I made a lot of mistakes… the first mistake was letting him hold me. I kept thinking, Please let me be classy about this. I wanted to say goodbye without being bitter and making him feel bad by throwing all his mistakes or my unhappiness in his face. I just wanted to say, Thank you for what you gave me, and I’m sorry that we couldn’t make each other happier. I did say it, and we were borderline retarded about it really, helping each other get over each other almost- he was telling me, “I don’t want you to fall for a shmuck like me again, you deserve better, you better find a really good decent guy next time.” Which made me a little mad actually but I bit my tongue. But things just got complicated when I went over to pack up all my things. We ended up crying, and eventually it almost became as if we were normal & it was all a bad dream. He asked me not to go, and I did end up explaining what I wanted/needed if I were to stay. It was kind of a long list because I ended up pointing out examples of quite a lot of little things (so unnecessary! I really tried to avoid doing that goddammit), but basically everything boiled down to 3 things:
1. I NEVER, EVER want to be made to feel afraid or worried about setting off his temper. Like if he logs on to WoW I don’t want to see his name and instantly tense up all scared that I might be doing something that pisses him off.
2. I want to have some space. I don’t want to feel like it’s my duty to call him every morning, noon, after work, after showers and before bed, and if I happen to forget once it’s fair cause for anger. I don’t want to have to deal with a week of cold silent wrath if I ask to stay home alone one day to do my own thing, even if there’s nothing specific I want to do.
3. I want a little bit of romance. Spontaneous romatic gestures. Maybe there’s some of my insecurity showing in this, because it’s not his fault that I happen to know that he showered his ex with dinner cruises, diamond necklaces, Louis Vuitton bags and Broadway shows. Honestly, I don’t even like any of those things. But the fact that for Valentine’s Day, he lost his temper with me over being on the phone with another friend when he called, & then when I came over he spent the night watching NBA basketball with his little brother while I played Yahoo MahJong solitaire…. I didn’t get so much as, as like, as like WoW in-game bouquet LOL. All I asked for on Valentine’s Day was to have a Lord of the Rings marathon, I went so far as to rent the DVDs. But no, it had to be NBA basketball. Arrrgh. I try to do little nice things for him, like when I browse Amazon I think of him and order little things that catch my eye & have them mailed to his house to surprise him. But he never so much as holds the door open for me or carries the groceries when we go munchies shopping! This would all make me feel bad on its own, but it only makes it SO. MUCH. WORSE!!! when I hear or somehow find out about the way he treated his ex, and the contrast is just SO FUCKING HUGE. And the fact that he’s tried to explain that she was a “trophy girlfriend“, as if that explains everything… well I guess that makes me the fat ugly nobody that you don’t have to worry about treating like she’s something special! Okay. I guess I have a lot of bottled up anger over this. I did NOT say all this crap to him though, I just asked for a little bit of romance, like send me sweet funny little text messages like we did in the beginning instead of angry resentful “Why the fuck is your lunch break pushed back another 15minutes? Why couldn’t you pick up my call?” which is all I’ve been getting for months now. It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy goddammit.
I told him these things because he asked me what it would take to work this out instead of break up. He got so upset though, and it just spiralled out of control. Basically it was like, “You’re asking too much, what the hell are YOU going to give me? You keep talking about how I need to change, what are YOU gonna change?” Am I just being a total girl when I say that I wish he could think of it as, I must do all this if I want to keep her? Instead what he was thinking was, She’s being so demanding yet not giving anything back. I thought about it and really, the way I saw it… I gave this relationship my best & worked hard to meet his demands. Now I’m done with it & I’m going to leave. He’s asking me to stay, so I’m telling him what it’ll take to make me stay. But he’s like, well why’s it all about you and what you want, why don’t we compromise?
So trite and utterly lame. The banality of it all really makes me cringe when I re-read the argument.
Basically I did pack up, and he began crying. When I got out of the car, and oh God it was hard, he kept begging me to stay. And it is really jaw-dropping and twists me the hell up inside to see him like that.
