I always joke that I can have a kid, a pet or a plant but not all three because one of them would die (but obviously the odds are stacked against the plant). As it stands, I have a kid and a plant and I often forget to water the plant, even though I have a reminder set in my phone to do so. Luckily, it's bamboo so it lives even when I don't remember to water it. Some living things are more resilient than others, but all of them need care and attention at some point to continue living. Even bamboo will die out if you neglect it too long. Relationships are their own living, breathing thing and, like anything else, require a certain amount of love and care to thrive. If they get neither of those things, they die out. Sure, a neglected relationship may linger and hang on to its last moments of life for awhile but, eventually, it has nothing else to do but die. I used to think I was the most terrible person at relationships, but the BP saga taught me that I'm actually pretty decent at them. At least, compared to her. BP did not seem to grasp the concept that you have to actually be present in a relationship for it to work out. In fact, she was dumbfounded when she went MIA for months and didn't return to the happy homecoming she'd expected from me. As usual, the sky fell on her end and she ran to me and I was there for her, but she dipped right back out of things the minute her life started to improve. I wasn't a priority, I was a last resort. When everything else fell through and no one else wanted to listen to her whine about her bullshit, that's when I was called up to the plate. And not a minute sooner.
A few months before our end, BP went on a two week work trip. She often went away for work, and we usually didn't talk much when she was out of town but we did text and occasionally she'd even get time for a call. How much effort she put into keeping in touch seemed to depend on her mood. If we were in a good place pre-trip, she would call everyday and text a lot. If we were in a not so good place, I'd barely hear from her. We were in a not so good place on this particular trip and for the first three days, I heard little from her. She said those would be the busiest days but that turned out to be wishful thinking. For about half of her two week trip, I heard absolutely nothing from her. Not a single text. I texted everyday in an attempt to keep the connection up in some way, but she rarely responded. When she did, it was all her-centric; my trip has been awful, everything went wrong, I'm exhausted. She'd contact me to bitch about something but never ask how I was and never respond to anything I said. I was annoyed but figured we'd catch up when she got back, as we usually did. Her first day home, she slept all day, which was the norm since she constantly worked herself sick. The next day, I woke up eagerly anticipating we'd hang or at least catch up over the phone. But my hope was short-lived. She didn't text me until almost three in the afternoon, denied she'd been ignoring me and said she did want to catch up. Oh, but she didn't know when that would be because a friend was coming over to hang out and she'd be unavailable all night. So...she's gone for two weeks, she bitches to me about the state of her life during that time, but she's in no rush to speak to or see me once she finally gets back. And supposedly, I was this person who meant the world to her. The following week brought more of this same 'meh' attitude. It was like someone had flipped a switch during her trip. I'd ask to talk and she'd be "busy". That was her go to answer for everything. But after a week of her BS excuses, I got wise. This wasn't being too busy to speak to someone you claim to love and be unable to live without. I've dated people who had much more hectic work schedules than hers and they still found time for me (when I said this, her response was to go on the attack because she claimed I'd said these other women were "better" than her). This was her flat out ignoring me and going on about her life. Even when she had a free spot in her schedule, I was still the last thing on her mind. And it was particularly torturous because she was still on my mind constantly. After a few more weeks of her avoidance, I snapped and sent a series of texts telling her that things were just ridiculous now; we didn't talk, we didn't flirt, we had no kind of interaction resembling any kind of relationship. I broke down and was completely vulnerable, hoping that would trigger something human in her and bring back the person I cared about. No dice. Her only response to all of my texts was, "Is this because you want to go fuck someone else? Go. You're free". It was unbelievable. I knew she could be a bitch but that was an entirely new level of coldness.
