Did I push him to feel he needed to take control and not love him enough so he now is passive aggressive and gaslights?

He has done sweet things for me and maybe I haven’t done enough to show him I love and appreciate him so he is now resentful and putting less effort into us, which is him not putting energy into validating and hearing out my feelings, and him not believing in me?

I am just confused, I feel like he was not always this way and I fear I turned him into my father by not being good enough for him, being selfish and just not contributing enough to us.

Dear Anita, I am responding to you now, may take me a couple hours.

Hope you had a nice weekend?

Seaturtle 🙂

Dear Anita,

“No need to rush now. I think that what you need most at this time is to distract yourself from this question and to relax, best you can.”

I think you are right about this, I was starting to feel the toll again this morning.

“did you ever tell him that you were considering breaking up with him, and if you did, how did he respond?”

Back in February I admitted I was having relationship doubts. I think he just saw it as my own problem, said things like he understands me more than I think. I once said he might not be emotionally available enough for me and he said “I am more emotionally available than any of your past relationships” I thought that was weird, how would he know that, I haven’t told him those details of past relationships. And I don’t appreciate the manipulation tactic of, you can’t find better. Which I have felt from him before, and quite honestly felt from society, what people often say about the dating world.

“Here is an idea in regard not knowing with certainty what you need to know: can you put together 10 questions for him, hand him those questions asking him to answer them (typing his answers)?”

Yes I could do this, I will think more about it.

Thank you Anita,

Seaturtle ❤️

” I thought it was all your projection of F into N. After your two recent examples of his overt major misbehaviors on his part, I changed my mind. (I say major as in the difference between the way you described him before and his behaviors in these two examples is MAJOR)”

“Rely on the overt examples and other overt examples you never shared about, if they exist.”

You also wrote: It’s been almost a whole year, if I count 8 months back from the time of your first thread, July 29, 2023: “Please help me, my mind hasn’t rested in 8 months“, that you’ve been considering breaking up with him. I don’t think that you are currently ready to break up with him, are you?

I thought there was potential that it was all about my projection of F. It is hard for me to even recall other moments of covert controlling. Something I am insecure about this though, my dad did this to me for so long and I couldn’t spot it, and just took responsibility. I don’t want to do that again, and if that is what N is doing then I am ready to end things.

The tricky thing is, when I am with him, I feel that comfort again and want to stay with him. But when I am away, especially lately, and even more so ever since you pointed out his controlling nature, I do want to end things. I just doubt my ability to express why to him… I feel he will have excuses that sound valid in that moment, or he will blame me, for example if I say he has been controlling I am almost certain he would tell me that I gave him that control. He has spoke about this before about how we have opportunities to take control and give it and he makes sure not to give people control of him. He will tell me I gave him control and as my mental state stands currently, I will believe him.

I do not want to waste time with someone controlling. If there was a button to break up right now and move on I would press it, but it’s more complicated because there needs to be a conversation and he will say all the right things. Or maybe I did give him the control? by letting him pay for things, I just feel like I am blinded a bit. I feel like I have something blurring my ability to see that he is controlling, because I love so many things about him. He says that if one day I was able to financially care for him he would be so happy, not saying that I needed to but he has expressed that would be his dream… So if I was able to be that for him then our relationship would be good? We have had so many good moments, and I am struggling to see the controlling as overpowering those.

I will respond more later, my mind doesn’t feel the clearest right now.

Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

Here I reply to your last message more thoroughly. Usually to quote your messages I put “quotes” and bold but for responses that you bolded parts yourself I am going to leave them as is so I don’t change the message, let me know if it is as all confusing!

