Really? Most decent guys have those qualities? Where are they?

We had the following text conversation this morning (I broke down and bought a software that would let me download my text messages from my phone for this precise reason) (you have to read it from the bottom up):

Sent: 2011-08-14 12:43:42
Not harsh... hurt.

Sent: 2011-08-14 12:42:46
Okay. We will not discuss it now.

Received: 2011-08-14 12:41:45
Gina, I don't know what the tone was with your text saying Fine, I read it harshly. Reserve yourself means pick what fight you want with me. I am not in a mood to discuss our relationship in terms of some standardised test right now.

Sent: 2011-08-14 12:26:45
Reserve myself? I don't even know what you mean by that. I shouldn't express my disappointment?

Received: 2011-08-14 12:24:42
Look, Gina, it isn't the time to start in on me about something like this. I am asking you to please reserve yourself, I am willing to build our relationship.

Sent: 2011-08-14 12:21:48
But you'll drop $100 at the bar in one night and that's worth it?

Received: 2011-08-14 12:20:54
Sorry Gina I do not feel that is needed unless it is free.

Sent: 2011-08-14 12:12:22
FIne.

Received: 2011-08-14 12:11:49
I don't want to pay 60.00 for a test. I took it before for free.

Sent: 2011-08-14 12:09:49
I think we should each take the Myers Briggs personality test. It is $60 each and you can take it online. Would that be something you'd be willing to do with me to help understand our communication/relationship issues?

-----------

We just had a telephone conversation regarding this text conversation which I want to summarize before I forget.

He has three main issues with my attitude in those text messages this morning:

1) Last winter and spring, when we were in counseling working on this stuff, he would download relationship questionnaires from the internet for us to go over together. It was usually a while before we could get to them (he says, a while before I would get to them). We usually wouldn't get too deep into them, we would run out of time or some other issues would come up and use up all the reserves we had for these talks. He even looked into taking the MBTI at his college, where he could do it for free, and mentioned that to me. Apparently, he expected me to take the next step and actually schedule it. I expected the same from him. I explained this, and using another example, explained how it seems with stuff like this, we each often expect the other to take the initiative. I believe it's his place to, he believes it's my place to. So, it never gets done. I said it was a communication breakdown, both of our faults. He seems to still want to lay most of the blame on me. Also, I explained that I thought MBTI would give us a lot more insight into our relationship than those free internet questionnaires did because it actually gives you a result and a detailed report. Those internet questionnaires didn't, we really just would go over our answers with each other and compare them.

I tried to tell him that I feel like I'm doing a lot to figure out our relationship and make the decision on whether or not it's going to work, but that I don't feel like he is doing much work himself. I asked what he was specifically doing. He didn't tell me, I don't think... ugh, this is frustrating because I can't remember important parts of the conversation. Anyway, he said he's giving me a second chance and he thinks that's something that he's doing that's pretty big. I said, yes, and I appreciate that, but it can't be the only thing you do... and I can't remember what he said to that...

2) He's offended that I'm telling him how to spend his money. But then he went on to start talking about how I selfishly buy myself 10 pairs of shoes a year but rarely spend money on him (and if I do, it adds on to the debt he owes me), and how he spends whatever extra money he has on me. He says, he earned it, and he should be able to spend it how he wishes. I agree with that, mostly. I responded that I wasn't really trying to tell him how to spend his money, just that I was hurt that a test that might help our relationship wasn't worth the money but multiple nights out at the bar each week were. Also, I told him I was going to offer to pay for his test, even though I'm more broke than he is nowadays, but now, after his response, I didn't want to. But, he seemed to think I was just telling him that to turn things around on him, or something.

3) He thinks I think it's all my decision whether we get back together or not. He wanted to remind me that he has a say in this too. Here, I got really upset. Not because of what he said specifically, but that he has, once again, misunderstood my emotions and beliefs. Of course I know he has a say in what happens. Of course I'm appreciative of the second chance he's giving me. But, he's told me that he's coming back, unless I tell him not to. That makes me think that he's made his decision, and I just have to make mine. It seems like almost every interaction we have results in a miscommunication. This is so frustrating. How do we ever solve our relationship problems if we have plenty of real issues topped with imaginary ones created by misunderstandings? How can two people communicate so differently? This is really discouraging.


