Halloween and Moving Forward

Thank you for your feedback and support around my and S's difficulties.  I really appreciated receiving your comments.  We have come back from the brink.  In huge news, he has recognized and admitted that he has a lot of anger from childhood (perhaps exacerbated by issues in his marriages), and it comes out in vastly disproportionate ways in our relationship.  He is working with our counselor around some acceptance and healing work, which will hopefully lead to having a healthier relationship with the anger and more skill in expressing feelings. 

On my side of the aisle, I see that I was the one that opened the door to breaking up by bringing up this possibility in the heat of some of our recent arguments.  In the moment, I felt completely overwhelmed and part of me DID want to get away from him, but in the big picture, it's not what I want.  So, I'm instituting a self-imposed moratorium on break-up language, and am also working to be more present when conflict comes up, versus deflecting it or getting defensive.  I get scared this means I'll be trampled on but am trying to remember being present doesn't mean being a doormat.  Ideally, I want to be present for both myself AND for him - trying to acknowledge his experience, while not taking in the shame part.

Enough of the super heavy and deep stuff for this post.  We had a fun Halloween evening!  I raced home from work but still missed most of the trick-or-treaters, I think.  :(  I handed out candy to a few groups, including one gaggle of teens, just as we were leaving.  For some reason, the teens were endearing to me, and I was glad to end the candy-giving time with them.  Then, we went out for Halloween drinks and had some enjoyable conversation about the deep stuff going on with him and with us.  We came back to my place afterwards and goofed around - watching TV and doing computer and household stuff in a tipsy state for a while - then had a nice sleepover.

We have a birthday party to attend tomorrow night, church Sunday morning, and hopefully continued dance lessons Sunday night.  S is somewhat reticent because he has a lot of writing work on his plate, but I really want to keep up our dance progression.  I think it adds to the fun and romance of our relationship, which is vital.

Quick ttc check-in... I'm starting to wean myself off of the DHEA/Metformin and am pretty much throwing in the towel on my own eggs.  I'm not sure the grief around this has hit me yet, but I do feel we gave it some really good tries here at the end.  Last week, I talked to someone at CA Conceptions, and that program sounds promising on the donor embryo front.  Continuing to do research.  In the meanwhile, I'm taking action to get my large fibroid (and likely the smaller one too) outside my uterus removed.  I have a consult in two or three weeks with the same surgeon I met with previously and will hopefully get the surgery before Christmas.

I'll end with pictures of Zoey in yet another Halloween costume that didn't fit!  In the second picture, you can see she has a couple white bumps on her left eyebrow.  She's had them for a few days and I'm keeping an eye on them.  If they don't improve soon, I'll take her in to the vet.  Any idea what they might be?  I'm thinking either bug bites or a reaction to a poison oak-type plant.

Prayers welcome

I would welcome any prayers or good thoughts at this really difficult time with S and I.  We had a blow up based on a situation that happened at my conference this week.  I chose to take a group hot tub with some colleagues (two men and three women, including me) and S felt I was insensitive in how I communicated around it.  He is packaging it with other recent experience and coming to the conclusion that I don't care for him enough, or in the ways that he needs.  From my perspective, he sees things through a lens of fear and goes right to anger instead of trying to share his feelings more openly with me.  I admit I have a low tolerance right now for this pattern, after having experienced it for a long time now.  I'm ready for more stability and consistent closeness.  Does that even exist?  We're taking a week to reflect and regroup.  I want to use this time to go inward and get more clear about my own feelings and level of commitment.  It is a very hard time for us.

Time of Darkness

Yes, it's my life, but I kinda wish it weren't right now.  I apologize in advance for what may be a darkish post.

Since last Spring, I felt like I was building the life I envision for myself: a partner in life with whom a share values and meaningful goals, a family, a community of interconnected, like-minded people, work that sustains me on multiple levels.  As this relationship seems to be crumbling around me, I have a sense that most of these building blocks are crumbling along with it.  I literally (hat off to Rob Lowe) feel like dying when I imagine returning to my single life, at least as it was before.

I finally spoke in person with sh/cm last night, but it was an unsatisfying exchange.  Though we did connect for a short time and he admitted he was a complete mess the day after I broke up with him, for the most part he wasn't really present.  When I asked him questions, he gave rational, measured answers, laced with sympathy.  Yuck.  Apparently, when he officially broke it off with his ex way back when in I think May (well, broke off their plans to give it another try; the marriage had ended a couple years prior), they talked about her still coming out around this time to wrap things up with work stuff, and he said he figured at that time that she would stay with him.  What?!  The relief I felt when he broke it off was huge, as it had been something hanging over us for those first few weeks when we were both technically uncommitted and dating others (but in reality were exclusive).  To hear that the trip, albeit shorter, was always planned, and that he assumed she would stay with him was hard to hear.

As an aside, I should say that during our conversation, I felt compelled to ask about whether he had any hope that we could work on his/my/our issues together, in some of the ways we had talked about before.  He basically said he's scared of his own negative patterns and how they affect him and affected us, and he needs to work on these on his own, outside of a relationship.