“(2) There is someone I knew whose usual very sweet state was dishonest and manipulative. On the other hand, her less frequent angry state was her honest state: she was honestly, authentically angry and vindictive.”

wow, it is scary for me to imagine that his honest state is authentically angry. How do I know this for sure? There are times I want to bring up a topic, regarding something in our relationship, like him being late or a lack of something in the relationship, and I have to walk on egg shells to speak about it cause it will upset him. I don’t feel like it was always this way though. When we lived together and I told him something that bothered me, he felt sad that he hurt me. Then this sadness turned to irritation in the last couple months, annoyed if I have a problem or worry about something “that doesn’t matter.” I have seen genuine authentic sadness in his eyes..like when we miscommunicated about him staying the night and spending Saturday with me after the opening night of my play (I tell the story here on November 4th). When I was having my panic attack, trying so hard to hold back tears in order to not ruin my play makeup. He teared up as well and was wiping away tears as he saw me so sad. Is this not a sign of authenticity?

“– I wonder if his initial apology was sincere or if it was part of his effective social/ people skills, a social lubrication strategy. He may have good people skills, apologizing not because he regrets something he’s done, but because apologies work.”

This would not be the first time I thought his apology was insincere. I have literally told him that the word “sorry” means nothing, tell me what you will do different and how you see that it affects me… My parents raised us with these rules around saying sorry, my dad would tell us what I just said, if we needed to apologize to a sibling there was always a “why are you sorry?” “What will you do differently next time?” N did not grow up this way clearly. I have often felt he deflects, he blames other things or uses insincere wording when it comes to apologizing and I do feel it is, what you said, “because apologies work.”

However he is genuinely sad to see me sad…

“Saturday night: We sat on the porch and I brought up the argument where he said words don’t matter. I said… He listened, but his responses told me he did not understand“- appearing to listen may be a social skill that he is good at.

-There are certainly times he responds to me in a way that said he did not actually hear what I said. But sometimes I think it is because I can get very abstract with how I speak, especially when it comes to spirituality and religion. I think “we just miscommunicated.” But these miscommunications hurt my feelings because I wish we could hold a conversation like that about certain topics that I sort of lose him on.

“– on the surface, the balancing idea reads like a good thing.. except that if he often says – not what is true to him, but what works for him, the problem is bigger than incompatibility in regard to spiritual understanding.”

Hmm, saying what works for him, rather than what is true to him… Unfortunately this doesn’t seem far off. When we are alone out in nature, there have been several times here where I have felt his authenticity and it makes me remember why I love him. The problem is he thinks being that way comes later, after he works hard and makes money, then we will move to the forest and be authentic and just do our arts together. This vision sounds great, but it is hard for me to grow when I have his inauthentic self in the real work city world. I have been able to talk him into what is true for him in contrary to what he has claimed (what works for him) these are nice moments cause it feels like he is tracking what I am saying and seeing who I am as a strength rather than a weakness. Like perhaps (unless this is a projection of F onto N) while we are in the real world with people around and “the grind” is happening around us N sees my strengths (sensitive to my environment, particular about what I allow my surroundings to be, prioritizing rest over money) as weaknesses. By “the grind” I mean the very American lifestyle of Live to Work rather than my more European motto of Work to Live.

– Or his motivation in saying sorry and correcting his wording was to say what a nice person would say, and he was in a much better mood to say what a nice person would say. It is only when he is angry/ or tired or in a bad mood that he says what’s true to him…?

-Interesting, I am not sure exactly if he was in a bad mood if he would have done the same. So the question is, is he being polite because he genuinely understood our conversation that words do matter? Or is he pretending he understands… If I ask him about this, like ask him “So how do you feel about words now?” I imagine he would still agree that they matter since the last I heard from him was that he agreed that they do in fact hold weight and he was wrong about that.

2nd post: “(N) has avoided taking responsibility and has a pattern of deflection. However when he has calmed down and we discuss a few days later, he is able to see where he went wrong”- or when he is calm/ in a better mood, he is able to do a better job at making a good use of his people skills: appearing/ effectively pretending to see where he went wrong.

-How can I be sure about this? I don’t want to incorrectly accuse him here.

“* I wonder: are you aware of him reading or having read certain books or watching You tubes about people skills, such as on how to resolve conflicts/ arguments, how to bring about desired outcomes via social manipulation?”

No I haven’t noticed or suspected this before.

