So...she and I finally had that grown up, non-shouting talk we've been waiting for. I had been thinking it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, until we got to the end. I decided to tread very lightly after what happened last night. I used to be 100% sure she wouldn't try anything like that but now I'm not so sure and I figure better to be safe than sorry. Unfortunately, being safe forced me into being not completely truthful. I don't like that but I guess it is what it is. She was in tears from the beginning and kind of already knew we would not get past this the way we had everything else. Surprisingly, she didn't try to spin it at all. She seemed genuinely apologetic about having hurt me. She kept saying over and over that she didn't want this to be the end and did ask a few times what we do now and how to fix it. But I told her I honestly don't know. She apologized profusely for yesterday and I appreciated the apologies, they were all actually sincere. It was nice to get an apology without, 'but remember when you did this to me' attached to the end. Then she began to talk about how she didn't think she would survive us ending and how nothing has affected her the way yesterday did when I wasn't speaking to her. And I know she would, eventually, get over us but I also know what she means when she says she can't live without me. Before us she had to fix everybody's problems and go up against her family by herself, but now she has an ally. If I'm no longer there, she's back to one against two (her mom and brother) and she has no getaway from their drama. I'd like to think that's only part of the reason she says she can't be without me and the majority of her reason is because she cares so much, but who knows at this point.
We got into talking a bit like we used to, although I still had my defenses up majorly. I know she was trying to pull us back to the good times and move us away from the current situation but I'm so tired of the way we sweep things under the rug. We go out at it, then come down and push aside whatever the issue is in order to get back to the good place. Nothing gets solved and the issue just rears its ugly head at some other time and we fight about it all over again. I softened just a little and she saw the door cracked ever so slightly and tried to pry it open by telling me she'd be by herself all next week working a convention and didn't know how not to talk to me. I got sucked into those old feelings for a minute, but settled on telling her she could text me if she needed me. I said nothing about replying to those texts and honestly I'm not sure if I will. I told her we need a detox from this situation. I felt like I had no idea how she would react or what she would do if I officially ended things so I left us a step away from that. She asked me if I hated her for what had happened and I told her I don't hate anybody and that I forgave her for it, but I'm not over it. Not by a longshot. She said she understood that and she understood we needed some time, that she wanted me to do whatever I needed to in order to try and save this. It actually looked as though we'd emerge from this in at least semi-separate lives.
Although I knew she would probably text me next week, it seemed as though the worst of it was over. Then she says she wants to tell me something and she doesn't want me to get upset, but quickly adds that it's nothing to get upset about. That last part almost always means she knows what she's going to say will make me mad but that it shouldn't because she thinks it's not a big deal, so I braced myself. That ex who gave her the bracelet she may or may not have continued to wear, the same ex who friend dumped her at midnight on one of the most depressing days of her life, wants to meet with her tomorrow. Oh yeah, and she'd already committed to seeing him. So this guy disregards your feelings and disrespects everything you shared and just cuts you out of his life, leaving you in tears about the whole thing, but you agreed to give him an hour of your life to explain himself now? Nevermind the turmoil he's caused between the two of us, the idea of her doing that after the way he dumped her is just ridiculous. Granted, we deal with things quite differently. If someone did that to me, they'd never hear another word from me, let alone get any of my time. Eventually she changed her tune to say she wasn't going to meet with him and told him he could call her with anything he had left to say. The convo took another turn after that and we, again, got to talking like we usually do. She's off to Vegas next week for her convention and talked about how she'd be running the thing by herself and she mentioned, again, how she didn't know how she wouldn't text me. I said maybe (and I really emphasized the maybe part) I would check in with her mid-week just to see how it was going. I figured by then I would know whether we were officially over or if there was anything worth salvaging. A few months ago we were celebrating a kind of significant anniversary and she was out of town on the actual day of it. I had arranged to have some gifts sent to her since I was going to be out of town when she got back but she said she'd rather wait til we were together (shockingly, a friend of hers was with her on that trip so I'm guessing that's why she chose to wait). I hadn't purchased anything yet and it turned out to be a good thing that I hadn't because I ended up having to help out a family member with a money issue. Now that she's going to be alone, she hinted that she'd like me to send her something now and my first thought was, 'Are you serious?'. You put me through the ringer for a week, say completely inappropriate things to me yesterday, threaten to take sleeping pills last night and now you're asking me to send you presents? I flat out said no and the tone I said it in must have told her how annoyed I was at the suggestion because she dropped it. Then she asked about who was around yesterday when we talked and whether they heard me get so upset. I'd deliberately called her when no one was home but apparently my brother-in-law came in on the middle of the convo. He was two floors below me and still heard me get loud and hang up. She asked if I'd talked to him about what happened and I was very vague but said we'd talked some. She asked if he hated her and I was a little taken aback. I mean, no one in my life particularly cares for her but I was puzzled as to why that was on her mind at that moment. So I asked and she said that if she someday meets any of my family, she doesn't want them to have preconceived notions about her. It's a little late for that. But I told her not to worry about it and she let it go. We hung up with the understanding that we're not talking again anytime soon but that I've not yet fully processed how I feel about all this and may need to get some things off my chest at a later date.
Today's convo reminded me of so many things. It reminded me of the good times but I never let myself forget the bad and especially the last few days. It reminded me that her view of things is that it's best to patch them up ASAP, regardless of whether or not they actually get fixed (and they usually don't). But I don't do patch jobs, I need things to be actually fixed, even if it means hashing it out for hours to get there. Even with us hanging by a thread, she talked about her rent situation and how she might be moving soon and how she's not doing well at all financially. And let's not forget asking for presents and asking what people she doesn't even know think of her. I kind of get why she said some of the things she did, why she tried to talk as we normally do, because that's just the way it's been with us. But it's interesting to me that even with things as they are, she's concerned about what people think. Maybe it's just her personality though, she's always put so much focus on how others perceive her, whereas I don't care. I've told her a handful of times I don't care that her friends don't like me and I won't go out of my way to make them like me. They either do or they don't, they think I'm good for you or they don't. But it's like she so needs the approval of everyone in my life. I don't get it.
