Can’t we have a (tenth) time?

WTF is wrong with me. I went back and read the journals from the past year and it’s just complaining about the same two fucking things. And how many times did I write “We broke up”. This fucking up and down relationship is insane and yet I cannot get away from it. I sit here crying about everything. I lay in bed next to him just WANTING him to cuddle and hold me. WTF is wrong with me. He’s basically treated me like trash and yet I cannot walk away.

I should be happy, I should be thrilled to be free and find someone who invests back in me and gives me what I need. But yet, I sit here just wanting him to come home and say “I’m sorry babe, I want to fix this”

I’ve said it over and over again in my journal here. There’s two things missing, basic communication and sex.

We went to brunch the other day, we talked and talked. He said he needed to do this for himself. We talked the next day and the next.

Things the past week have been EXACTLY what I want (well we haven’t been having sex). But he comes home and he talks. we have rapport, we enjoy each other. He respects me by saying “thanks for doing the laundry”. Yesterday I went out with Jay and we had dinner. We talked a lot. James came over and talked to Charles. I have no idea what they are talking about or what they are doing. Anyway, I came home and James was just leaving. I had had a long day, so I just got ready for bed and laid in bed. I just wanted some alone time and to watch a show after the emotional day I had.

HE got up from the living room, brought this laptop into the bed and just sat there next to me talking about random stuff. Where was this Charles for the entire last year. Then this morning, he usually goes to work at 6am. But he said he wasn’t feeling it, so we laid in bed for an hour extra and just talked. THIS is what I want. Why has it taken us getting to this place now to find it.

I went today and got boxes. I packed the first box and then broke down crying, bawling in my bed. I don’t want this to end, but he’s treated me so poorly.

I called my mom to talk to her. I kinda brought things up and she just changed the topic. I was tearing up and she couldn’t be the mother I needed at that moment. I just needed a mother to tell me, “we love you, you’ll get through this” I needed a mother to be supportive and tell me I’m loved. But I couldn’t get that from her either.

All my friends want me to go to Pervert still for folsom. We had been planning big group, Charles, myself, jay & James, Jhunrie, Owen, hammer. I talked to Charles bout it and he still wants us all to go, but he said “not share the hotel room”. So that way he can hookup and fuck whoever he wants. UGH. UGH. UGH.

If only we had pushed the therapy earlier on, this would have honestly probably been fixed by now. We’d be happy.

I just can’t believe how quickly it all changed. One day we were looking at houses together, the next we’re moving out.

The four horsemen

So, on Monday I asked Charles to setup a couples therapy session to discuss if there was anyway to salvage things. I told him “to talk everything out”. He apparently interpreted that as “to finalize things”.

He setup the session and we were sitting there waiting for it to start and he was talking to me about the roommates he’s apparently been meeting. I was confused and hurt that he was doing this when we still had to talk to this guy about trying to salvage things.

Anyway we got in the call and it was intense. A lot of stuff got brought up, the dishes, the laundry. And his therapist kinda took his side on a few things which I didn’t like at all. A therapist should be non-partial and he shouldn’t be taking sides.

He brought up these “Four Horsemen” of a failed relationship. They are: Stonewalling, Defensiveness, Criticism, contempt. The therapist said we have all four of them. Charles Stonewalls and has major contempt.. I have criticism and we both have Defensiveness.

I dunno, I want to fix things. But only if he’s willing to put 110% into things again. When we were dating, he admitted he put 110% in, but then I feel like once we got together he started only giving 40%.

After therapy, he basically did exactly what the therapist just pointed out. Stonewalled, stayed silent. He went and met Eric and didn’t come home until after midnight.

Anyway. We are going to have brunch and figure things out… If he wants to try or not.

I keep reading past posts and it’s like “WTF am I doing here, why am I staying” but then I also just CANNOT give it up. Why?!

And end, again.

Is this finally the end? We keep ending it then getting back together. I posted on Wed because things were pretty shitty, he had been coming home from work and just sitting at the counter ignoring me, not talking about things.