“– well, it was different because he didn’t repeatedly tell you that the d-word offends him, and he didn’t repeatedly ask you to not say the word. And you didn’t tell him to get it through his head (which is what he told you) that words don’t mean anything and to therefore to not get offended.”

This is true, I only wish I was able to say this when he tried to deflect the responsibility on to me trying to say I did the same thing as him so it was ok…

-Being as driven as he is to make money.. I wonder why he is with you: a question you asked him yourself, something like why are you with ME?  He gave you only superficial answers, repeatedly saying that Love is a Choice. I wonder why he doesn’t choose to love a woman who makes a lot of money, a woman who is the best with money. Did you ever ask him this question?

“He has straight up told me before he doesn’t trust me with money“- maybe he wants to have full control of money, so he doesn’t want a woman/ wife who will take any control over where any of the money goes, and a money-driven woman who is good with money.. would want such control.. Hmmm.

-So, here’s the thing. When we first met I was making a lot more money. I worked at Verizon and did very well in sales, I was the top in stores worked in, I enjoyed it for a while as well. Until the selling of a phone became mundane to me and I wanted to provide something more meaningful to people’s lives than a nicer phone. At the time I was also selling a lot of furniture online, as I was moving apartments. N met this version of Seaturtle. I paid 50/50 for alot of things we did. Then we move to another state and I quit Verizon. I was not happy there, I was being drained and my coworkers were not as fun as my last store in my home state. However the way I quit was perhaps not the best, I just started to call out of work alot. I would call out to stay home and paint. Living with N and the roommate, plus working at a place that didn’t feed my soul, I was absolutely drained. I called out so much that when it came Christmas of 2022, I said I was going home for 10 days. I could also afford to take alot of time off because of how much I made there, at the time I was paying rent to N for about 3 months. Anyways, my manager said I took so much time off that I had no more days off and couldn’t go home for more than two days for Christmas. Realizing my priorities…my family or this job I didn’t like? Obvious answer, I went home for 10 days. When I came home they set up a call with me, they said I was fired, I was over-joyed, phone call literally ended with me saying “I completely understand you guys have a good day,” with a smile on my face. I then applied to unemployment. This paid only groceries, not rent, but N said it was ok, he encouraged me to paint. (something I love about him, encouraging me to paint and act). January-April of 2023, this was the dynamic. Even though I cut Verizon out of my life, living with both those boys drained me more. When N would stay up late with C as I was in bed waiting for him I would get intense panic attacks and take them out on N when he finally came to bed. These same occurrence happened so many times in a row, and it was the fact it happened even after I told him I was bothered, that made me so sad, I wondered if he cared. But something you, Anita, once told me was that N cannot be nice enough to make up for your uncles and fathers treatment of you, when you said this it reminded me of this time. In these arguments, N would say sorry, I would not believe him cause he would continue to do what felt like the same thing to me over and over. It wasn’t until the last couple months living with him that it started to get better and our communication got better so I knew when to expect him to come to bed.

However, we had dinner one night, can’t remember if I have brought this up before, perhaps it is time I re-read through all these posts, I have only re-read some. Anyways we went to a Hawaiian BBQ place for dinner. He was off, and I asked him what was wrong. This was about 2 months before officially moving out. It was like a “house-cleaning” I had with my dad. He told me he felt taken advantage of, he said I lived in a fantasy world “believing that things just work out.” I felt awful, but I took it and really tried to see it without emotion, was I taking advantage? He did pay for the majority of things now. Was I lazy? I did so many paintings I was so proud of though I wouldn’t take that time back for anything. I don’t fully remember the conversation but it ended unfinished because I didn’t know how to respond. We re-brought the conversation up a day or two later and I honestly don’t remember how I responded…But it was resolved? I have a feeling I said I would try to be more helpful, as he said it wasn’t about money, oh yea he said “I am not asking you to pay rent, it is not about money but then help out in other ways by making me lunches or something along those lines.” He did not feel demanding when he said this, I remember feeling similar to how I felt at my fathers “house-cleaning,” I would feel like “Wow I could definitely be doing more, why don’t I make him lunches?” I would get inspired to do all the things to just be the perfect daughter/ girlfriend. Then the actual week happens and I do it sometimes but not consistently, I just forget or don’t have the energy for that every day, I wonder if that makes me lazy. Have I just not contributed to this relationship enough and pushed N to his limit of feeling taken advantage of? Because that is exactly what I did to my dad, he felt taken advantage of by me. So is it me? As I am making two men feel the same way… I just feel like their giving comes un-asked by me and with strings that I don’t agree with, but maybe that makes me in a la la land that life should be easier than that?