“If you think you can at least try to make the effort to give me the things I asked for, then call me. If not, then goodbye.” This was cutting through like a cold hard bitch through him whispering over & over, “Please don’t go. Please don’t go.”
He called me immediately, which was NOT what I had in mind. I was thinking we could both use some time to think, maybe over the weekend or something. But now it’s all kinds of fucked up! He’s completely lost it. And yet at the same time, through the sobbing and the pleas, he’s not giving an inch and missing the point completely!!! He wanted to see me today, ASAP, immediately, and I said NO, because today’s an extra long day for me at work & I’ll be doing it on 3 hours of sleep after getting off the phone with him, and I’m tired & confused & still have stuff to think about. I’d rather see him tomorrow with a clear head. He said no, you gotta compromise, work with me on this, Must See Today. I told him that this was a clear example of the stuff we need to change if we’re gonna work this out… He wants one thing, I want another. I ALWAYS, ALWAYS give in. This time, PLEASE, just give me my way. “No, don’t be selfish, not right now, I need to see you, I NEED it.” So what else could I say but NO, hung up & shut my phone off.
Woke up this morning to the most horrifying broken sobbing voicemail. And emails, one of them just crazy hysterical… this one came after he gathered some of his bearings today:
Well.. you turned your phone off and you aren’t picking up your other phones. Now for me, I always felt that in order for a couple to break up, it takes 2. As that applies there, I also believe that in order for a couple to work through their problems, especially in cold harsh times like this, that also takes 2. For me, with love comes many sacrifices. With love, I must do everything in my power to fix this situation so that we can quickly find the problem, solve it, and move on. This is probably the worst period that you and I will have shared, and I pray that nothing like this ever happens again.
The problem is, I know you need your time. I know you need a little bit of space, but at times like this, when you tell me that there’s nothing else that you want, but me, and when I tell you that there’s nothing in the world that I cherish more than you, there has to be some sort of compromise. There has to be some give. There has to be just something that I can work with, that we can work with, and more importantly, even though it’s come to this, just a little bit of hope, that this is nothing but a horrible nightmare, and that I can wake up from this soon. Reality is, I got no sleep… I wept, and stayed up, and I hoped that come the morning time, you would be ready to let go of your last stand. When we’re faced with a problem, to me, I would have known and believed that the words you said to me last night truly meant something, because just like me, I wanted you to feel that it was me that you truly wanted.
Your actions to me, showed the complete opposite. I know that you need your space, but at a time like this, I was completely left out in the cold. I know you think you need to be selfish at this time, but in adversity, selfishness is not the path to take. Selflessness because of love would have shown me that even through this, with the word “love”, all that we needed to get past anything is life is each other. I need you and you need me. I just wanted it to be that simple. I need and want you, and you need and want me. I need and want you to the point where I was willing to be cleansed in ways that you wanted. I mean, I had an epiphany when you walked out of my car last night. The question I asked myself was, “Man, you’re willing to die for her, but something that simple, you won’t do? Because she bruised your pride a little? Wake the fuck up!”
You have the understand, I was willing to grovel and beg and get on my knees and do whatever it took to just make you happy again. However, this is something I couldn’t do on my own. It has nothing to do with my pride, but this is something that we both had to do together. I needed you to hold my hand on this and show me that even though it’s just that difficult, we could’ve accomplished anything and everything. That this was nothing but a small hill that we had to climb. Instead, I was left out in the cold dark rain, and I was lost. I still am. I don’t have the strength to be strong for the both of us. I need you.
He’s so goddamn melodramatic, and I know all this tragic overblown lameness can end up just being empty words and the last thing I want is for us to get back together for a while, harbor resentment & grudges, and end up breaking up again waaay more bitterly.
But. I can’t help crying. I know he talks a lot & lies a lot & selling things is his forte, he can spin words like nobody’s business and knows just what to say to manipulate someone’s feelings but most of the time doesn’t mean it…. He’s looked me straight in the eye and lied about big important things before, when I begged him to tell the truth…
But. What the fuck.
What am I doing?
