Noah
Posts: 1660
Joined: 7/5/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: lally2
a little bell tinkled as i read youre OP and the subsequent answers. im going to suggest a thought that came through, you can discard it immediately if its crap, i dont know you and i dont know youre situation, but this is what came into my head anyway.
when i was in a relationship where the level of control became too much, i said nothing, there were times when i even provoked him, i wanted him to push me so far over the edge that the question of walking was no longer anathama to me. i remember feeling incredibly empty and angry and i turned that against him, believing it was all just pointless and over. it all went to hell, the relationship ended because it had to and i walked away from Ds for a number of years. so yes, it did come back, it never went, it just wasnt working with him. but maybe if id talked to him instead of using everything we did as a reason to leave we might have worked it out.
people seem to be afraid of transitional change, that somehow it means that its all come to an end, when in fact all that it is, is that you have moved on from what youre doing and you need to review and recharge and maybe alter the emphasis somewhere. relationships rarely stay the same, if they do they become stagnant and die just as easily as if they change too much to continue. the easy route is to say its over and leave. the real test is to ride the transition and come out the other end still in tact. but it takes communication.
its far better to talk and then go from there.
Lally's post is full of wisdom.
I'll join the chorus advising communication.
It looks as though you are no longer responding to your partner, primarily, but to your settled notions about what he wants, what he can enjoy and what he is capable of finding fulfilling.
He may be the quite narrow person your presumptions seem to describe. Then again it may be that given his care for you there are a range of configurations which the relationship could take for him, with different external factors representing the same crucial emotional meanings.
Consider-- for a moment and reject the idea if you choose to--the degree to which you are domming the crap out of this whole situation. You seem to be deciding for him what he feels, the range of his desires and interests .. a whole lot, really. Without demonstrating the courtesy or respect of just talking to him.
You also seem to be storing up items which could rapidly blossom into a bouquet of resentments so stinky that neither of you will care to address the issues at that point, a la lally2's past experience.
Do you care for him? Do you trust him? Suffering all this pain and emptiness now may be hard. As others have suggested, though, it may be a cheesy cop-out from the deeply difficult but potentially restorative--or fatal--effort to communicate freely.
And communicate not just once. His first reaction to your news may be far from what he comes to over time.
These are tectonic shifts and should probably be brought out with an intention to allow plenty of time, perhaps months at least, and plenty of open conversations during which you can each come to grips with your own and your partner's present position. All this can only happen once you know--rather than presume--what his position currently is.
If he doesn't even know the problem exists then it is reasonable to say that he doesn't even have a position toward it, yet. Therefore any position you may be ascribing to him is necessarily false, or at best a stab at fortune telling.
I see a person keeping a terrible, terrible secret from someone she loves. Bad enough. All the while she seems to be carrying on an un-reality-checked internal dialog utterly corrosive to that to which she and her husband have sworn to dedicate themselves.
Frankly it smacks of the Drama Queen, even if nothing else in your life deserves this label.
I'm not guilt-tripping you. There may be a pattern of events which has seemed to shove you into this position. Still, until you air it out you will never know if it has been a pattern of events as such or just a pattern of perceptions, perhaps mis-perceptions on your part.
Or such a pattern may be all-too-real, with culpability on his part. But have you the right to judge that he cannot or will not own up to this and find in his best self a way to move forward with you?
Can you swear that your revulsion at once-desired pain is even the key issue for you, not just a manifestation of something else, perhaps deeper?
If O. Henry were scripting your story it might turn out that, all unbeknownst to you, there is something in him which longs for the opportunity to subplant pain with tenderness, but he consciously or unconsciously feels blocked from sharing his own "terrible" secret with you.
I urge you to honor your vow and all that is good in him and yourself. Submit to him in this one thing, even if it may well be the last thing. Submit not by acquiescing to pain you can no longer handle, but by trusting him to hear you. Quit perceiving and deciding for the both of you.
Tell him you need to bring up something difficult, complex, and large. Then talk to the guy.
And just as important:
A} Give him time to inhabit this new world--and yourself time to see what it feels like once this secret truth is shared.
... and, throughout,
B.} Listen to him.
He may have much more game than you're giving him credit for.
I wish you courage and good luck.
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I am just not interested - 
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