“I now see this in N. One of my questions of if I am projecting or if he is genuinely similar to my dad“- It can be two things at the same time (both, not one or the other): projecting F into N AND reacting to who N truly is, which is similar to your father. They both use good or excellent people skills, don’t they?

-My dad for sure yes. N, I don’t know… When he doesn’t feel like talking to someone he won’t, N is okay with silence and doesn’t put on a show for others. At thanksgiving he did this, I could tell he was tired and anti-social but it didn’t bother me cause I want him to be authentic to how he feels, especially in my/his home. Both F and N are good with adults… hm. Neither are the best with kids though, both a bit ignorant to the child. My dad though is more open about being off put by little ones, cute at a distance but only an opportunity for his house to be messed up (by all my little cousins). When I was at N’s parents once, with his brother and sister-in-law and their 1 year old. The kid was about to hit his head and N, his dad and N’s brother were all oblivious, me, N’s mom, and sister-in-law were all very alert. The kid almost fell out of his brothers hands as we was talking to N and his dad. This was off-putting to me. He sort of treated the kid as if he was older than he was, not realizing how vulnerable the little one was to the corners of the table and being upside down drinking his bottle.

““until he doesn’t anymore and I have to explain again”- until he is too occupied or tired to invest in appearing..  rinse and repeat.”

Unfortunately this doesn’t feel very unfamiliar..

“N does this very often in arguments. It drives me crazy why he asks me what’s wrong, it genuinely makes me angry and makes me (hatch) want to hit him… he is not understanding me and almost as if he is not even trying. I just want to shake some sense into him like ‘open your eyes!’”- imagine a person invested in appearing this way or that way: they are invested in Style, not in Substance.

-It is just hard for me to imagine N being someone who is more invested in style. I guess what do you mean by style? N is off-put by people trying to tell him what he wants to hear. He is actually constantly alert of others not being authentic with him….hm

For example at my cast party dinner after opening night, we sat at a table with several cast members. I saw him staring at this girl that I worked closely with, she was only 16. He wasn’t looking at her with attraction though, I could tell he was in thought and wondered. A few days later I asked him when her name came up about something random. I said “oh yea, that night you were staring at her like you were trying to figure something out, what were you thinking?” (this is the kind of thing i wish he just volunteered information to me that night, like on the drive home or something. He does not tell me what he is thinking very often). He responded “I was trying to tell if she was acting a certain way to impress us.” I responded to him “Well she is only 16 and the rest of the cast is older I think she was trying to fit in and be her mature self,” he nodded in agreement. If someone can spot someone not being 100% authentic, does that make then authentic or not?

I am feeling appreciative of your support right now Anita 🙂

-Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

I am finding myself wondering what to say to N. I wonder if I should end things before Christmas so that we can separately see our families and mine can help me through it a bit. I am wondering if this is actually it? If he can never understand me the way I want to be understood. I fear he will try to convince me otherwise or either shut down, not sure what his response will be. I fear it will catch him by surprise and hurt him deeply. I fear I am making the right choice to be or not to be. 

Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

I just wanted to respond more fully to your last reply.

