Ugh - I am really beginning to hate this decision. It seems I go back and forth several times a day - I should ask him to come back; I should tell him it won't work; we can make this work; this will never work. Back and forth, back and forth, all day long. Right this minute, I feel like it's not going to work. I'll explain why.

He and I have been emailing quite a bit the last week. Well, more precisely, I have been emailing and he has been, reading and promising replies. In his defense, he doesn't have internet where he lives so he has to go take his laptop somewhere where he can get internet semi-privately. Still. He finally sent me a response last night - but only to one of the four emails I've sent in the last week.

He doesn't get nasty - neither of us do - which is something that I treasure about our relationship. However, in the email he sent last night, he said some things that are really bothering me. Fundamental things he wants me to change about myself that I can't or don't want to. I am angry and hurt and defensive and I'm fighting my urge to respond to him right now.

Can I just post his email to me last night and respond to it like I want to, as a sort of venting exercise?

I'm going to paste in as much of the most recent email conversations as I have, starting with one from his mom last week.


I thought that was a pretty good email and it made me not dislike her quite as much as I have been lately (another story). I responded point-by-point to him with my questions and comments regarding her email. I don't have my email to post, but I have his response, which includes my comments. Mostly, my comments are in regular text and his are in bold. I hope this works and makes sense.

Quote:

From: Him To: Me Sent: Fri 7/29/2011 12:09 am Subject: My rebuttal with anger issued at the end. It's nice that you can ask your mom about this stuff. Also a little disconcerting that she knows so much about our relationship. And, unfair that I don't have my mom. To begin, when you had a mom, did you share this sort of information with her? You cannot make comments about it being unfair for me to have a mom and expect me to ignore them. You have a dad, I do not. Do I constantly bring that up with you? I don't believe so. I am deeply saddened that you lost your mom, Gina. Truly I am. But you can't rightly use that against me. You may not intent it to sound negative however I do read it that way. That may be me, if so it is my mistake. I will add this though: I do think it is a topic you need to focus your counseling on. I wouldn't call them failed counseling sessions. I think we just needed to keep working and going and working on stuff at home too. Counseling can take a long, long time to work. I know you think you're the one who has made all the sacrifices and I'm sure that puts some pressure on our relationship. But, I've made sacrifices too. I doubt you notice them. There is no we in counseling; it is you. You need to address your issues. I have been rather accepting of issues sans a few minor. The counseling is something you need; I was only doing it to support you and help build a better relationship. All the issues seem to focus on you yet you sit in the office and listen with minimal input. What sacrifices have you made for me? Not for anyone else, not for Oliver or your sister or your mom but for me? I have not noticed them unless you count not sleeping with others as one. If that is a sacrifice then our relationship is certainly troubled beyond any point I thought. It is true that you supported me when I was having difficulty paying my share but I have since paid that back. I could have turned all that down but I didn't; I stayed with you. I see that as me making a sacrifice more than you making one. I sacrificed job security and jobs to stay with you. You are correct; I have not noticed sacrifices you made for me with the exception of a few minor ones. Although even they were not for me entirely in my opinion. Prove to me otherwise. Tell me what Allen sacrifices you have made that constitute you making that claim and I will consider them. We talked about this. I still think this sounds like she thinks I want to get married right away. I doubt that is the case. I am under the impression that she wants me to marry more than she thinks you want to get married. My mom has hinted for years about me settling down and getting married. However, she claims to understand why I have no interest in doing that. I don't know that I 100% agree that it's really confusing for Oliver. He doesn't really know anything else. There has been some confusion with our names (why does he call you Allen but me Mom? Are you his dad? If not, who is?) but none of it really seems to cause him much distress. He feels loved and that's what's important. I agree, him feeling loved is most important. I also believe that later on in life-if you replace me with another father figure-Oliver could develop some issues that are difficult for him to dissect on his own. His mom meets these guys who are not his dad and she doesn't talk to his real dad but she lets these strangers step in as father figures. The guy will not have a foundation for a father at all. It seems like it could get confusing after some time. It may not though, my Nana has been married many times and my mom seems certain about who her dad was. My aunt is a different story though; she was a party animal most of her teen and young adult life. She blames a lot of issues on not having a father figure. Therapy at work! I say. This is true. There is a way to get you legal rights. It means Andrew has to voluntarily relinquish his rights and no more child support from him. I think we could do it without getting married but I'm not sure. Anyway, this is off the table unless and until we get back together. Even then, I will have to give it some very serious consideration. I do not see getting legal rights to Oliver. I wrote that in a letter. I will never-in my opinion-be accepted as his legal or real father/dad. All I want is for him to have a figure in his life that he can rely on even if we are not together. He has been disowned by one man; I don't want him to feel disowned by another. Yep - in the top two of my issues with our relationship. Something I plan to spend a lot of time thinking about in the next couple months. You should consider this one seriously. I do not want more kids. Could that change over time, certainly? But, at this moment and as far as I can see I do not want another kid. If it is in the top two issues for you then we may need to call it quits here. It is a topic or issue I am strong about. Marriage, living in places I dislike, putting up with your emotional fragility are all things I can work with but a child is not. I just do not want one, maybe adoption at some point but that too is down the road. I find this part very troublesome. The part about you fearing losing Oliver more than me. I'm sure you know that it's wrong to stay together for the children's sake, and I'm sure you've considered what will happen to your relationship with him if our relationship ends. But the thought that you might still be in this just for Oliver and not for me is painful to me. Now a day, I love Oliver more. I loved both of you equally and I felt a little more complete with both of you in my life. However, now-after what you did- I do love Oliver more. I do fear that you'll cut off all my ties with Oliver if we stay apart, that is out of concern for Oliver (read above the section on Oliver and fathers/dads). What does she mean, "What her family is like"? Can I separate myself from what? What have you told her about my family? I think this part is the part that is bothering me the most... She means the lack of communication you and your dad have. The closed feelings that exists in your family. She only knows this from what I say, I admit. I tell her you guys never talked, or rarely talked, that you don't share feelings with one another. I tell her how your sister seems rude and snobbish to me. I tell her how I rarely hear "thank you" from you guys and how I feel you both-you and your sister- seem to expect things to be done for you without consideration. I tell her how I perceive your family. Yes, it may be biased but very little has shown me different. We concluded that it is rooted in upbringing. I was raised to respect others, be grateful, and always be considerate of others. My brother, not so much, so it is upbringing. My mom was in a career change most of his formative years and he just developed a dependence on her, Donnie, his grandmother. I rather Oliver be raised how I was and appreciate what others do; I told my mom that I got the feeling you and your sister-through your mom or your dad- were never taught to be thankful and appreciative of what others do for you. Can you change your ways? Can you separate yourself from the way they-your family-clam things up? Let's begin with your sister and her moving; it is obvious that you did not want it but you said very little about it. I was raised to discuss this type of thing. "Hey, I really could use you now. Could you please put off moving a few months? I have no one and I really need the comfort and support of my best friend...who is also my sister." You are not begging her to stay, you are simply telling her that you are in need of help and it hurts that she wants to leave when she is needed most. I'm pretty sure that's not why I did it. I don't remember everything that was going through my mind, but I'm pretty positive I never thought I would end up in a relationship with that guy and he would move in with me and help me out. You do have insecurity issues that have plagued you for years. You have mentioned that to me. Did you please that guy in the hopes of developing a long lasting relationship? I doubt it. You did it because you are insecure and you fill your emptiness with being a one-night stand. It's tragic, Gina. But it is something you either accept or you change. I do not believe having a kid changes someone in that respect, particularly when the kid was had in just such a situation. I didn't know what was going through your mind but I do know now, from what you told me and (mishearing it I am sure) I am even more hurt. Unless I misheard this (something you say I do often to be honest) you said the thought of me did go through your mind when you started. So you knew that was going through your mind, Gina. My theory as to why you did it: You like one-night stands; you like feeling loved even when it is obviously lust and not love. You get confused about the two. You want out of our relationship more than you admit or you are aware of. I am going to lay out in the sun, now. If you have anything comforting to tell me please do. As of late though, you use words like "blameless" and "I need counseling". I say to you, my dear, that you are taking this issue too far in terms of us. You need to continue considering if you want me in your life instead of laying blame on me for sucking someone off. If I am to blame for that then I want out of this relationship right now. Never, I mean never, justify blowing someone else because of me. I have to go, I furious once again.

