Saturday night is date night. Last Saturday, lying in bed, before things got sexy, I brought up something difficult that I wanted to talk about. It was so difficult that it took me a long time to even say what it was, which of course meant a very tense few minutes of waiting on Joscelin’s part (during which he stayed very calm and patient rather than being like “Out with it, woman! I can’t take this!”).
I’m not sure how I actually said it, but the words I thought of and mostly rejected were along these lines
- I’m not as in love with you anymore.
- Six months ago, I was ready to get engaged, and now I’m not sure.
- Sometimes I think I’d be partly relieved if we broke up.
There are (at least) two forces at play here, and I’m not sure what the balance is between them. On the one hand, this may be the normal cooling-off of the initial sparkle of the relationship, and on the other hand, it might be that I’m detaching myself emotionally.
Both can be good and bad. It’s natural that the sparkly part of a relationship doesn’t last forever, so if that’s what’s going on, then I guess we get to find out whether our relationship still works, and thus can work long-term, or whether it only works with that initial intensity. And emotional detachment could be basically healthy (growing a spine, being more self-confident) or a response to something being wrong.
As far as the loss of sparkle goes, I don’t recall having gotten to this type of point in previous relationships. (I haven’t had a huge number of long-term relationships – maybe three if we count generously.) Instead I have usually reached a point of realizing that we will, in fact, break up at some point, even if I’m not at that point yet. Certain problems begin to reveal themselves as intractable. There are issues it is impossible to imagine even a productive conversation about.
None of that is true with Joscelin. I do not feel that breaking up is desirable or inevitable. We are fucking kick-ass at discussing things honestly and fairly. Certainly the relationship isn’t perfect, but I don’t see intractable problems of any appreciable size.
It does worry me a bit that I feel (at times) like breaking up would be partly a relief. To be fair, I haven’t felt it often, but I sometimes feel it for a few days in a row. Is that a terrible sign, or just a natural way to feel when you live with another human being with all of their…needs…and ways?
On the emotional detachment side, it occurs to me that this change in my feelings could be my way of coping with the fact that he needs more space than I could easily give him. I’ve changed inside so that he can have more space. Clearly that could be entirely healthy – it’s certainly necessary – but if I’m detaching out of hurt rather than out of confident independence, that could be bad. I can feel it both ways inside, so I’m not sure which is more true.
I have had some enlightenment come my way. I have been, in the past, way too sensitive when Jos has discussed problems in the relationship with me. (As he said a month or two ago, it was as if everything he said to me went through either the acceptance slot or the rejection slot.) I’ve tended to let a lot of my feelings be about whether he accepted or rejected me, rather than having my own stable idea of myself as a person independent of his feelings or judgment. And that is something I have felt change a lot recently. Several times lately, he has brought up issues that would have freaked me out in the past, and I’ve actually felt that he was talking about himself and not me, and his own problems and not mine, and I’ve been able to listen and respond calmly, and not just by faking it.
And I feel a little weird saying this, but I’ve also been reading Carolyn Hax (an advice columnist) lately and kind of absorbing some of her perspective, and it’s made me realize that the furtherance of the relationship isn’t up to him to decide, but is equally up to me. And that I will be fine with or without him.
Joscelin was (surprisingly, yet not at all surprisingly) completely calm and cool with hearing all of this, and, as usual, was somewhat relieved when I stated feelings that match his own private feelings (like sometimes wanting to just be alone). One of his fears in the relationship, right from the start, has always been that he is somehow misleading me about his feelings.
“He’s afraid he’s misleading me about his feelings” sounds rather dire, but I think in his case it’s just an excess of conscience or something. And I think it arises because he feels his own negative feelings (“god, won’t she ever shut up, I just want to play minesweeper in peace”) but can’t feel mine, and since I don’t usually express them (any more than he does), he feels there is more imbalance than there really is.
After the conversation I find myself liking and loving him more than ever. I was certainly reminded of how phenomenal he is, and of the very strong and good things about our relationship. And we had some good sex as well. So…well, we’ll see, won’t we?
6 responses so far ↓
thumper // 9 June 2009 at 6:23 pm
I have not met you in person (yet), so of course my take on this could be total bullshit…
No relationship is perfect. None. Not one. (You know that already.) Having someone you can talk to honestly and openly is a great thing. Having someone you can talk to openly and honestly while having great sex is a fucking great thing.