You quoted me here:

I roughly said, it is more than a word it has a misogynistic historical reference and it held weight. He rolled his eyes. He lectured me about how he doesn’t let anything outside of him have control over him and how I should do the same and not let a simple word ruin our evening. He said ‘you get upset about things that don’t matter and I am tired of it.’”-

There is a little more to this. After I told him the “c” word was offensive he said “ok well you have called someone a d*ck before why is that ok?” (apologies for the crude language here it is making me feel like I should clean up my words cause I do sometimes say that when a man is being childish and straight up rude) I said it was different and he just sarcastically laughed.

And one more detail to him saying, ‘I get upset at small things that don’t matter and ruin our time together’. Saturday night at dinner as we were talking about self growth and I was telling him the journey that I am on, I said “I have been thinking alot about you saying I worry about small things that don’t matter” and he said “oh good” then I said “and how I don’t think that is true” then he laughed (true, not sarcastic) because he had jumped to the conclusion with “oh good” that I agreed with him when infact it was the opposite. Anyways just thought this detail would help you see that this has been something he has thought for a long time and made comments like this before.

“he referred to your feelings as such that “don’t matter“.”

N thinks that he is superior to me in that he doesn’t let his feelings bother him as much as I do. He thinks I have growing to do in that way. For example, feeling uncomfortable. When I am uncomfortable I am quicker to leave, whereas he just withstands pain, sometimes he is right and accepting what is is all you can do, other times I feel like he sits in pain longer than he needs to. For example our work schedules. I am on the end of calling out of work too much, drivin by hatch, I want to be comfortable and go with my artistic impulses or give myself rest if I feel the slightest tired. N is on the opposite N, never called out a day in his life, says he will get the week of thanksgiving off but can’t say no to customers when they ask him to do “one more thing.” Often when he is late it is because he got stuck in a lengthy conversation with a customer or they asked him to do “one more thing.” This upsets me because I prioritize my time with N over such things and would simply start leaving and tell them no, or that I need to go. N does not take care of his needs unless I force him to and literally get upset with him for working so he stops, then enjoys it. His ability to do this on his own is not developed. What I think, is that my hatch has been running the show this year so far, she has been displaying her discomfort, throwing tantrums and I am not attending to her and taking the reigns back. N has his hatch in a cage. We have talked about this concept before, I can only approach him about deep things like this at strategic times, sometimes he doesn’t believe it and other times he is receptive and admits to ignoring it. Is this a male thing? cause I do wish he was more able to talk about this stuff. Anyways he said in football he went through extremely uncomfortable things and had to shut any other voices in his head up in order to focus. He prides himself on this, but I think he just threw hatch in there. Him being out of touch with his hatch, is affecting our relationship. Clearly me not paying rent bothered him, but he spoke to me like his customers “yes of course” as he rejects his own needs. I cannot predict what his hatch needs and I will only anger it if he doesn’t speak up. He doesn’t tell me how he feels unless I do my best to pull it out, which I think I could do this with just about anybody, maybe he needs me? He swings back and forth out of different realities. When we are away from the city and on vacation alone in the woods, he is receptive to feelings, he is everything, we connect and he is attentive. Then we come back to reality and he has absolutely left that space while I am still there. He has told me I live in a fantasy world because my life “plan” is much more abstract than his. I believe the world will support me and I will support it, I just believe if I continue on my artistic expression, I will find my contribution to the earth, lately I have been considering yoga teacher training, I could put my art up in there even, just combine my passions of art and mental health. I just believe if I keep my eyes open opportunities will flow. But then he just says I am in a la la land not saving up to buy a house and working more hours to do so, just like him commenting on me and my roommate lifestyle, he asks “how do you guys just live paycheck to paycheck in an apartment you don’t own, how does that make sense, that’s what you want?” He doesn’t quite understand what I am doing with my life and how I am evolving and I can’t tell if that is a deal-breaker, do I need his approval? no.

– He had no valid reason to be suspicious of you. His invalid suspicion of you is a controlling strategy meant to make you feel guilty and therefore in need for his correction, of his moral superiority to fix your .. moral faultiness. And he succeeded because in the paragraph right above, you wrote: “He looked at me in absolute distrust, which I guess I deserve“. 

