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