Remember, Not Reminisce

Remember, not Reminisce

Today I’m feeling touch-starved, and it’s on these days that I miss him the most.

When I’m feeling emotional I try to remember rather than reminisce.  When we were together and I would reach out to him in bed in the morning or in the middle of the night, he would shrug me off angry that I woke him.

He rarely, if ever, cured my need for affection. So what is there to lament?

After becoming reclusive at his request for nearly 2 years, I’ve started putting myself back out there.  Not dating (possibly never dating), but getting back to my hobbies and socializing with friends and acquaintances.  The hard part has not been getting into the swing of things, it’s been navigating conversations.

“The last time we talked you told me you were working on getting back together, is that still where you’re at?”

“Uhm.  No.  That’s ... not ever going to happen.”

Most are polite enough not to inquire further, but it’s kind of overwhelming (and I had completely forgotten) how many people I previously said these things to.  How many more corrections will I have to make?

“... for what it’s worth, you never looked like you were happy...”

I almost forgot a part.  We had to make two trips.  

The first time we had gone was closer to his birthday.  I had to book 6 weeks in advance as spaces filled up quickly.  When the weekend came, the forecast called for some rain with periods of sunshine.  Furthermore, there were other people who were in line ahead of us.  We were advised by the club to come and hope for the best as there was still a good possibility we would go.

So we went and were trained.  Ultimately, though the weather prevented us from having a turn to jump.

He was upset, once again, as I had dropped the ball on planning.  As if I could predict, six weeks in advance, that the wind would pick up with the rain just enough to make the jump unsafe for beginners.

An Experience

Referring to this 

I took us Skydiving in the summer of 2016 for his birthday complete with weekend away. It was probably the most exhilarating thing I’ll ever do.

We got videos and pictures of our jumps from the company we jumped with, but he also insisted I document his whole experience from start to finish on my phone. One of his complaints was that I never took pictures of anything, and that was a sign that I was not normal or a good partner.

The consequence of me playing paparazzi was that we discovered, a few weeks later when the official videos arrived, that I was in the first part of his.  He was furious about that, stating how he’d have to re-edit it to be able to show it to his family.

Worst of all, where previously he had been raving about the experience, he soon turned it around.  He was dissatisfied because I had participated.  He was angry that I had not just paid for him to jump, but that I had jumped myself.

He stated that I just “couldn’t let him have anything.”

Always seemed that no matter how much I spent or planned that I couldn’t do anything right.

WOW

This red flag just smacked me in the face.

The reason I moved in with him in the first place was because his mother had kicked him out of his house. He had been attempting to help his sister, who was visibly frustrated, with something on her new laptop.  She got a bit snippy with him and he lost his temper.  He punched a chair which hit the wall and left a hole.

I was present for this event.  I saw it unfold.  I watched him punch something because his sister said “I knoowwww!” 

A running theme was that he didn’t like when people were “ungrateful” or didn’t acknowledge him when he was trying to help them.

Funny parallel:  I moved out with him so we could combine our measly incomes at the time and prevent him from having to live in utter squalor.  I was not ready to move out; I was still trying to finish my degree and school full time.  I had to pick up more shifts at my retail job and worked nearly full time.  My grades suffered as I was now a full time student, employee and abuse victim.

I sacrificed a lot for him to have a better life but that’s never a story that got told. Or a thank you I received.

The deal with meals.

Ten years ago he decided that I would make all the meals. Only he told me that I was the one that decided that.

When we first moved out we were still trying to figure out all of the things that young couples are trying to figure out: how to work out each other’s schedules,  keep the apartment clean, ensure we had enough to pay the bills, etc etc.  

There were days, when I was working late, that it just made sense for him to make dinner.  I had grown up learning how to prepare food - I wasn’t great at it at the time, but I was taught, and fully believe, that is this a life skill. So I learned.  

He did not. Rather than trying to figure it out ( I was fully prepared to eat food that had been burnt to shit during the learning process) he went for things that were easy.  This meant lots of frozen food that he could throw in the oven and be done with.  No veggies to be found.

I do not have a restrictive diet by any means, and I am in no way a total health nut. However, my body, and I will spare you the gory details, INFORMS me when I have been eating too many greasy, pre-packaged, fried, high sodium and high fat things. 

I tried mentioning this on a number of occasions and it always turned into a drag out fight. He didn’t believe me despite the physical symptoms that were visible.  His rationale?  He was eating the exact same thing with no symptoms of the sort.  I was just making it up to be a bitch and have something else to nag him about.  

My incredulity as a side - I can’t imagine being with someone and insisting on cooking food that makes them bleed.   

It came to a head one night where he had me on the floor crying.  I was an unreasonable bitch and I had made the decision right then and there.  Since I didn’t like his “cooking” I agreed to make all of the meals that we ever ate ever again.

It was an utterly ridiculous contract.  But it was one that he stuck to to the letter. I always had to leave social gatherings and other events, sometimes even work to ensure he was fed.  If I did not, he wouldn’t even make himself a sandwich until I got home.  He would starve himself or binge on chips in order to spite me.

And that hangry meme that circulated social media for a while?  Hilarious to some - a real and utter nightmare for me. There was hell to pay if there was no dinner on the table when he walked in.  Yeah.  That really is a reality still for some

To this day he has never learned to cook, which has been an immense problem for him since we are no longer together.  I’m sure he fancies himself an excellent culinary critic though - there was always a problem with what I made

The only good that came out of this is that with the training of the basics I received from my folks (and I am very grateful that they insisted I learn) and all the practice I’ve had over the years, I’m a fairly skilled cook and meal planner.  Most of the time I like it too, but it has also been a trigger. 

It’s hard when the things you love are tainted.

Experienced.

He wanted more experiences.  He felt that I had cheated him out of a good life.

His experiences were based on decisions he’d made: he bought a motorcycle instead of travelling.  He played paintball every weekend in the summer instead of trying different things.  He insisted we needed to “stay home and clean this shithole up” (of course meaning I had to clean the house - which I generally kept quite orderly, in spite of him) if he ever did have a weekend off paintball instead of taking day trips. He was excessively conservative financially when it came to leisure activities with me.  If he wasn’t spending money on his bike or paintball, then he argued that we ought to be doing something for the house.

So things got dull, but he made it impossible for me to improve upon these circumstances.  He’d isolated me from my friends, and then complained that I never invited anyone over.  He told me I didn’t love him because I never bought him things or planned outings for us, but also insisted I should not be spending any money as I made so little and didn’t have the choice to be spontaneous.  He’d be furious that I never surprised him, but reminded me all the time that he hated surprises (unless they were really really good).  I never let us go anywhere because the house was always “filthy” and we couldn’t leave it in that state, athough he never had a problem leaving it to me.

I was the cause of him never getting to have any fun. If you count out all the paintball, going to the gun range, the strip clubs and bars he went to with his buddies*, zipping around on his motorcycle, and overdosing on video games while I cooked/cleaned/laundered/fixed drinks.

So after we had broken up, he looked to me to give him all the joys life had to offer that he never got to have.  It was one of the requirements on My List.  It was only fair as I was the architect of his misery.

I delivered on these experiences at great personal cost, financially and otherwise.

*Another story