Finally, just before the conversation ended, he said, he spent most of his free time doing stuff for me, that he spent a lot of time thinking about what made me happy (so much so, in fact, that one time I made the mistake of asking him if he was "co-dependent." He was extremely hurt, and still brings that up, and did today). He says he doesn't know what else he could have done. This makes me think he believes he was the perfect boyfriend. I tried to relay, as gently as I could, that sometimes I feel like he believes that most of our problems stem from me. That he's willing to work on helping me solve my issues, but not to work on his own issues. He said he was speechless, and then it was time for him to clock back in.

Writing is so much easier for me, I get so confused and flustered when we're talking on the phone. This conversation just happened. I hung up the phone and started typing. And I still can't remember everything that was said.

OH! I remembered something else. I've been summarizing my counseling sessions for him, emailing him after each one. You may have noticed in the posts above. There was one thing I held back from him after the last: that both my counselor and I think he might be projecting some of his own issues onto me. I chose to not tell him that because I thought he might not be ready to hear it. He mentioned that it bothered him that I wasn't telling him everything, so I told him that, and tried to provide a specific example, about how he lacks contentment just as much, if not more, as I do. He didn't seem too offended by the fact that we both think he is projecting, and I admitted that maybe all his complaining to me wasn't lack of contentment, just he needed to vent. I brought up an example of how I work on being contented, on just being appreciative of what I have. The example was about this rental house that I inherited from my mom which had a pipe burst due to my negligence in caring for it after she died and that was (and still is) a huge source of stress for me. (He's been wanting to me to try to sell the damn thing ever since it happened, but I decided to go ahead and try to fix it and rent it.) But, all through those months when everything was going to hell in that place, I kept reminded myself: it's just money, it's just money. My family is healthy. That's all that matters. I guess I never shared that with Allen, because all he heard was complaining. So, maybe we are both guilty of only sharing the bad things about our lives and not the good, and that makes us both seem discontented to the other.

Oh! Oh! One more thing. He asked if I've come to any conclusions or had any epiphanies over the last month or so that I've been working so hard on everything. I tried to come up with something (I've realized I'm very independent and that comes across to him as cold; he countered that, if I'm independent, why do I get jealous when he goes out or travels?), but I immediately wanted to take it back because even that is not very clear in my head (sometimes I'm independent, sometimes I'm not). I guess I wanted to be able to tell him, yeah, I've reached all sorts of great conclusions, here's what they are! But, the truth is, most things are still as muddled and confusing as ever, if not more so now that I'm focusing on them. I told him that and I told him I wasn't expecting the question and I told him that I haven't really sat down and thought about or written down what conclusions I've come to. I really wanted to tell him I'd come to conclusions, but I haven't, so I told him that.

Anyway, I don't know that any of this is very helpful or meaningful to you guys, I just needed to summarize the conversation because I get so frustrated when SO MUCH comes out of these conversations and I feel like I forget 90% of it, or get the conversation jumbled in my mind. It still is jumbled, even with the summary, but at least I got some of it written down. Maybe I should take notes during these conversations.

This is such a major issue in our relationship. Just to be fair, he has only left for months at a time twice in our relationship: the first when he went to Korea for 6 months at the beginning of our relationship, and he had that planned before we got together, and again this summer because he couldn't find a job decent enough here for him to even earn enough to live on. I don't know if that's a good reason. He's told me it's not something he plans on doing every year. I do believe he wouldn't have done it but for the money, although he does hate it here and love it there, so I kinda think he was glad for the excuse to get out of here during the hottest, most miserable months.

His response to the point I made about me feeling like I am getting all the blame will be pivotal. We got cut off before he could respond because he had to go to work, but I really want to know what he has to say about this since it seems to be a huge issue, and a lot of you have pointed out that you get the same impression from him so now I know it's not just that I'm getting defensive. We have another conversation scheduled for tonight after Oliver's in bed and after Allen gets off work.

I haven't started on Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, because I'm reading this other book about the hook-up culture, which has been fascinating. I recommend it to anyone in my generation who has ever been confused about their sexuality, and to anyone who is a parent. I'm almost finished with that and then I plan to really get into TGTLTBTS. I really thought MBTI would be another really useful tool in understanding our relationship and how (and whether) we might make it work.

This is so hard... will it be this hard forever?