Thursday it kind of came to a head again. He got home and just wasn’t really talking to me, we went to the gym and I saw that he was texting James back and forth but he wasn’t asking me about my day, wasn’t talking to me at all. On the way back from the gym there was this biking event going on in our little courtyard. He said something like “I wonder what’s going on”.

I replied: “oh they’ve been doing this every Thursday all summer, they meet here and then ride around. some of the bikes are pretty cool. We should try to join sometime.” Silence. Then I said something else about how it was crazy windy and I hoped it wasn’t super bad for our sunday sail… Silence.

Then I said to him. “Why do I even bother trying to talk to you, you just ignore me”.. Silence.

And from there, the argument started. We got back to our apartment and we were actually having a nice conversation about the problem. I thought we were really making progress. We talked about how we were supposed to be having weekly checkin’s and how we hadn’t been doing that. He said “we’ll just have to make sure that we get them done”.

Then Eric came up again, he had wanted to hang out with Eric on Saturday. He brought it up a few days before and my reply was “Just the two of you?” I was just asking but apparently he took it as a terse “JUST the TWO of you?”

Ok, so yes, I don’t like them just hanging out the two of them. Eric doesn’t like me and I feel like Eric puts things into Charle’s head against me. Do I Like that he’s going to go out on a Saturday night with him when he could be spending the evening with me? No. But you know, I was just asking to start the conversation, “just the two of you?” or all three of us? I just wanted to know.

Do I want to be spending Saturday night with my boyfriend? Yes. But can I compromise with him and work something out so that he can go hang out with Eric and we can also do something Saturday night, maybe.

Anyway, he said that my expectation in a relationship are ridiculous. He said that I’m controlling, he said that I’m a liar. My expectations are the same as I posted here over a year ago (A breakup letter – June 22, 2022).

After he said that my exceptions are ridiculous, I said “turn the light off and let’s go to sleep”. I wanted time to calm down and for him to calm down, for both of us to think about what was happening because I saw the same pattern was starting to repeat.

I did stuff Friday, I went to Dolores park and hung out for the evening. He got home from work and slept on the couch. He worked Saturday. When he came home we sat in the house and talked. He said “Why don’t you start” and I said “No, I want you to start, I feel like it’s always me telling you my emotions and what I want.. I want to hear honestly from YOU what you want”. He said something like: ” I think it’s just not working. blah blah blah”.

I was on the same page, I agree it’s not working. Going back and reading some of my old posts. It wasn’t working. There’s just basic emotional support that’s not there. There’s basic relationship communication that’s not there. I had posted on reddit, nearly every reply was “Why the fuck are you with this guy”. Here’s one of the ones that really hit home:

Dude. Looking through your post history….like are you sure you should be together?
It seems your relationship started with him dating someone else to see if they were compatible and then when it didn’t work out, he came back to you. Then, you have problems with asking him to be responsible for his own mess. Then, the tennis problem of him not inviting you. Then, forgetting about your birthday. Then, leaving you home for his own birthday party after your grandma died. Now! He doesn’t even want or care about how the things you want out of a relationship are important to you.
It really seems like you are wanting something different and you’re just with him bc it’s convenient. What you want out of a relationship is important and if you’re with someone who doesn’t understand that well: 1) they’re a narcissist 2) they don’t want the same type of relationship you do 3) they don’t love you enough to respect your wants and needs.
If someone can’t even be bothered to listen to your day…then that speaks for itself. I understand that people decompress differently and his needs are just as important as yours but it’s fairly obvious from your post history that your relationship feels heavily one sided. Sometimes love isn’t enough to keep a relationship going.

But I fear. I fear this is a repeat of Calvin. Calvin and I were having problems, we were having issues, we just didn’t communicate through them. We broke up and 6 years later I still regret it. I still love Calvin and wished we had just tried harder to work through the problems. Calvin says “But it ended up being for the best”. I told him, “the best for you.” Cause he’s still with the guy he started dating right after we broke up. I told Charles last night, “if it give you solace, know that the next guy you date will probably be the long lasting one” 🙁

It’s both the right decision and the wrong one at the same time. Charles and I both said so.

