why don't I listen to my own stories?

[Trixi]

Yesterday, late morning, he left. Gathered up his dirty clothes, threw them in grocery sacks, packed up his personal sundries into the little travel bag. *sigh*

*ALL* of the motorcycle gear was left here. He mentioned something about it ("so, you'll put the gear away?") (it was still in the back of my car.)

I have had some more time to try to reflect on some of our conversations. In retrospect, I wish we hadn't talked about the R. I get so impatient sometimes.

First I will quote some of the positive things he said:

"I spend almost all of my free time with you" [side note- when I wanted to do marriage builders and the 15 hours/week of undivided attention, he wouldn't do it. Now he is.]
"I am really enjoying our time together"
"We were having the most fun of anyone at the concert"
"You're an "easy rider"" [cycle reference!get your mind out of the gutter!]
"I had a really good time this weekend"
"Next time, we need to plan better" {I like the "Next time" part]
"I'm dating you to get reacquianted with you/get to know you better"

Now for the poopy things:
"We're just too different"
"I know who you are deep down" [said negatively-like "you'll never change"]
"Something is missing"
"You don't go talk to lots of people at parties" {to which I said "yeah-and so what?"}
"You talk to a few people and then want to go home "early"" [I put the "early" in quotes because the times he is talking about it was 1:30am]
"I don't know what I want"

Statements that could go either way depending on my mood
"Yeah, I am getting to have my cake and eat it too."
"You're a big girl, you can make your own decisions"
"If you ask me to commit to anything right now, I can't do that. I don't know what the future holds."

My response to the cake eating comment was that I know he is getting the best of both worlds, but because we need to makeover some of the memories and get to know eachother again, I was willing to grant a brief period of time of leeway.

Probably the biggest beef he had was that we don't hang out with other couples/groups of peers. He seemed to try to pin it on me. That ticked me off, because *I* have forged bonds with several married couples (advantage of my work is that I get to know people very well, very fast, (if they are open with me)).

Unfortunately, one thing or another has happened so that we can't hang with them (Moving away, Getting divorced/splitting up.) I have not seen HIM do the same thing to try to bring couples into our sitch. Also, even if we do find a couple that we 'click' with, they had a life before we met and it is unrealistic that we are going to all of a sudden be doing everything together as a group. Plus, (and maybe I am wrong) I think that finding random adults to like, is a rare thing. If we belonged to some sort of organization with a common interest, we would have a better chance.

Keep in mind *he* mentioned how we seemed to be having the most fun at the concert and that we were the most affectionate. Then during our R talk, he brought up how there were groups of couples around us and he wished we could do something like that. You know, I "get" that--BUT, I can tell you that within the groups of couples-I didn't necessarily see any really strong bonds between the Hs and Ws themselves. For me, I would rather have a super strong bond with my H and be "alone" than have an okay bond and be in a large group.
{disclaimer-I have no real idea whether the Hs&Ws had "good" relationships; I am just using my outsider observations and I acknowledge that many people are very reserved when out in public and have excellent relationships.}

While I was feeling angry he asked why I was mad. I said because I felt like he was "boxing" me in and I HATE that. He acknowledged that he was feeling like I wanted something from him that he couldn't give at the moment, so he was a bit defensive in his reaction. In other words, when he was making it sound like it was all doom and gloom, a portion of that was just to get me to back off because he couldn't offer me anything.

Another thing that ticked me off is that he AGAIN brought up that I should have more 'girlfriends' to hang out with. *sigh*
I already have a 'best' girlfriend. I wish she didn't live so far away and have 3 young boys because then we could have an easier time getting together, but even so, we do talk. So, when he went down that path AGAIN, I listed off all the women I done stuff with in the past month, plus a couple of the guy friends. He is totally trying to stick me into the "she's an introvert and doesn't have any friends" box which is BS. HIGHLY offensive to me. As I told him, I don't have time for a hundred "friends" and would rather have a few friends that I knew and that knew me, than a whole bunch of superficial friendships.

OOO- and now that I think about it; I could have hit him below the belt. He interupts other people ALL the time (he doesn't do it with me). When we have people over, he goes and picks up his guitar and starts singing (OVER the top of people's conversations). For someone that wants to forge close relationships, he sure has a funny way of doing it. GRRRRRRRRR >:( rant over.

This coming weekend we are moving my daughter. He also plans to take friday off to "do stuff around the house." From the sounds of it, we will probably have Friday and Saturday night together.

I did ask (since we can't afford to be going to concerts and renting bikes non-stop) if it would be okay for me to invite him over for dinner on occassion. he said sure.
I mentioned that I wished we would talk more during the week and he said that he acknowledged that, but couldn't promise that it would happen.

Good God!! I am SO sorry this is so long!!!!!!!