Written on 1/6/2017
For many, 2016 was not a very good year. When I look back at what I had hoped and planned for myself for the year there were many things that I was incredibly grateful for, successful at and am blessed to have been a part of.
Last year I set one new years resolution; to embrace running. After logging over 300 miles and spending god knows how much money in fun workout/running gear I think I was successful in attaining this resolution. I intend to continue this trend for 2017.
REplay, a 28' Sea Ray Sundancer came into my and my SO's life this summer and even though we didn't spend as much time as we wanted on it, we did create some memorable moments for us and the kids.
I was invited to join my SO's family on a long weekend getaway over the same weekend as our 1 year dating anniversary. I and my son were also invited to another family vacation to Disney with all the kids the following year.
There were a couple of challenges and some down times that I'm still struggling to overcome. I'm currently processing this emotional baggage and trying to work through it. Unfortunately, the best way I know to help myself release toxic thinking is to write it out in it's raw emotional form from my perspective. It will read immature, dramatic and reeks of some one who likes to bask in their own misery, but letting it out raw allows me to accept what happened, feel it's impact on me and then decide how best to move forward. Please indulge me.
Throughout 2016, I saw my SO's and my relationship getting stronger and stronger and I was convinced he felt the same way about me as I did him. We declared our love to one another often and made comments to each other that triggered thoughts in my head of getting engaged, moving in together and starting down the journey of our lives together! My SO would say things like I don't ever want you to leave, or about his new home being where he sees me someday living, and also making comments about whether or not I like what he'd picked out or if I had thoughts on decorating because he would want me to feel like it's my home too. He would send me texts at 11:11 week after week, month after month asking me to make a wish. Oh and I did make those wishes at 11:11, on shooting stars, and on stray eyelashes. He would want to know what it was, and I always told him without divulging any details, it was the same wish every time. He had to know what it was, right? I pushed the conversation about living together trying to get an understanding of when he saw this happening because of all the planning that would need to happen with schools and my dad's care. I pushed too hard in retrospect. He sort of agreed that we would try to get moved in by the next summer. I still don't know if he even really wanted that or not.
He once asked me just as I was dozing off to sleep if he were to ask me to marry him, what would I say? So my expectations were set and my wishes were that he would ask me to marry him before the end of the year. It seemed like it was going to happen, and soon. Especially since he basically asked informally which I took as a signal he was ensuring it wouldn't be a no when he did it for real. I actually thought he would ask me on our anniversary trip to Florida, but it never happened. I became distraught.
I could continue to go deeper into all the nuances of why I felt what I felt and anticipated what I did, and when he began to say things that contradicted my reality, saying things like "what if after moving in things don't work out?", how that then made me feel. But the long and short of it was, "I'm not ready to be engaged" he said via text a couple weeks after we came back from Florida. He's not ready to be committed to me as I am to him. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I was heart broken. I felt tremendously mislead and made a fool. Somehow, I buried my disappointment and we got past it.
Fast forward to my scheduled surgery on December 12th. This was another touchy situation, and yes, this is going to be one huge venting session. I've got to find a way to let this all go so I can move on. In fact, while I was at my appointment in Dartmouth he and I were bickering via text and I recall muttering the words, "we aren't going to make it through this."
This particular surgery has a tough recovery period. You cannot lift anything heavier that a gallon of milk for roughly 4-6 weeks. My SO made sure I was aware that the timing of this surgery would be prohibitive of him helping me much. This statement alone made me sad. I don't like to be reminded of how little support I have in my life, it makes me feel sorry for myself. Given the logistics of our relationship and our proximity to each other, I didn't think the time of year made that much of a difference. It would be hard to help no matter what time of year it was, and so even with this understanding, I still figured he would be a little more present than what he ended up being. Granted my surgery took 3 hours longer than expected, he spent all of 15 minutes with me after I was out of surgery and nearly ran away to go to his daughters basketball game. He likes to remind me that I told him to go. What he doesn't know is that I would rather have people perceive me as not needing support in a vulnerable situation, than wanting it and not getting it. (This is why I told you to go. You were going to go anyway, I just made it easier for you and I saved face hiding my shame in front of strangers.)
He came back to visit me for 15 minutes with his kids at the hospital. He picked me up when I was discharged in the late afternoon of the 4th day and drove me home during a snow storm in my car and left almost immediately afterward as his dad was waiting in my driveway to take him back to get to another basketball game. This was another set of events that I couldn't help but feel bad about and couldn't hide my feelings. Another stressful discussion ensued and I ended up apologizing for expecting more than he could offer. I guess I figured he would see how much I needed him and he would make sacrifices. He apologized that I felt the way I did. For the record, I hate non-apologies like that. Oddly enough, I'm guessing the same time I muttered my "we aren't going
to make it through this", he told me he knew I was going to be mad if I
didn't see him every day.
One of the items he posted on what how significant it was to ask for his mom's help to watch his kids so that he could be there when I got out of surgery and also to pick me up when I was discharged. What I don't understand is how 1 week later, it wasn't a big deal at all for him to ask her again so he could go Christmas shopping with his cousin all night. By now, my sense of feeling like an important part of his life has diminished to the lowest level I have experienced with him or anyone else I've ever said I love you to. Oh but wait, he wanted to stop in for a bit with his cousin to help us with dinner, yay! :-/. There is one thing worse than feeling unimportant to your boyfriend; feeling like a charity stop en-route of his priority mission. No thanks. I declined. I also declined his after thought invite to dinner with them or subsequent invite out shopping more after he purchased my gift, which evidently his cousin had more to do with choosing than he did.
So in retrospect, there were some really great moments, but late summer into fall through the end of the year has been a real struggle for me. I opened my Jar of Happy Moments 2016 and you could see the giddy momentum sliding away as the dates on my entries trailed off after late May. It was a tearful read through and I'm glad it was done privately so no one could see the evidence of my anguish. My expectations were so way off it's embarrassing. I have heard him reaffirm that he is as committed, and that he does plan to marry me, he sees it happening in the "very near future", but I just don't see any actions matching those words. In fact it's those same words spoken in the first part of the year that created my false expectations. Not only that, it seems he is getting involved in situations that will only prolong not being ready. So lesson learned from 2016? I am done wishing. I am done allowing myself to become hopeful or read into his words or lack of words or most suitably, lack of actions. Just writing this down creates a heaviness in my heart, sickness in the pit of my stomach, a tightening in my throat and a sting in my eyes. 2017 is a return to a previous resolution from the early post divorce years. I am letting go of wanting to get married. If I allow myself to want it and it doesn't happen, it's the heartbreak I told him I wanted to avoid when we first met. It happened anyway. No doubt this shift is cowardly, but I cannot make anybody feel anything they don't, do anything they aren't ready to do, so I must protect myself. Feeling miserable and unimportant is unhealthy and affects my life in more ways than just the relationship with my boyfriend. I'm worth more than this is making me feel. I deserve to be important to someone in the same way they are important to me. It's time to align my expectations with his or move on.