When I typed “which I guess I deserve,” I remember thinking hard on that part and wanted to omit it because I can see how it is not true, but it was honestly how I felt in that moment. I am not the best with money, I have spent the last of my paycheck on a christmas decoration before, I have been getting better for sure, I haven’t spent nearly the money I did in college, but my habits still are not the best. He has straight up told me before he doesn’t trust me with money. And I just took it cause I don’t trust myself with money either but I always make it work, I trust myself to figure it out. I feel guilty for how much N has spent in comparison to me in this relationship, but it would not be that way also if this wasn’t the least amount my paycheck has ever been, I am actually looking for a new job as we speak.

“– When a person wants to control you, he/ she is not interested in promoting your spirit or soul. When a man repeats the C word, he does not see a woman’s spirit or soul.”

He goes back and forth between these two things. Sometimes he sees my value with me and understands how I see things and the work I am putting in. Other times he forgets and I feel I need to defend myself and explain. However is this projecting F into N because my dad often made me feel like I was lazy and didn’t trust I would be able to fully provide for myself. My dad would literally tell me I better make a lot of money or I wouldn’t be happy.

you wrote:

You ended your original post with: “Idk maybe we are perfect for each other and I am self sabotaging, or maybe its the inner voice of my higher self telling me it’s not right“- I now agree with the latter part of this sentence. N is promoting your lower self: your self-doubt, confusion and invalid, unjustified guilt.

This voice goes back and forth alongside his back and forth of believing in me. When I feel his belief we are great and I feel my best self, other times he makes me feeling my lower self. My dad (and maybe mom too) made me feel my lower self quite often growing up. My dad making fun of my style saying I copied it and was unoriginal, and my mom doing so many things for me that I didn’t get to become my higher self by accomplishing some things and earning my self esteem.

You brought up something from my post on oct 13th:

“My dad to this day still very often misinterprets what I do and who I am and it hurts every time, he thinks I am selfish and is probably why I have fears of being selfish or narcissistic”

I now see this in N. One of my questions of if I am projecting or if he is genuinely similar to my dad. I feel misunderstood, but once I explain myself he will then understand me, until he doesn’t anymore and I have to explain again. My need to defend and explain myself is strong but could just be a survival mode I was in for so long?

“(2) One can easily tell that N freeing himself from ANY responsibility for the words he repeatedly chooses to utter is.. part of a dishonest manipulation. And then asking you what’s wrong?.. taking no responsibility for any wrongdoing or wrong saying when he was clearly in the wrong.”

N does this very often in arguments. It drives me crazy why he asks me what’s wrong, it genuinely makes me angry and makes me (hatch) want to hit him, but it is not cause I want to inflict pain it is because I get a huge amount of energy and just need to get it out, our arguments do not get physical other than me slapping his shoulder (doesn’t cause harm) as I write this I hope it is not abusive, I have not felt like it was before, but it isn’t out of anger is frustration that he is not understanding me and almost as if he is not even trying. I just want to shake some sense into him like “open your eyes!”

Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

I read your whole post, from November 25, 2023 at 10:21 am, this morning, I let it resonate and continued to ask myself the question you asked me to ask hatchling about what makes her feel safe. Now I will respond in order to one prompt at a time.

“How am I supposed to truly know the difference between manipulation/dishonesty and truth?“- identify in detail F’s dishonesty.

-I will attempt to journal more about this.

Everything you said about an unequal transactional relationship resonates with me. And your solution to my question “Seaturtle will need to validate hatch having been right all along” is something I can visualize doing and look forward to.

“– So this was one of those other arguments I was wondering about.. I am getting to know an N that I do not like.”

I would like to elaborate on this and tell you about how our evening and day together, went this weekend. I brought up both circumstances, saying the word I did not like, and then when he asked me where my money came from leading to a f*** you.

N’s natural sate is not rude, he is usually very sweet and I feel like his recent rudeness has been acting out of some resentment towards me… where exactly this comes from is unclear to me. My prediction would be that he resents me not paying him rent while I lived with him for a year. Another prediction is that he doesn’t think I contribute enough to the future of our relationship.

