Dear Anita,

I apologize for my later response, my trip to see my partners family was consuming in many ways and I am just now reading this response. The following day him and I stayed at an aribnb together for a friends wedding (the main reason we went on the trip) and I just wanted to do my best to be present and not make the drive about me, which I inevitably would have done if I saw a response from you, I would have needed to express it to him, but I did not want to overwhelm him with my feelings.

I am now reading your response.

Wow your view of what happened is very perceptive and I appreciate it so much. I now wish I had read it before so I could have better seen the hurt n. I completely blamed myself for feeling disconnected. I thought perhaps his parents relationship scared me and made me hyper aware of any sort of disconnect on his end, which it probably did which exacerbated my feelings when he disconnected from me. When I feel disconnected from him I tend to think something is either wrong with me or the relationship, but if the disconnect is happening from his end, how to I detect and remedy this?

This explains why when we left to go to our airbnb, after a bit of disconnect remaining between us on the drive over, as soon as we got to the cabin, and I mean AS SOON AS we got there, I felt more connected to him than ever. We had such a bonding moment where I believe we both felt very safe. We cuddled on the couch, then I gave him a haircut for the wedding and we got ready together. We again were connected the next morning and through our whole drive home, even at his parents house, but then after dinner had another disconnect (I will share in the paragraph after next)

There was however another issue I had, it wasn’t between US it was, I am pretty sure, between seaturtle and hatchling.. While we were getting ready for the wedding, I tried on the dresses I brought. I couldn’t afford a new one and my only option were a couple in my closet I hadn’t worn before or in a long time. I tried on all three and did not feel confident. I thought about how I would be compared with the other women there .. I am not proud of this and new it was not a helpful thought but I felt it very deeply. I then also forgot my regular makeup essentials. After this final straw I broke down into tears and thought I couldn’t go. I had thoughts like “N will be attracted to another girl and I won’t compare,” “His friends won’t think I am good enough looking for him.” I should mention, this was a wedding for one of his highschool friends and were all going to be people from his past I had never met. I was actually terrified on the inside to run into an ex girlfriend of his or someone he had a crush on. My head spun with thoughts of comparison with those girls as well and for some reason, hatchling thought she would literally just die if there was a scenario where he had an ex/crush there that I thought was prettier than me.. I feel very vulnerable sharing this because I am not proud of my insecurities, I am not sure why they occur either. I wish I had my head high enough to not be bothered by such superficial little things. In the end, N was really there for me and helped me through the panic attack and I felt strong enough to finish getting ready and make it work. Once I arrived at the wedding I instantly felt safer as I met his friends and did not feel less than them or judged negatively for the way I looked and behaved. I enjoyed the rest of the wedding. However, a voice remains in my head even now, “If you WERE faced with someone who made you feel inferior physically or behaviorally, you would have been crushed with anxiety.” …

The next day our drive home was lovely and we stopped for breakfast and had some very engaging conversation and I learned some new things about N. I love how he pays attention to world affairs and has such a level head about what is happening around him. It makes me feel safe. It also intrigues me because I do want to know about those things too and look forward to more of those conversations. Once we got back to his parents house I still felt connected to him up until after dinner and we started playing a board game with his mom, it was late and N did say later he was tired and trying to end the game already, but this is what happened: We were playing a game where we all have to sort of build something and the person that does the best in many ways wins, however you can’t win if you don’t at least complete what you build. I wasn’t very good at it, but his mom said that she goes easy on people who haven’t played and typically will at least give everyone the time to complete their building. It was the end of the game and N’s mom was about to win but she put off winning so that I, the last one to finish, could complete my building. But then N comes in and finishes his, ending the game, leaving me unfinished. When I looked at him he had a straight face with a “sucks to suck” attitude. I asked him to not do that so I could finish but he continued to do so with no sort of playful smile or anything. This hurt me deeply .. I am not saying these are rational feelings, infact I know they aren’t but in that moment I felt he didn’t love me, didn’t see me, didn’t care about me or my feelings, I felt like he completely abandoned me. I held back tears. He then left the table to go outside to probably smoke (weed) with his dad and I was left at the table sad and alone with his mom just holding back all my feelings. That night he came to tuck me into bed and I was too afraid to start the conversation about my pain, I was too afraid of him denying my feelings and I knew how badly that would hurt me so I ignored the feelings and we snuggled before he went to his bed downstairs.

Next day we drive to the airport. My feelings about the night before caught me by surprise again while we were waiting to board the plane. A family next to us were playing a game, maybe that is what reminded me Im not exactly sure. Anyways I can’t hold back this time so I tell N how I felt about the way the game ended. He said that my feelings were not warranted for the actions that he did. He said what he did should not lead to my reaction. I told him he didn’t understand my trauma of feeling betrayed by a teammate (life teammate, we were not on a team in the game). He said he felt hurt that I didn’t know what it felt like to be on opposite teams of a friend you have to play against, as he experienced that a lot in football and knew it wasn’t easy. I told him there should be a better way to play games together, that he should be able to be kind to me while playing with me and that there should be guidelines between us. I told him we should never be the one to screw the other person over. It is ok if you/your team wins but there is a kinder/ more loving way to do it, I wanted him to let me at least finish building as he would have still one, but I felt what he did was rude. to this he responded with laughter like I was completely rediculous for calling him rude about a game. He said “it’s just a game” MULTIPLE times, but this only made me feel invalidated cause obviously I was expressing feelings that went beyond a game. To which he responded “so then it sounds like we just can’t play games together because you can’t be a good sport.” I literally wanted to strangle him when he said this, my body was so uncomfortable I felt like I could burst with energy and run a 5k. We did resolve this conversation, I think (although as I write this it still upsets me ..). When I told him that having all those uncles growing up, like 6 older brothers I was bullied in games, they would gang up on me and cheat so that I always lost, if I was about to win they would cheat, sometimes they were just better and won without cheating but again I was like 8 and they were 13-20 years old making an 8 year old feel slow and stupid. My siblings and I literally can’t play games with my dad anymore without witnesses, because he would change rules to fit him and have these rational reasons as to why all his rules made sense. He NEVER let us win. We would be crying at the games and my mom would actually call him a bully to which he just said we needed to learn… I tried to express to N that I was bullied in games growing up but even those words coming out of my mouth made me feel stupid like “can I really not handle a game?” anyways when I told N I felt unloved, abandoned and like he was like one of my uncles who teamed up on me while I was abandoned and left alone to fight an army, he comforted me. N told me that he was always on my side and that he loved me, this melted me into tears… It is all I needed to hear to feel safe again. But there is still a part of me, I realized as I wrote this, that just wants him to be “nicer” to just ME, his life teammate, when it comes to games. and I think we still disagree here and I am scared to revisit it and be told he won’t do it or it’s just on me to be less sensitive.

Anita, this response came flowing through me at my computer. I feel more in tuned with my feelings than ever before and I have a fear you will tire of this forum, but I want you to know it is so helpful to me and I really appreciate you. I look forward to your response, hopefully ❤️

With love,

Seaturtle & hatchling