And that was the "scathing email" I mentioned in a post the other day. He was drunk when he wrote that last paragraph. I woke up in the middle of the night for some reason and read that email and couldn't go back to sleep. It was terrible.

I answered that email the next day. I thought I did a pretty good job not getting too defensive, although I did a little bit. I do not have that email I sent; it is at home but I'll post it in later. I hope this is all making sense. In that last response, I think I brought up a lot of things that really needed to be addressed but he said he wanted to wait and see how counseling went before he responded to it. I went to my first counseling session on Monday morning and on Monday evening I emailed him a run-down. I addressed a lot of other issues in our relationship in that email as well. I do not have a copy of it here at work - it is at home. Here is his response to that email:

And my response to that on Tuesday morning (I left his email in and responded [in blue] point-by-point so that it was more coherent):

Quote:

From: Me To: Him Sent: Tue 8/2/2011 11:50 am Subject: RE: Counseling I just wanted to add one thing: I do want to be the happy, carefree, fun-loving person I was during the Summer of 2008. I get caught up in day-to-day stresses and forget to make plans to do fun things. And with Oliver, planning is almost always required. (Keep in mind, planning was not required Summer 2008 because my dad watched Oliver most of the time.) Maybe, this is something you could help me with.

He finally responded to that last email last night. He never really fully responded to my email about counseling, just that disjointed effort I posted above. So, just to tally up, he never responded to "RE: My rebuttal with anger issued at the end." or fully to "Counseling". But, here is what he did send me last night:

Quote:

From: Him To: Me Sent: Thu 8/4/2011 11:33 PM Subject: RE: Counseling Gina, responding to this is hard. I am not exactly sure what I need to write or say. I have concluded that writing you a letter is pointless since we email and send messages via phone constantly. The letter I have been starting and restarting will end up containing the same material our messages and emails contain. ·Steps I am taking towards making decision whether to fight for our relationship oReading books and going to a counselor are not the only things I am doing, because I agree. I do think I have to approach this from all sides and hit it with everything I’ve got in order to make a decision I can live with. I also spend pretty much every waking moment, and even some non-waking moments, mulling it all over in my head. I’ve been keeping a pro-con list, which is just brainstorming, every little thing I can think of goes on there. Plus, my online message board thing. I believe it is good that you are using these resources. I suppose you'll come to a conclusion at some point. I can't think of a way to help you with that. It is something you need to figure out. ·Regarding me wanting to change you oI didn’t go into our relationship wanting to change you. That thought never occurred to me. I’ve told you many times that there is a quite a disconnect between the way I feel and the way I think regarding things such as your traveling. Logically, in my head, I understand that you need to travel and that it is a part of who you are and I should be grateful for the temporary separations as usually it will make our relationship stronger. In my head I do not want to change you. However, controlling feelings is much more difficult than controlling thoughts. Even so, I have struggled and fought over the last year to change my feelings towards your traveling – constantly reminding myself that it is one of the few things that makes you happy, and I want you to be happy, therefore, I want to be happy for your traveling. That is how I finally got to a somewhat okay place with you going to Alaska. It hasn’t been easy, though. oHowever, I believe when people enter a relationship, there are certain behaviors they must change. As a relationship progresses, these changes become more pronounced and dramatic. For instance, when you first start dating someone and decide to see that person exclusively, a change that will need to be made is to stop seeing other people. Then the relationship progresses, and you make a change such as feeling comfortable letting the other person know where you are and what you’re doing most of the time, and they do the same for you. Then, say you move in together, and a change that has to be made is, for example, changing some of your household habits in order to get along with the other person. I’m going to stop here and ask if you agree with me so far – if what I’m writing makes sense. If yes, then I will continue this line of thought and how it applies to our relationship. If not, I’ll try to explain it better. I agree, partially. Yes, people who enter relationships need to adjust behaviors accordingly. However, people in relationships also need to accept the others behaviors. This said, I believe a relationship is built on acceptance, compromise, honesty, love, loyalty and trust. My love of travel is one component of me, it is one of the aspects of me that defines who I am. You say above that when people enter a relationship they must change certain behaviors. However, you did not change your behavior hence why we are in this situation now. Traveling is a behavior that I feel doesn't need to change dramatically. It can be adjusted, and I believe that since I've been with you I have adjusted it rather greatly, but I do not believe it needs to stop or come under some pronounced change to the point that it causes unhappiness in a person. A behavior that does need to stop in my opinion is seeing other people. It is hard for me to response to this section of the email because I start getting angered with you. The outline you provide in the above section sounds perfect and I believe I have been on par with them. I've limited my travel to be there for you, I've stopped seeing other people, I with regularity keep in touch with you and let you know what I was doing most of the time, I changed my household habits for you. You have not fully devoted yourself to me in those respects. ·Have I changed? oThis paragraph scares me. Yes, things have been extremely difficult the last couple years for me and a lot of that has come out in my behavior. However, I fear that it has been so long that it is now becoming part of who I am. oI’m worried that I am who I am now more than I was when you fell in love with me. I’m not sure this is true. I’m sure some things have changed. It is hard for me to pinpoint how much of the changes are fundamental changes in who I am and how much of them are just situational and are likely to change back. oCan you be more specific about the changes you see that bother you? I know one of them is what you call “coldness” or “distance”. What else? Maybe if I know what they are specifically I can determine whether it is just a situational thing or if I have really changed. oLet me ask you this – you say you fell in love with someone different than who you have been with the past year or so. Are you saying that the first year you were here I was still the person you fell in love with and the changes have really only come since my mom died? If so, that is encouraging. If you have been seeing a different person in me ever since you got back from Korea, however, that could be quite a problem, since that has been the majority of our relationship. oOur time together before you went to Korea was relatively short. Five months, about, out of three years total. Of course, at the beginning of our relationship I was exceptionally happy, as most people are when they fall in love. There was also the factor that I was back in Talkeetna, home, finally, and I thought I’d never have to leave again. I got depressed at the end of the summer, maybe I hid that from you or maybe you didn’t notice. I was depressed about you leaving and about work and then I couldn’t find a babysitter for a while and spent a couple weeks homebound and that worsened the depression. So, I was giddy at the beginning of the summer and that faded into despair by the end. I suppose you remember the Gina that first came back to Talkeetna. oLastly, regarding the last three sentences. You are using past-tense when describing the things you liked about me. Do you not still feel an attraction to me? Do you not enjoy my company anymore? Do you not believe I am happy or optimistic? Pinpointing these changes is not easy. I am not sure they were even changes or if I was just blind from the beginning. I also feel I have mentioned all this before. I need a person who is more optimistic than pessimistic, someone who is relatively contented or happy for the most part and who is creative. Someone who has suggestions and input about things and activities. I do believe the changes-your demeanor-are related to the events leading up to and including your mom's death. What I am about to say may be hard for you to read; I do not mean it to be cutting or tactless though. With the exception of your mom's final months and her death I believe you find excuses to be melancholy, unhappy, depressed, guilt-ridden, cold, or lazy. First it was finding a place to live, then it was studying for the CPA exam, then it was waiting for the results, then it was tax season, etc... You always had a excuse for being too tired to do something or proactively engage yourself with me and Oliver. I do feel an attraction to you still, did that not show when you were visiting up here? It was tough because I wanted to be mad at you, instead I was hurt and sad. I just wanted to hold you and make your infidelity vanish. I wanted to yell at you for destroying my trust in you. Before that event and your visit, I stayed with you in that crap hole town out of love and attraction. I enjoyed your company often, not all the time, but much of the time. I enjoyed it when I didn't have to pull interaction out of you; when you seemed like you were not pre-occupied by something else. Honestly, I do not believe you to be as happy as you should be or could be. I believe you to be overly guilt-ridden by more things than a person your age and background should be. ·Working on our relationship oI’m glad you said this because if we do get back together, it will take hard work from both of us to repair our relationship. I was the one that ****ed up, but I cannot fix it all by myself. oI didn’t mean to say that our relationship was normal. I know we had problems and things are supposed to be much better than they are. I just disagree with you that relationships are not supposed to have problems within three years. All relationships have problems and three years is a pretty long time for a relationship and I disagree that we should still be in the “honeymoon phase” where we just adore one another and there are no problems (especially when you’re living together and one of you is having trouble finding work and the other has a sick/dead mom and there is a child). Maybe we were just less successful at working through them than some couples. Relationships do have problems, I understand that. I do not believe they should have a constant supply of problems. I began thinking that is how our relationship was developing: problem after problem after problem or misunderstandings and unhealthy dynamics. We do not see eye-to-eye on the idea of relationships though. I say that because you mention that we should not be a "honeymoon phase" were we just adore one another. What good is a relationship if I can't, or you can't, find things about you that I adore or things that make me smile. After reading this I wonder if you see relationships more as business partnerships. I have to go. I am on Cortni's computer and she keeps coming in here. If this sounds harsh I apologise. I am having a difficult time replying to it. Goodnight. I love you. I love you, and again, I am sorry for causing you pain. More sorry than I’ll ever be able to express. Gina

