I have had a weepy few days- why? I'm not sure. At one point even had an online chat with Walrus about my dad. He wasn't being very sympathetic, not unkind, just more practical, but he said he was willing to listen anytime.
The next morning, against my own better judgement, I invited Walrus to coffee. We arranged to meet tomorrow evening.
Then I had a schedule conflict and tried to rearrange things. Felt like a jerk, was all apologetic, confused him with too many options. I think I'll have to make it work at the old time.
What do I want to happen, anyways?
I'm initiating every contact. He seems happy to respond, and is very kind, but doesn't reach out for me.
(He just not that into me? Do I actually have to say that to myself)
I just have to see him. The breakup was done badly, mostly by him, a little bit by me. I just want the ceremonial thank-yous and goodbyes. I think we can be friends, with the passage of time.
Stupid little part of me just wants the old thing back. We can fix it! We can fix it!
I need to remember that someone who was in love with me would not go to a party without telling me where he was. Especially when we were alone together.
And if I was in love with him...I might not be writing this blog!
But oh, stupid part of me is very loud and wants to be his princess again.
Hi Eleanor,
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon your blog while reading some other blogs a few months ago, and I've been following your life story as you've been posting it. I can relate with many aspects of your life, as I too have never had a boyfriend and will be reaching 30 years of age soon.
I believe that fact can potentially lead people like you and I to fall for the wrong people much more quickly than others more expirienced than us. I've been wanting to reach out to you for a while now, as I've read details about how your ex treated you that made me cringe.
I commend you for having love in your heart for a person who has a medical problem, but his medical problem is not the issue at hand here. I will share a few thoughts with you that scream out to me when I read your situation. They will read really harsh and mean, I just want you to know that I'm not attacking you or judging you in any way. I just would like to give you my version of "reality check" to encourage you to keep yourself on the path you've chosen, which is to break up with this guy for good. As I see you a bit hesitant (which I've been told is a normal reaction in a break up), I just want to share my view of it all, from the outside looking in. I am in now way shape or form out to hurt you, and if I do, I sincerely apologize.
Here I go!
ReplyDeleteYou were never his princess. I know for a fact that without you in his life his world will go on. He'll take his meds just fine, he'll brush his teeth, he'll show up for his appts., etc. You are not his nurse, his mother, nor an employee. He will not die without your rides, he will not die without your efforts to take him an extra chair at events, he will not die if you don't lend him your extra mug... His life will go one with out you and he'll live just fine. It really pains me to read your blog and see how blind you are to the fact that this man NEVER appreciated, valued, or sincerely loved you. (I am now starting to see you're opening up your eyes more. What he said was love for you was convenience. Stroke or not, he behaved towards you like a jerk, he used you. Had he truly, deeply, sincerely loved you, he wouldn't have let you go that easily! He would have tried to make things work all those other times you talked to him about different situations that needed change! It almost seems as if he's relieved you're out of his skin, out of his life... We reveal character in a crisis, we show our true, real selves in hard times. The jerkish behavior (I can't call it anything less) this man displayed towards you, how he treated you, only goes to show the kind of character and morals he had BEFORE he had his stroke... I quite a few patients that have had strokes and it is amazing to see how their personalities shine through... Sweet, caring, conscientious, considerate, loving people BEHAVE JUST THE SAME WHEN RECOVERING FROM THEIR STROKE... Even if they have temporal brain damage, they behave only according to how they knew to function before they had the stroke. Even it the stroke does alter a patient's personality, very rarely does it turn a patient into mean, inconsiderate, selfish, lazy people. You were never his princess. He never treated you like one. I don't care how many times he may have called you his princess, he didn't value you enough to treat you like a real princess. Please, open your eyes! You're capable of attaining so much more, you deserve to be treated differently than how your ex treated you. Think about it. I truly am sorry for being so hard on you, but I am just so worried about you as I read your posts and see you bamboozled and confused by this man due to your lack of experience in the romantic department. This was your first boyfriend and you probably thought you should try to make it work in spite of how he treated you... Let him go, he does not deserve you. He is fine today and will still be fine without you. I guarantee you that if you don't contact him in any way shape or form every again from this day forward, you won't be hearing from him either. He has not taken the initiative to call you, and he will not do it in the future. Preserve your given dignity as a woman and lower yourself no further than what you already have. You will find a man who loves you just as you are and will cherish, value, treasure and treat you like you deserve to be treated.