Saturday: So originally, and up until last Wednesday the 22nd, our plans were to spend this whole weekend together, since my play had taken up most of my weekends and prevented us from spending consecutive days together. On Wednesday he tells me he actually has to work Saturday morning. I was sad for obvious reasons as this is a pattern in our relationship. He apologized, said he felt badly that his work week was bleeding into Saturday and that he was still trying to learn how to schedule clients for his company and what not. When my mom was in town (I will tell more about this eventually) I told her how I struggled when N was late or postponed/shortened our time together. My mom told me that my dad was often late and sometimes did not show up to a dinner, he previously said he would, at all. She said he would often go to the country club to either play poker or golf, causing him to skip dinners with us. I realized then that my dad did not want to be home and would choose things to procrastinate being with us, I made the connection to projecting this on to N. I react to his tardiness as if he does not want to spend so much time with me, but that is projecting F into N. Having said all this when N said he was working Saturday morning I was not nearly as triggered and I believe it was because I relieved the projection of F. However the followed as such; He texted me Saturday morning he would actually be over around noon, I said ok. Then noon hit and he called me and said actually it was going to be around 2 or 3, I said ok. 2:45 approaches, he texts me that he is leaving and will arrive at 3:30pm. 3:30pm occurs, no N. He gets to my apartment at 4pm. I was crafting and decided not to let his lateness harm my day of self care. I cared more about the fact he said 3:30 and showed up at 4pm, this final act of disrespect? effected me more than the rest of his time changes, especially that he didn’t acknowledge this one. was slightly stand off-ish when he got there, just physically I was not able to let him hug me, I smiled but I needed space. After about 10 minutes I approached him for a good hug.

Saturday night: We sat on the porch and I brought up the argument where he said words don’t matter. I said, “I have thought about this a lot and I do agree that I do not want other peoples words to affect me so intensely, as to avoid being swung in different directions all the time. Although words/ as in literal letters, are irrelevant, what is behind them carries weight.” In the conversation he was understanding and we both came to an agreement that words are like vessels for something that does carry weight, happy we found a middle ground there. He revoked his absolute comment about words not being meaningless, and agreed that they often do. I then started to speak about how words mean alot to me, I told him about my experience with the nicotine and how I was spiritually attacked, I told him about how I recognized which enemies I was facing, intimidation, fear…etc. I said “They lose their power once you name them and dismiss them” This is a good example of a conversation he doesn’t fully follow because he doesn’t see the world as I do, in that there is a spiritual warfare going on where there is darkness and lightness all around us. He listened, but his responses told me he did not understand, but he did not seem to judge. He said “as long as you don’t start speaking to crystals and such” I didn’t love this comment because it felt like he was making fun of me slightly but I don’t think he was I think he just doesn’t understand. Which I don’t know if it is important to be compatible in this area or we can just be different here and him being more earthly and grounded can balance me? not sure.

We went to dinner. He often tells me he works so hard for us with long hours and stuff like this. I kept this in mind while he worked during the day, I told myself, don’t be upset with him he is doing this for us and still learning. When we were getting ready for dinner I asked if we could go bowling after dinner, he said “if you can pay for it,” I then said I could not. I then decided to say exactly what came to my mind, calmly and with genuine curiosity and a desire to understand. “You say that when you work so hard, and it takes you away from me, is because you want to work hard so that we can do cool things. So when you work hours into our time together today, that is not so we can do things like go bowling?” This question made him think. My roommate M then got home, the three of us had to return some chairs we borrowed from the apartment complex for thanksgiving, so when she arrived we figured we should get that done. Carrying the chairs over, N was very silent, I was just talking with M. She is a nurse and said she was happy to get her fourth day in a row of 12 hour shifts off, she was saying “three 12 hour shifts are just my max, I am so glad they let me take the fourth day off, I might go visit my mom this week now!”