But stepping back, we had been having trouble for quite a while.  Remember all the jealousy?  I think that stemmed from a lack of trust and security on both of our parts.  I read something recently that said women's libido stems from a sense that the guy is hot for her and also trust.  As we went along, my trust in him diminished instead of grew, partly because he was not consistently sexually forward, as he had been, and partly because he told me he had spoken to his ex without telling me and that she was coming out for two weeks in January (the first I'd heard of it).  I don't remember when that was exactly - two or three months ago?  On my part, I questioned whether we had enough chemistry and expressed my doubts at times in ways that lessened his security, as well.

But ironically, he was the one who I would say had the most jealousy in our relationship, primarily around my platonic housemate.  I did come to understand and empathize with his insecurity around that situation, since the housemate and I are friends and we were, after all, living under the same roof.  But he would communicate these feelings in irrational ways that made me feel like I was actually cheating on him or doing something horribly out of line - like when I answered his phone call when driving in the car to theatre group with the housemate and wasn't as present as he felt I should be or when I didn't text him back that day not long ago.  Feelings, yes, I could certainly understand him having feelings about these things but it came out in terse, analytical, "grilling me"-type exchanges, which left me feeling defensive and sad.

Why did I put up with this?  Because from the beginning, he and I have had so many wonderful, connected times too.  We are on the same page in so. many. ways.  It's HIGHLY unusual in my experience to have so much in common with another person.  And we did have a strong attraction at the beginning and off and on throughout the relationship - though more off at the end.  Anyway, we could have great discussions about projects, issues, and feelings, and it was awesome being part of the same community and focused on similar environmental/social change issues.  And just having a companion for the more mundane things in life is so wonderful - everything from making dinner; to Farmer's Markets, community potlucks/meetings, and trips (well the trip to Oregon sucked, but other trips); and just hanging out all felt so good when we were "in it together."

Thinking of life without this companionship feels empty and cold, almost unbearable.  Yet, I must bear it.  I'm getting through one day at a time, the non-12-step way: drinking more than I should, even smoking cigarettes yesterday.  I'm sleeping okay, still exercising, and eating not too horribly, so I guess it's not a complete mess.

But I'm sad.  And I'm hurt.  And I know I had a part in the relationship breaking up, but right now it feels like he lit the final fuse and that sucks.

I have a date from Mat.ch.co.m on Saturday night: an effort to soothe my heart and ego, but I doubt it will amount to anything because of where I'm at emotionally plus I don't think the guy has enough emotional depth.  Honestly, at some level, I'm probably doing it to balance the situation with his ex, which is ridiculous because what does it matter now?

Thank you for listening to this disjointed outpouring.  Birthday and Christmas here I come, but my bells are broken.

Surfing the Future

It's getting real.

Talk of my future with sh/cm that is.

My dreams last night had huge waves and people trying to surf them.  I was watching from a ledge a bit off the beach and scanning for those that managed to "catch the wave."  Then, it gets fuzzy: there was some kind of danger and a guy carried me up to another place on the ledge (higher level) where it was safer.

Psychologically, as many of you may know, water often represents our emotions and/or sub-conscious, so, yeah, I think I was a little stirred up last night.

The day had started with a great morning together, waking up at my place and then heading over to his neighborhood Farmer's Market and one of the most delicious cups of coffee I've ever had.  Then off to my dance/his workout, followed by walking up to bookstores - and a sidewalk sale - in his neighborhood to pick up a relationship journal (yes we are so geeky as to be starting a relationship journal), and a few used books and CDs.

Back at his house, I guess I was the culprit who took the first dive into the deep end of the pool by asking if he thought we would actually, somehow/some way, end up with a baby.  And we were off!

He said yes, he had, and we went back and forth exploring much more detail than we ever had before about next steps and creating a foundation either for the biological child we create or one that we might adopt through the foster care system.  We had never really talked about adoption before, but he must have been thinking about it on his own because he had lots of concrete ideas!

Details discussed included:

• The idea of us moving in together in a few months; choosing a place that would be good for a child and consider the school system, etc.
• What age child we would be open to in the adoption process and whether it would benefit us to be married or not (I said I wasn't sure since the Bay Area is progressive and less discriminating than some places, but maybe because it is one factor out of many that might indicate to an agency that we are "stable").  Yeah, the "M" word was thrown out there.  It has been touched on before but not this directly.
• The idea of a child who may have some adjustment issues needing lots of love and his feeling that he could fill that role well.

Later, we continued the foray into deep waters by talking further about his new health insurance potentially covering me as his "partner," different health plans offered, and some specifics around IVF procedures and costs (I would appreciate prayers or positive thoughts that I get coverage because this might allow me to go forward with IVF in the next couple months).

Much of the day was fun and relaxing, including a yummy steak and potato barbeque (a side salad and coffee frozen yogurt for desert too!), but it sure does seem we jumped into some big topics!

When I think about moving forward with him in these ways, I feel excited and hopeful, as well as a little anxiety.  The anxiety is connected to the marriage part, I think, because I can't say things are perfect.  I know I love him a lot and feel closer to him than anyone I've ever been with.  But part of me believes it should be perfect, or close to it anyway.

We have worked through a lot of challenging issues that have proven to be game stoppers for me in the past.  I do see that we are growing and developing what I would consider "true" intimacy.

Yikes!