After that night, I felt myself begin to completely tune out. By now, it had been a month since her trip and we had not been getting along. She went away for a few days and I really started to move on emotionally. We went another three weeks in this limbo and I found myself more and more angry with her. I didn't see the point in what she had us doing. We obviously were not together, she clearly was done with me, but we weren't broken up. It was like she wanted to keep me on the line so I couldn't find somebody else. I contemplated ending it as I left for a week-long visit home. She also happened to be visiting family that same week and her family is an armful. In the past, I've been on call for when she needed a reprieve from them but I was in no mood this time around. Two days with her mother changed her attitude towards me dramatically. She started texting that she was sorry for taking me for granted and that she now realized what it must be like for me to deal with her since she was seeing the same things I called her out for in her mom (talked over me, exaggerated what I said, was mean, etc). She apologized profusely but, as usual, there was an excuse attached to the end of every apology. She was sorry BUT the reason she disconnected was because I was refusing to fully commit (fully committing being agreeing to get on a marital track. According to her, she didn't actually "have" me until I said I would be open to marrying her). I was not impressed by the apologies and I didn't believe that she had just experienced this big, view-altering change, but agreed to try again (or stick around while she tried since I'd never stopped trying). But I made it clear that I would no longer initiate conversations. If she wanted to talk to me, she could reach out. And, at that time, I almost believed she would change.
Following through with making changes in her life was not something BP had any real concept of. There were literally hundreds of things she'd claim to want to change or actually be changing, but her resolve would last only a few days before she fell off the wagon and made zero effort to get back on. It was almost childlike, the way a kid wants to be an astronaut one week and a doctor the next. She did this same thing on many an occasion, becoming enamored with making one change or another and then just giving up on it days later. To her credit, she began regularly keeping in touch and trying to make things right. I was open to that, but very cautious because I knew change did not come easy to her. She got pissy when I didn't just open up the door, roll out the red carpet and let her back into my life immediately. I told her that process would not be overnight and she claimed she understood that. But when we weren't back to "us" in a few days, she became disinterested again. She actually asked me how long it would take to get back to us and I had no answer. I didn't trust her. I didn't trust that she wouldn't just go MIA again whenever her mood changed. I certainly didn't trust her with my feelings anymore. And as if all of that wasn't enough, she brought a whole host of new issues to the table when she told me she'd taken up smoking. I'd always known she was an occasional smoker, and while I thought it was the stupidest habit a lifelong asthmatic could take up, I didn't have a problem with it so long as she only did it when I was not around, and as long as it wasn't an everyday thing. Once I started to let down my walls a bit was when she decided to tell me it was now an everyday habit, but she was trying to quit. Knowing her track record with committing to life changes, I began to pull away a bit because I knew she wasn't going to quit smoking at all, and the next week or so proved this as I asked just about everyday how quitting was going and she'd change the subject or say, "I only had three today but I needed them". Soon after, she tuned out some more and went back to barely speaking to me. I went out of town again and continued with only talking to her when she reached out to me, which was sparingly. I finally lost it though on a day when she sent me a grand total of 4 texts. It all started three nights prior when we were having an actual conversation and she said she would call me later that night. I waited, but the call never came, yet she was somehow able to text for three hours before passing out in mid-convo. I said something along the lines of how a call would've taken far less time than all the texting and I went to bed. The next day she came at me breathing fire from the start and we spent all day fighting, but again she refused to do anything but text. And this is someone who constantly held me in limbo, refusing to discuss anything via text because she wanted to actually speak, but didn't know when that would be. It was ridiculous. She went MIA for the next seven hours, only to text me at two in the morning to say she wasn't okay and that she'd been drinking too much. I told her to have a great time getting drunk and I went to bed. Then came the 4 text day. She said she was "sorry about everything" and I asked when we could speak. No reply for six hours, until she finally sends a text saying she's been with her mother all day and couldn't talk. By now, neither of us had any idea what was going on in the other's life and I knew that if she was with her mom, I'd never get any of her time anyway. So that was it for me, we had to be done. I told her we were probably done until she could find room in her life for this.