That wasn't easy to read and I have to think about what you said. Right away I wanted to defend Walrus a little, which may be a way of defending myself for taking his crap.
ReplyDeleteI didn't fall for him quickly. I resisted, I doubted, but I went along with it. In a way, I used him. I wanted to be kissed before my 30th birthday and he was there. I tried to make it up to him, I guess, by doing all these things for him. I tried to believe the best in him.
His character has left me confused. He has many good principles, admires integrity, cares about social justice, would always give up his seat on the bus to someone who needed it....he says all the right things, but in the little things he could be thoughtless. I was so disappointed that he let me pay for things, and didn't make paying me back a priority. He wanted to be independent but accepted rides and favours like a mooch. I can't reconcile the two pictures of him.
He wasn't good to me in the end. I thought he was at first- I did feel like a princess for a short time. Last fall, he was very affectionate and supportive, and thanked me all the time. Now I feel used.
He fell in love with me too fast, and that always worried me.
I don't know what kind of person he was before the stroke. From what I understand about brain injuries, emotions can change. There can be anger and depression and impulsiveness.
He seems to be pretty bad at talking about emotions, and he shuts down when an emotional situation arises.
He did say he was deeply ashamed that he had hurt me.
The change from being told you are the love of his life to being let go so easily is very jarring. It's hard not to feel like I've done something wrong. It's not likely I did everything right. I should stop trying to sort out whose fault it was, but I have trouble blaming him for everything, and that only leaves me.
I do see more and more that he wasn't much of a boyfriend. Whether it's because of his brain injury or not, he doesn't have a lot to give to a relationship at this time. I can almost say he was a jerk. I hope he can deal with his baggage and be the person he wants to be again soon.
This is the post which I was most interested in commenting on. Well, not so much the post as something you said in your comment. You said "I should stop trying to sort out whose fault it was, but I have trouble blaming him for everything, and that only leaves me."
ReplyDeleteThis seems to imply that if something goes wrong then somebody must be to blame, that somebody must have done one or more things "wrong". I would suggest that nobody needs to be blamed. You were both trying to make a go of a difficult set of circumstances and it didn't work out.
At the risk of using an overly blunt analogy: if you'd agreed to try to climb Mount Everest together, whose fault would it have been if you hadn't succeeded? Nobody's fault. One might say that it would have been foolhardy to try, but if you both come out alive and relatively unscathed then nobody needs to be blamed for taking a chance.
Your comment partly strikes a chord with me because I had a messy break-up with my first girlfriend and at first I was angry and I wanted to blame her and I was also partly blaming myself. Things got a lot better for me when I learned to let go of that. She had issues, I had issues, we tried something tricky and it didn't work out. Holding onto anger, or wanting her to feel guilty or wanting her to tell me that I'd been a good boyfriend and that she'd made a mistake in losing me, was only making it harder for me to move on.
You were a good girlfriend with good intentions - that is clear from your blog. Whether he tells you that or not is more about him than about you. I don't think you have anything to feel guilty for from what I've read.
I seem to be unable to keep my comments short! Again, you're welcome to let me know if anything I've written could be clarified or leads to any questions.
Matt- my eyes watered as I read your comments. Mount Everest. yes.
ReplyDeleteI know there was a lot stacked against us- that was the first line of an email I wrote to Walrus after the break-up. Even though I knew that, I rehashed every little detail of the entire relationship, looking for things that went 'wrong.' I learned something in doing that, but I shouldn't blame myself for not knowing how to deal with a stroke, depression, a penchant for drinking... as well as all the little things that can cause friction in a relationship. Next time, I'll have more tools to deal with things.
I sooooooo want to be a good girlfriend and I want him to say that. I'm getting over my need for that.
Walrus and I seem to be on good terms so I guess that makes the case that no one did anything really wrong. (Except for the party incident.)