I'm tired. Of being pissed off all the time. Of being reeled in when she needs someone to be there. Of being thrown back out when she doesn't. I'm tired of making myself available to talk whenever she needs, but not having the same courtesy extended in my time of need. I'm tired of waiting on a text or a call or a five minute window where I fit into someone's schedule. I understand becoming all-consumed with a project or with work because I do it too, but I can always make time to talk to the people I love. Because you don't FIND time when someone you love needs to talk, you MAKE time. And I'm beginning to see why she and her ex fought so much about her work. She's only worked short stretches since I've known her and when she does, it's like we're on hold. She works all day (which I get obviously), then has to "network" with everyone she just spent all day working with. Every night. If I were in the fucking emergency room and she were on a job, she'd have to try and find time in her schedule to text and see if I was alive. And I'm not okay with that.
I'm not okay with having to hold my tongue all the time. There's a point in a relationship where you lower the walls and open up and a kind of safety has to precede that. And it did for me before I opened up. And now it's like the door has slammed shut and I no longer have any sense of safety. And I have said as much. But she won't let me go. She'll bait the hook just enough, revert back to the person I used to feel so much for, and I bite every time. Whether out of loneliness or weakness or...I don't know what. She has this way of bringing me to my knees even when my mind is made up to leave. I'll do something I know she can't overlook and we'll go to verbal blows about it and, in those angry moments, I will be stern and totally committed to being out the door. But when the dust settles I always seem to be the one begging, completely unable to walk away. Like a fucking hostage.
I couldn't understand why I fell into this pattern for the longest time. Then it hit me. I've done this dance before. With both my first girlfriend and the mother of my child. The on and off, the nasty arguments, the inevitable make-up hours later. It's not new to me at all. But this time is different. One of the consequences of opening up to people is that your vulnerability and your secrets (if you have any) give them ammo when you fight. Everybody has blurted out something extremely personal or hurtful in the heat of the moment. But to methodically and deliberately do that every time you fight is just cruel. Just because you know where you can land the punches, it doesn't mean you should throw them. With love comes a certain amount of restraint. my first girlfriend and my ex both had the ammo and the ability to land punches. But they never threw them. At some point, love overpowered being upset or hurt and they walked away. Not her. She throws them every damn time. It may only be one or two but she makes them count. Then apologizes when the smoke clears. Or at least she used to. "I'm sorry, I was upset" has been replaced by, "Well you deserved it". And as the fights became nastier and the apologies slowly went away, I found myself becoming more and more apathetic. To the point where I didn't even miss the contact when she started a job and went MIA. Our incessant texts and calls, which had once been like air to me, dried up and I really could've given a fuck.
I sense she's also at the end of her rope (whatever the reason), which is why I don't understand four days of little contact; not 30 seconds to send a text or 2 minutes to make a call; and then asking when in the next two days I'm taking her out. Oh and to add to that, 80% of the texts she did send included the words, "I'm so exhausted", yet a few hours later she would be out at long ass dinners, supposedly for work. Cuz apparently they were holding a gun to her head to do that or something. You're so tired that you can't call someone you say you love, but not too tired to go out to an hours long dinner with work acquaintances? It's not like this is your career, it's just a side gig. Is missing just one of those outing really going to derail your professional life? You've been working twelve hour days for days on end, I highly doubt they're going to judge you too harshly for needing to turn in early and catch up on your own personal life. I'm so sick of hearing about people "making" her do shit. "My friends made me take shots." "These people are making me go to dinner." You are a grown ass human being. No one can make you do anything.
Of course when I finally voice my feelings on everything going on, it's turned around and made my fault. "I'm not a mindreader, I didn't know you needed to talk." And my personal favorite, "I'm not doing this with you". Because my voicing my feelings must mean I'm trying to pick a fight. Which is why I don't voice my feelings much anymore. Whenever I do, it's just taken as me being hostile and I'm treated like a damn child. Then she says something about how I can't handle her working and that she's lost a relationship previously because she worked too much. And that this is why she got to where she was in her career, because she devotes all of herself to it and is on call 24/7. And how this is just how she gets when she works and I need to adjust to it. My ass. I'm not playing second fiddle to someone's job (and it's not even her career, it's a for now kinda gig). I was all-consumed with my career throughout my 20's until I realized there's much more to life than that. If I lose a project, it's not the end of the world. As the saying goes, never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. If you think you are able to balance life and work, and we're all able, it's just a matter of wanting to and committing to doing it, then show me. If you get so wrapped up in work that you can't make a life outside of it, then that's your choice too. Have fun with your money and your drunk ass friends, all going out and partying like you're college kids when you're really all pushing 40.
These are also the kind of things that have always given me pause about this "relationship". She talks about kids and a life together all the time. But, in all honesty, I think her ego is too big to be a parent. Kids take you down a notch for sure but I don't think she gets that. She talks about nannies and going away for a month while my mom watches the kids. I don't want that. Even if I were a millionaire, I wouldn't want a nanny raising my kids. And you can't work your life away and have a kid (you can but the results are never good). I've always said I'd be more than willing to be a stay-at-home dad if I were fortunate enough to be, but I'm not going to stay home with the kids while your work people are "making" you go out for drinks. And I'm definitely not explaining to those kids why you're never around. Nor am I explaining to you twenty years down the line why your kids don't call you or feel a bond with you.
All of that would have been way in the future obviously but my mind would wander there on occasion. In hindsight, I find it quite telling that we never took the step of her meeting my kid because I never felt comfortable with it. Something always held me back and I think it was actually my better judgement (yeah, every now and again I listen to that dude). Something in me knew this wasn't "it". Hell, something in me is surprised it has lasted this long. But true colors always shine through. If I tell you my spleen is going to be removed in a matter of weeks and I'm freaked the fuck out and you tell me you'll clear your schedule and be there for all of it, I want to believe you. I want to believe that I'm that important to somebody that they will rearrange their life to be there for me when I'm sick. But I don't. And my suspicion proves well-founded when I literally BEG you to talk me through it and you don't because you have somewhere else to be. I felt myself completely disengage when a few hours later you ask if I'm okay and I say no and that I've been worried and scared since we hung up and your reply is, "Ok. Not sure what you wanted me to do about it". Do you have any idea how fucking cold that sounds to someone having health issues? It's like fucking Jekyll and Hyde. And I truly don't care anymore. If you no longer need me to serve whatever purpose I once did because you're back in the workforce now, then just let me go. If you've reached your limit and can no longer tolerate making time for my unimportant little life, then don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm already tired all the time because of my anemia, and that's only going to get worse after the surgery (the exhaustion, not the anemia we hope). I don't need someone in my life that can only be there for me when they can fit it into their schedule. I don't need someone who is able to profess their love to me in one breath, and say something that makes me feel awful in the next. The euphoric feeling I used to get with her has long since vanished and I used to think it was my fault. I'm too fickle, too quick to bore. But I'm not doing that anymore. I'm so tired of being tired. I'm done.