Living with someone is hard, even (if not more so) if you’re not romantically involved. Feeling that a break-up would be a relief is WAY different than wanting to break up. The former possibly suggests a fear of commitment while the latter suggests…well, that you should break up. You’re not feeling that, so I wouldn’t sweat it.
Again, I DO NOT KNOW EITHER OF YOU, so tell me I’m full of shit if I am, but…
Jos sounds like a challenging person to live with. You may be, too, but I mostly get your perspective which, to me, makes him sound challenging. Some people are worth the challenge. Only you can determine that for yourself, but at the end of the day you also need to feel that he’s putting as much into the relationship as you are. If you feel as though he’s not willing to adapt as much as you are, then that’s a potential area for strife later on.
The whole Dom/sub thing is an especially interesting overlay to all this, even more so since you’re the usual top. I am totally unqualified to speak to this aspect, but interesting it is.
Exactly. You’re fine.
My favorite saying with regard to relationships is Dan Savage’s. Something to the effect that every relationship you ever have will end until one doesn’t. It’s so simple and it’s so true.
devastatingyet // 9 June 2009 at 6:36 pm
Thanks, Thumper. I think you’re mostly right as far as I can tell being trapped inside of my own perspective.
Jos is a bit hard to live with, I think. Both of us are slobs, and both of us are cranky bastards some of the time. He needs more space and has more trouble regulating his sleep and food intake so that he doesn’t crash, etc. I am…clingy (though not possessive).
I do think that he puts a lot of work into the relationship and into adapting to me, though some of it is invisible to me.
sallo // 10 June 2009 at 8:43 am
One thing that occurs to me with the “I haven’t been like this in previous relationships” observation is: hasn’t it been a really long time since you’ve been in a (serious) relationship? If so, it’s hard to say how much of this is about your specific relationship with Jos and how much is the way you are now.
The idea that you would be “partly relieved” to break up doesn’t sound very doomsday to me. Most independent people (esp. who have had years of not being in a relationship, which is hard work and full of small annoyances that you don’t have to deal with when you’re alone) would feel relieved to not have to deal with the inevitable crap of another person with needs and priorities. If anything, I think it’s a good sign that you can recognize this…esp. since Jos does have things that make him really hard to deal with – for instance, I have the blood sugar crash problem myself and I know how freaking annoying it can be for other people to deal with that. I can only imagine what it would be like to add to that a desire to play Minesweeper ;)
A potential danger is if you start overly privileging fleeting feelings of “not being in love with” Jos or finding him annoying or whatever as being the “fundamental truth” of your relationship if they are simply normal feelings that you have sometimes have but that are outweighed by positive feelings at other times. It doesn’t seem like you’re doing this, though.
FWIW, nothing here sounds all that atypical of a normal, happily functioning relationship that exists outside of a romance novel except for your ability to discuss it with your partner and realize you’re not the only one who has these feelings. Of course, these feelings could exist in a bad relationship, too. I guess I’m saying that I’m not sure how diagnostic they are of the viability of the relationship.
sera // 11 June 2009 at 4:40 pm
Hey there . . .
Carolyn Hax rocks. Whenever I talk to my mom, one of us will at some point in the conversation say, “Did you read what Carolyn Hax said about . . . “?
You guys sound good to me. Being able to talk to the person about stuff is so hugely important that it kind of dwarfs anything else.
But so yeah. You’ll see. :)
lalouve // 14 June 2009 at 1:00 pm
Everyone, I think, occasionally feels it would be a relief to break up. That doesn’t mean it would be, or that you really want to – it means that sometimes dealing with other people is difficult.
Elle // 22 June 2009 at 6:16 pm
I think you’ve got something here: “On the emotional detachment side, it occurs to me that this change in my feelings could be my way of coping with the fact that he needs more space than I could easily give him.”
I’m also insecure, and my boyfriend is also very secure and sometimes (often) resentful of my not *knowing* that he loves me, and not seeing all the signs, the little things he does…
Sometimes I feel myself getting more detached as a way to cope with this insecurity. It’s just too hard to not feel sure, to not feel loved (when it’s just in my head), and not be able to talk with him about it because it annoys him, which just hurts me and makes me feel more insecure… I can’t get reassurance from him. Not in the way that *I* would want it, anyway. The way my boy sees it is, he does all these things for me, there are all these little gestures, there’s plenty of proof so why should he do it exactly my way, when I don’t see it when he does it his way? I guess he’s right. I don’t know. But when it gets hard I detach. And then later things come back…
I kinda think you’re going through a phase, and I wouldn’t sweat it :)