Sheesh. I really fell off the Journaling/Blog wagon, didn’t I? We’re already on the 4th day of the new year and I’m finally planting my ass in the chair to write. The Struggle Bus has left the station and descended into the Void of Despair.

Last night was rough and I wasn’t in a good mental/emotional space to begin with. I “woke up on the wrong side of the bed” and couldn’t shake it. Quiet and grumpy, I played Enshrouded for several hours before I realized I needed food, but only after The Boyfriend mentioned that we needed to go pick up our grocery order. We got Mod pizza (my current favorite) on the way home and started watching Vikings (it’s meh, so far)… basically just binging that until check-in. Well… I say that, but… seems I watch whatever is on while he plays on his phone and doesn’t seem very engaged.

Anyway, we had a normal-ish check-in and got a question card from the Know Thyself box (suggested by my women’s coach). We’ve been doing this recently so that we can add some in-depth conversation to our relatively boring and uneventful check-ins. This time, the question was, “What role does love and affection play in your life?” <insert ginormous sigh of annoyance and trepidation>

Well, fuck…

Ok, ok, let’s slow this down a minute and make an observation first. The Boyfriend has answered some of these in a way that doesn’t include me at all. What I mean by that: when asked a question about something like… “What is your idea of a perfect day” – his answer was “spending time with friends and good food” with not a whiff of me in there at all. The same goes for last night’s question, something along the lines of “love my friends” and “don’t show much affection” (which, bc I asked why, is due to fear of rejection?!).

As for my answer… in a nutshell: I don’t show as much affection because of rejection, I don’t get the affection from him that I need, and I finally admitted that I don’t love him as much as I used to. And I cried, of course, because it really hurts to remember how I gave so much love to him in the beginning, only to have the bottom drop out from under me in less than 3 months. There was no gradual decline or phase that passed… I was completely dropped into a vast pit of rejection, neglect, and outright chaotic confusion (and so many arguments). I know now what happened and why, but that doesn’t change how utterly he shattered my heart and destroyed what little hope I had that I’d finally found someone worth fighting for.

I asked him to tell me what he means when he says he loves me. I needed to know. It took him forever to tell me he was trying to think about how to answer. I asked if he was afraid of rejection, he said he didn’t think so. I asked if he was afraid it would hurt me. After a pause, he said, “probably.”

And the final answer was something like: “When I say I love you, it means that I want a unique, one-of-a-kind companionship.” (not the exact phrasing, but my brain sucks)

😑

Ambiguous and non-committal, in my opinion (which is obviously biased). To me, that meant “really good friends that live together.” And I told him as much. He told me that it means that he chooses me over everyone else in his life. All I could do was nod and say, “Okay.” I had to use the bathroom (i.e. cry harder without the uncomfortable silence and him sitting like a stone), but when I came back, I told him that I need more details to understand what he really means, because I didn’t want to keep holding on to a hope that will be crushed later because I misunderstood what he meant. He told me that he didn’t really know what “romantic love” meant to him.

At this point, I gave up trying. I realized that I was holding an expectation that he couldn’t fulfill. I cried more and thought about how much the addiction has stolen from him, and as a consequence, from me. He did scoot over on the couch and hold me, which made me cry harder.

I decided to give him an escape in the form of, “You should get your laundry.” He didn’t hesitate and took the opportunity. I made a solid attempt not to drown in my misery and distract myself with Match Factory on my phone. He did his thing, got the cats swapped, and came back to sit on the couch for some weird reason. I asked if it was for more hugging, he said yes (riiiiight…), so I took the answer at face value and leaned in. He got up shortly after, kissed me and told me he loved me, and went to bed. I stayed for a little while with Batman and Mars, until I finally went to bed myself. Played on my phone for a whole hour longer before the muscle relaxer I took kicked me in the shins and I passed out.

And so… here I am, sunken into my Void and wallowing in self-pity, once again, while he seems to be in a really great mood, once again. Funny how that works, ya know? Guys can let shit go so easily and move on, but women? We feel that shit deeply and it grips us until our nervous system feels it is necessary and finally does a reset. It’s so fucking unfair.

Aaaanyhoozle… guess I’m gonna distract myself with Enshrouded now. Tomorrow is The Son’s 20th birthday (omg, I’m old) and Wednesday begins The Boyfriend’s PTO for the end of their fiscal year… so I may or may not be able to blog in the coming weeks. I’m just not as motivated as I used to be, me thinks. We shall see.