I have been trying to change for him - trying to accept his love of travel (he does it without consulting me), trying to be neater and tidier and clean up after myself better, trying to spend less time on my computer and more time with him and my son, working on sharing the banal trivia about my day with him because he likes it, etc. He doesn't notice any of my efforts. He didn't even respond to my paragraph about my struggle to accept his traveling.

It makes me so angry when he says I am pessimistic and unhappy. He is the one who is depressed and suicidal, yet he refuses to get help because he thinks it makes him a better writer. I at least take medication for my anxiety, he doesn't believe in medicating. He is the one who can never be content with what he has. When he lived in Alaska, he was miserable because his job sucked. Same with when he went to Korea. In Colorado, he hates the town and everything about it, but can only remember the good things about Alaska, Korea, Georgia. He refuses to just be happy that he has a family, a roof, friends, whatever.

Yes, the last two years have been hell on earth. Taking the CPA exam, taking care of my dying mom, three tax seasons, being a mom to a five-year-old, dealing with my mom's disastrous estate after her death... it's all taken a toll on me. What does he want from me? Of course I'm stressed out. But how can he possibly call me lazy? I'm the least lazy person I know. I do not find excuses to be "melancholy, unhappy, depressed, guilt-ridden, cold, or lazy". I have damn good reasons to feel those ways. Besides, I am less "melancholy, unhappy, and depressed" than he is. What the **** is his problem? Why does he think everything is my fault?

Lastly, and I probably just need to tell him this, it's not that there is nothing I adore about him anymore. There are plenty of things. I am keeping a list (my pro-con list) and it is three pages long. I just don't think that the stage where you can't see the other person's faults and are too enamored with one another to fight should last three years.

So, more or less, that is what I want to respond to him. I will let myself cool off some more and wait a day or two to actually respond because I know I am in no position to get defensive or make demands. I just needed to get that stuff off my chest. Thanks for reading. Good god, I don't even want to know how long this post is going to be once it gets up there. Is there a length limit?