Sunday we all went sailing. IT was a great beautiful day of sailing. Charles was chatty and friendly with everyone. I watched him and just felt sadness and empty all day. We went out to Sausalito for dinner that night. He kept putting his arm through mine and trying to hold hands, just drunk and use to doing that. That night we were sitting on the couch, both exhausted. I went over and cuddled up with him and said “Remember when we first started dating and you would call me on your way home from work just to talk. That was one of the things that really made me fall in love with you. That’s what I’ve been asking for for months.. Just a boyfriend who wants to talk to me, who wants to share his life and day”. I got up and went to bed.

Yesterday was the best day of our relationship in months. He made me coffee, he responded to texts, when he got home and all night long he was chatty and we had rapport… We drove to the gym and both ended up crying in the car and he shared his feelings (although I had to push him a little bit)

it just sucks it took our relationship ending to get to that.

Charles said he’s overwhelmed, he can’t handle the stress of Work, applying to schools and a boyfriend.

I hope, really I do, that we can be friends. That we can stay close and hang out. I hope that we can get through this and he and I both can grow and learn from this experience.

I love you Charles.

Dore Alley

Well this weekend was about 95% fun at Dore alley. We went out Saturday night and had a ton of fun at powerhouse. We hooked up with two guys in the back of the bar. We got yelled at one time though cause apparently we were blocking the bar access, Opps. I was confident enough to wear just shorts and my harness which was pretty hot. But not confident enough to wear just my jock strap. lol.

Woke up Sunday morning and was HUNG THE FUCK OVER. I felt like I was dying. Went back to bed for a bit over an hour and woke up feeling much better but still tired.

We drove to SF and metup with his friends Jay and James. Walked around a lot and eventually met up with my friend Owen and then also Charles’ friends Eric and Eddie. He said there was this house party, so we walked like 3 blocks. Got there and then apparently the party had been “pushed back” by a few hours. So we had to walk all the way back to the fucking dore alley. That was annoying.

That’s sort of when things started to go down hill. Jay is very aggressive and pretty condescending, IMHO. It was starting to get to me and all I wanted to do was kinda mill around Dore and people watch. But he was constantly like “ok, what are we doing, what’s the plan” blah blah blah. And then when someone was like “ok, let’s do this” he sort of like RAN Through the fucking event. Like just slow the fuck down, enjoy what we’re doing.

I also got a bit annoyed at Charles cause while we were walking through places he would just run off ahead and leave me behind. But as soon as Eric showed up he was walking side by side with him.

Anyway, we ended up driving over to Castro for some dumb reason and having dinner at this place. Again Jay was being a little condescending about stuff and going on and on a bout how he “owns all this restaurant stocks” and he just seems to know everything about everything in the restaurant business.

Then wen walked over to the lookout and hung out there. This part was pretty boring because everyone was just kinda on their phones and not talking. Rav was there and he stopped by to say “HI” but that was awk af.

On the drive home we got in a fight because I was “being rude” to jay. Honestly Charles needs to get his fucking shit straight. I’m his BF, if something upsets me, I should feel comfortable to discuss it with him. I was telling him how Jay was frustrating me and how I was upset by it. at one point Charles texted Eric cause he was obviously upset too and he replied that he was frustrated with Jay as well. But not once did Charles ask me all day why I was upset. And then when I wanted to talk about it, he just got mad at me because I was “rude” to jay; Because that’s “just how jay is” and because I don’t “like” any of his friends.

Well, let’ recap. Eric hates my guts, so yeah. I don’t really like him. And now Jay is being all aggressive and condescending to me. So no, I don’t like that either in that moment. I like jay and James, they’re both nice! And honestly Eric is starting to grow on me and I think I’m growing on him.