Fastforward to now me and N getting in the car to leave for dinner. He was still very quiet, I asked him if he was tired and he said he wasn’t. I asked him what he was thinking about, he said he didn’t understand how me and M don’t work more hours. Her comment about not wanting to work more than three 12-hour shifts confused him, he as he has worked 24hr shifts and multiple 12’s in a row. He said he didn’t understand, “I would not be okay with only working three days a week while living in an apartment I rent” as opposed to a purchased home. I explained that M and I were different, she planned on her income being the same for years to come, but I am still in a place of finding where I am going. We got to the dinner spot and realized it was a place we had already been and he said the place was expensive, hungry and now getting annoyed I told him to help me find a place if he wanted to be particular. I found another place, he is not good with finding restaurants as he doesn’t pay attention to store hours and reviews like I do. After we ordered food at the counter, he paid and I hugged him and said thank you, it was an impulse not a plan. He got weird and did not hug me back. We got to the table and I asked him what was bothering him, he said he didn’t need a thank you from me and it bothered him for some reason. Our car conversation came back up, I asked him if he felt I was contributing to our future. He said “I just wish you knew what it was to sacrifice in the now for the future” I responded telling him all the work I am doing on myself. I explained how consuming this process is, my inner child work and also trying to find out my place in the world and how I am to contribute. I told him I sacrificed in the relationship by being the one to bring up conversations that needed to be had and he didn’t speak about unless I brought it up or it was seriousness enough in his eyes. He still thought I worried about things that didn’t need it. Again I explained to him all the inner work I am doing and how that benefits us both, as I am no longer blaming him for my feelings and my patience with his tardiness has increased. When I told him my dad would avoid being home, he admitted that is what he felt he was accused of when I would get upset with his lateness, he understood this was part of my inner child work. By the end he seemed to understand where my effort was going and there was not a lack of effort on my part in the goals of our relationship.

Sunday: We had a nice day, it was a fun breakfast and we went to an art store for the sales and I enjoyed that alot with a gift card I recently got. Actually on our drive he said the “c” word again, but this time in a much better mood he caught himself and said “oh sorry” and corrected his wording. I appreciated this, confirming to me he had been acting out of a bad attitude before it is not who he is. We then went home for some art, leftover thanksgiving food and cartoons. We smoked a bit of marijuana, I hadn’t in a while and he wanted to, plus I have enjoyed art while doing that before and it sounded enjoyable. I enjoyed parts of it, but I did not feel at peace. I felt self conscious about the art I was doing and I felt judgmental of what he was doing, an icky feeling I couldn’t shake, I blame the marijuana on this and feel I should only do it alone right now because it only makes me feel further from him. He left naturally and the day ended well. It was fun, but it was not very relaxing for me I felt overly aware of the environment and not able to just completely relax and BE. It was one of the few days we have gone through without a single argument, yet I didn’t feel in full expression of myself, so perhaps that is why? Or am I projecting again, since F did not understand me.

“Ask Hatch what makes/ made her feel safe through the years, will you? Ask her to speak to you as you type away whatever she says here on your thread (no wrong answers). Let her speak to you in her own child-like words…?”

The tv show friends, being alone, dark rooms when I am panicked, friends who understand my humor, my friend Paris, My sister Alia, My aunt Lashawna, plans, my uncle Korban, trips to Hawaii to see my Oma, pool days, feeling confident about my clothes and that they match who I am, soccer, my mom when she would solve things for me, when my dad would play crossword puzzles with me before bed and accidentally fall asleep in my room, my grandmas house, my grandma, plants, music, being not seen…but also being seen, adults that I trusted (in past), when my dad wasn’t treating me like I was suspicious/doing anything wrong, when I am trusted and believed, loved, when N communicates with me about timing of seeing eachother and any changes, I feel safe with a slow communicated pace of change, When I take care of myself. Warmth as opposed to cold. 

I will continue to ask myself this. Are these the type of answers you were talking about?

I will read your next reply and I am hoping to respond this evening, but maybe in the morning.

Love, Seaturtle