Back again after some weeks.

We’re still together, the visit here was fine overall. We argued sometimes, bickered etc but mostly it had a lot of love in – I felt genuinely sad to see him go, and he even said “I don’t want to leave”. We even discussed, albeit with the intention of doing so, him staying here instead of keeping with his studies.

I was a bit upset after he left, I can see in a way it was perhaps a bit like “how can he not have been utterly devastated!?” – he said that it’s easier for him as he starts a new year, goes back to his normal life, I had him in my normal life, and now am missing something (him), so naturally I’ll feel sadder as i’ve lost something. I understood him, he said when I had left him after my visit (nearly a year ago now), he’d stayed in his room for a week and cried a lot, while after i’d come back and I hadn’t really registered it at all. Yet, my mind made me think it was unfair!

I’ve remembered these past weeks (it’s been about a month since he went back) what you said before about how I struggle to believe i’m loved, and I think it’s a bit of that. The classic psycotherapy trick – what’s the evidence? – doesn’t really hold true. He still calls every day, and has gotten upset that it’s always him calling me (I wait for him to call, always). I’m planning to go visit him in July, only a couple months away, and he wants to come visit me again in December – six weeks earlier than last time, so i’d be with him nearly three months.

We’ve had some arguments, heated conversations etc and i’ve been the one asking him if he wants to break up – which he always responds to incredulously as if the notion is absurd. I think it’s a bit of defensive “pre-empting” on my part, because every time I say it, I don’t really mean it. Even so, I put these arguments down to simply being in a phase where the honeymoon period has faded a bit, we’ve seen each other and liked it a lot but then now we’ve had to be apart from one another again. I think I resent the distance a bit – maybe him too? (how dare he, really, not be sad about it!).

I think the reason for posting again is mostly myself. I don’t really doubt his intentions, I doubt… myself? Or my intentions? Sometimes, I wake up and think it’s all fine, how marvelous it is. Then I think it’s all foolish and i’m being utterly naive and delusional, or that he is. I remind myself i’m still supporting him, and I think that causes a big resentment because I feel it causes an uneven balance – I feel like he owes me, even though I’m fully aware that that’s a very unhealthy attitude, and I don’t actually think he does. But, when I get frustrated, that voice is there “gosh, Ben, and you’re paying for this!?” . I never tell anyone I am.

I worry about the time too. Distance can be fine, but 4 years of this? He’s in Argentina of all places, one of the worst places to try and move to and get a job right now, even if I did it would barely support us. I feel I made decisions that were all because of love and emotion and feelings. And now the reality of the situation has hit and i’m totally lost.

I love him, easier and more openly than anyone else, and I believe he loves me too. I don’t want to give up something that feels this good and that can come along so rarely. But I think a part of me is really doubting if it can really work, keep working, if it can last. The hardest question keeps cropping up – do I want this? I never know if I have a real answer.

4 years is a long time. But even then, husbands went to war and all was fine afterwards… I don’t know what to believe. I think I can do it, then I doubt it’s all worth it. I think since he’s gone back it’s become a bit more normal for him in general – as we now know a decent amount about each other, the conversations have gotten a bit samey “How was studying” – “How was work”. I don’t mind that but then sometimes we just sit and don’t talk much. My mind is screaming “what’s the point of this?!” – I worry if that’s a sign it’s not worth it anymore. I ask myself “What is this adding to my life?” – security, the knowledge that someone loves me. These are important, even the daily call shows someone cares about me. But I don’t know… I worry it’s just all about “the future” – which is a long way off. The day to day? I don’t know.

I’ve tried several times to mention it to him, I say how hard I think it will be – he just says something like “gosh, I hope these years pass quickly”. He is very optimistic, but I resent him for that response because it just seems naive to me. He reminds me he had some other long-distance relationship that lasted a couple of years and “that was fine” – but that was different time, people – that time he and the other partner at least lived in the same country. I feel like he just prefers to not think about it – a cultural failing, Brazilians prefer to think that negatives just don’t exist if you don’t think about them – but I can’t do that.

As an aside, even beliefs seem to get on my nerves. I think I said before he’s very religious (grew up in a small town in the interior). It being Easter of course is a more religious time, and he said any children he cares for will go to church with him. I’m not intolerant of other beliefs, but that really irritates me. His whole attitude this Easter has irritated me – I just find it so… frustrating! Especially when he’s in a gay relationship and doesn’t see any issues with being a whole hearted defender of Catholicism?! I tried today as gently as possible to talk to him about it, he said oh it’s about love thy neighbour, the church is just men and not necessarily representative. So why believe in all the other stuff? Why not just have your own relationship with God if it’s so important? Maybe it’s my Anglo-Saxon disposition – the US and UK have created so many other forms of Christianity, maybe it’s actually just a cultural thing and i’m sorta misinterpreting it.