For the next two months, I heard very little from her. She was overseas for most of that time, having been fired from a job in the States because she chose her own ambition and clients over the good of the company. Losing that job left her with very little income since she was down to having only one client who was not yet profitable. I never understood why she made all or nothing decisions like that. She claimed to be such a diplomat and have a handle on her ish but she always, always chose herself over any and everything else in life, whether that was in her career or her love life. You do that for 37 years and eventually you're gonna find yourself alone. And she did. Out of the blue, she texted me to say she'd lost someone in her family and work was a mess and she was lonely and by herself in a foreign country. I'm not a total bastard, so I responded with condolences but made sure it didn't go beyond that. She asked to talk but I also resisted that as best I could. But she continued to text me everyday and seemed to be back to a nicer version of herself, the version I'd known when we first began. After a few weeks, I caved and decided to talk. It cut off abruptly due to connection issues but I really had enjoyed the conversation and asked to speak again. And she agreed...but didn't know when that would be. The next week she flew home and told me she "couldn't wait" to speak to me. But another week went by and I had not heard anything from her. I shot off a message that said I felt used by her, that she ran to me only when it was convenient but could give two fucks the rest of the time, and she definitely did not seem interested in my life at all. She denied it, of course, claiming she turned to me because she wanted to and because she loved me, not because she just needed a sympathetic ear. I didn't believe her, but I didn't continue the conversation we had going either. Once she'd finished venting, she went MIA again and by then I knew what was on the horizon. I cut off that noise and moved on for good, though she still contacts me occasionally. It's funny though, I used to be physically unable to not respond when she sent me a message and now I'm at the other extreme of not really caring when I see her messages.
I saw a quote recently that said once you learn how to be happy, you won't settle for being around anyone who makes you feel less than that. And it's true. I was a bit of a mess during my time with BP and it melded well with her brand of crazy, to the point where we got stuck in this seemingly endless loop of breaking up and making up and arguing. Every conversation, every moment was just a prelude to a fight of some kind. And I accepted all of that because I just didn't have motivation to find something better. It was only as I pulled away from her, or she pulled away from me, rather, that I was able to start getting out of that rut and recommitting myself to my faith and career and being healthy. Once I started on the path to all of that, her drama became such a bore and so unnecessary that I couldn't in good conscience allow it to be a part of my life anymore. For so long, I'd tried to reason with her and talk sense and all she got out of it was made up nonsense and twisted words. What I should've done, and what I do nowadays if I happen to hear from her, is just push it aside and keep going with my own life. I know I was different when she and I first started than I was at the end of it. And I hated that because I changed in very negative ways and was never able to go back to who I was before. But now I'm completely different from who I was while I was with her. I'm in such a great place right now, a place where I actually like who I am and think that, most days, I'm a decent human being. Even just hearing from her reminds me of how messed up I was with her and so it's easy to shut the door on communication. As I've grown out of all she and I used to be, I've been able to see her and the relationship with brand new eyes. Sadly, she looks the same whether I'm looking through my old specs or my new ones. She was narcissistic, self-centered and work-obsessed (though unemployed) when we began, and she's still all of those things today, almost five years later. No growth as a person in five years is pretty dire. I feel sorry for her because I remember thinking that maybe the good parts of each other could rub off and we could be something great one day. But it was never going to work because she's not genuinely interested in changing anything about herself. We all have things we want to change or fix in our lives, and we can make a million excuses to put them off until tomorrow, but eventually you get to a point of where you have to change it so you do. Maybe she's just not to that place yet, I don't know, but it's not a good thing that she hasn't hit that point in 37 years. More likely, I think she just likes who she is and where she's at and all the ish about wanting change is just a smokescreen. She once told me that her favorite thing about herself, and something she was often complimented on, was her ability and willingness to change and improve upon herself. But in our time together, I never saw that. Either she didn't love me enough to try for anything, or she just didn't want to try. I deserved better than that then and I deserve way better than that now. She no longer has the power to leave me behind anymore.
