of a human being. I just CANT.

Now I have to figure out how to tell him, and get his stuff back to him, and NOT to go back on it. I've done this so many times its almost a joke at this point, and I'm sure he will feel the same way too. I wish he would just be the one to do it. Id be more than happy for him to think he's the one that walked away. At least that way it would just be over, and no weak moments I may have in the future would mess it up. Maybe he's as sick of it as I am and it wont be bad after all. I hope so for both our sakes.

I am grateful for the time...the good parts, because there were good parts...that I had with R, but its way past time to be over. I wish we could be friends because I know that will be the worst of it for me. I already feel isolated here and that on top of it will be very difficult indeed, but I have to do this for myself. 

I fear I will be alone forever. I fear that I will deeply regret doing this because what if it really IS ME? What if this whole time its been me that has the relationship issues? I think about that all the time. I have to wonder though, are these thoughts about myself engrained in me because of this relationship and the other one...which for all purposes was very similar. I found out after chasing that one for 4 years that it absolutely was NOT me. I just reminded myself of that and it makes me feel like I'm making the right decision all the more.

 I also think about how this has still not ever been like any "real" relationship I've even seen with other people. 3 years in we are still living separate lives. That's never been what I want, and I truly believe that R would be happy doing this forever, or until his "kids" all leave him and he is finally alone. Ironically, if he told me he wanted to move in tomorrow Id say NO. Why? Because I still feel like I don't know him. How can I when I've been separated from his real, main life? I cant, and I've tried to get this across to him for so long its not even worth repeating. 

So here it is. Dead in the water. Ill have to do something soon, if only to get his crap out of my car because I don't want him or his stuff to ever come into this house again, unless over time we are able to gain a friendship and be OK with just that. I know I can hope for that but I seriously doubt that will happen. Maybe its for the best.