Changes
How time flies........Has it really been almost 2 years since I last blogged?! December of '07......it was a time of realizations and trying to come to terms with my reality. The wheels were set in motion around the time of my last blog, but it still took me awhile to make the necessary "changes". It hit me as I was putting up the Christmas tree, alone, for the first time in 7 years. Putting up the tree had always been a project that Jose and I did together.......it was a tradition. I think the year before, in '06, he only put on the lights and made me do the decorating, but at least he participated. This time he didn't even do that.......he was with Barbara instead. It was a rainy December saturday and I stood in the living room, decorating the tree all alone and I said to myself, "Why am I even in a relationship if I'm going to do this kind of stuff alone?" Another thought occurred to me: I will NOT be doing this next year. At that exact moment, I "knew" I would not be in that house with him next Christmas. It was almost a "pyschic" moment. I didn't know it at the time, but looking back now, I see it.
As time went on and 2008 began, I did not have an agenda to leave Jose. Quite the opposite. I always wanted to work things out with him, always wanted our relationship to be a good one. This, in spite of the terrible way he treated me: putting me down, making me feel stupid, treating me like I was a 5 year old, always trying to elevate his own ego at my expense. Part of it was his own lack of self-esteem, but it was also because he harbored great resentment towards me. I was never the kind of "relationship" person he wanted and when he realized that he couldn't "change" me, he gave up and withdrew out of our relationship. The Christmas tree was symbolic: he'd rather be with his girlfriend Barbara than decorating the tree with me. That day I saw the "end" of things and yet I still denied it was happening for almost another year.
Things continued to deteriorate between us in January '08 when I asked him if he would put me on the title to his house. I was paying for half of his mortgage, paying half of all the home improvement projects and I decided that if we were going to stay together, I needed to be a property owner with him. For reasons I don't care to go into, we could not purchase a property together, so the only option was to put me on his title. He flat out refused and accused me of trying to steal half his house from him. I told him that I would go buy my own house then. I didn't, of course, but it gnawed away at me like a cancer. He told me that if I was so sure that we were staying together forever, why did I need to own part of his house? He just didn't "get it" or didn't want to "get it". He had no sympathy for my plight.
By the summer of '08 I was seriously looking at houses in our neighborhood. I didn't know what I would do with a house if I bought one. Would I move out and leave him? Would I rent it out to someone I knew? I wasn't sure.......things were not good between us and I sat him down for "the talk". Neither of our hearts were into trying to make this work, so we agreed that we should end it. That was that......and I started to panic, wondering what I was going to do and where was I going to live? This was really happening........he said I could stay there as long as I needed to, which made me feel good. Later that evening he was looking pathetic and sad and I asked him what was wrong. He said he couldn't believe that after all we'd done and been through together, it was now coming to an end. I said that maybe we were being hasty in our decision to end it and we could think about it for awhile before making the final decision. Stupidly, we kind of half-heartedly agreed to work on things, but nothing ever came of it. Neither one of us really made any effort at all to work on things and life continued on as it had for the last few years.
But it was not for long.........the final moments of our 8 and a half year relationship were about to be played out, unbeknownst to both of us. This was such a confusing time for me. I didn't want my relationship to end and yet, I was COMPLETELY miserable in it. I wanted things to be the way they were years before, but I somehow knew that it was never going to be like that again. As hard as we'd tried in the past, we could not get back to that "happy" place of yesterday. Once it's gone, it's GONE and that's a hard thing to accept, especially for me. I fight to the end and sink with the ship. Our ship was about to sink, as another "telling" moment happened to open my eyes to the fact that I had "lost" Jose for good. He had moved on emotionally and was simply going through the motions, much as I was. I still loved him, but I realized: Love is not enough. Stay tuned for Chapter 2..........
As time went on and 2008 began, I did not have an agenda to leave Jose. Quite the opposite. I always wanted to work things out with him, always wanted our relationship to be a good one. This, in spite of the terrible way he treated me: putting me down, making me feel stupid, treating me like I was a 5 year old, always trying to elevate his own ego at my expense. Part of it was his own lack of self-esteem, but it was also because he harbored great resentment towards me. I was never the kind of "relationship" person he wanted and when he realized that he couldn't "change" me, he gave up and withdrew out of our relationship. The Christmas tree was symbolic: he'd rather be with his girlfriend Barbara than decorating the tree with me. That day I saw the "end" of things and yet I still denied it was happening for almost another year.
Things continued to deteriorate between us in January '08 when I asked him if he would put me on the title to his house. I was paying for half of his mortgage, paying half of all the home improvement projects and I decided that if we were going to stay together, I needed to be a property owner with him. For reasons I don't care to go into, we could not purchase a property together, so the only option was to put me on his title. He flat out refused and accused me of trying to steal half his house from him. I told him that I would go buy my own house then. I didn't, of course, but it gnawed away at me like a cancer. He told me that if I was so sure that we were staying together forever, why did I need to own part of his house? He just didn't "get it" or didn't want to "get it". He had no sympathy for my plight.
By the summer of '08 I was seriously looking at houses in our neighborhood. I didn't know what I would do with a house if I bought one. Would I move out and leave him? Would I rent it out to someone I knew? I wasn't sure.......things were not good between us and I sat him down for "the talk". Neither of our hearts were into trying to make this work, so we agreed that we should end it. That was that......and I started to panic, wondering what I was going to do and where was I going to live? This was really happening........he said I could stay there as long as I needed to, which made me feel good. Later that evening he was looking pathetic and sad and I asked him what was wrong. He said he couldn't believe that after all we'd done and been through together, it was now coming to an end. I said that maybe we were being hasty in our decision to end it and we could think about it for awhile before making the final decision. Stupidly, we kind of half-heartedly agreed to work on things, but nothing ever came of it. Neither one of us really made any effort at all to work on things and life continued on as it had for the last few years.
But it was not for long.........the final moments of our 8 and a half year relationship were about to be played out, unbeknownst to both of us. This was such a confusing time for me. I didn't want my relationship to end and yet, I was COMPLETELY miserable in it. I wanted things to be the way they were years before, but I somehow knew that it was never going to be like that again. As hard as we'd tried in the past, we could not get back to that "happy" place of yesterday. Once it's gone, it's GONE and that's a hard thing to accept, especially for me. I fight to the end and sink with the ship. Our ship was about to sink, as another "telling" moment happened to open my eyes to the fact that I had "lost" Jose for good. He had moved on emotionally and was simply going through the motions, much as I was. I still loved him, but I realized: Love is not enough. Stay tuned for Chapter 2..........
posted by Steven at 10:42:00 AM
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