I'm starting a new thread because I would like to focus on the new stage in my R. For the last 4 months H and I have been spending every night together. H pretty much lives at my place. In sept. I needed to let my landlord know if I planned to renew my lease for another year or not. I approached H about it and we both (kind of) decided that we would let it turn over again because we weren't ready to move back in with each other.
For the past month and a half my H has been talking a lot about moving back in together. I have let him know a couple of times that I am just not ready yet. I let him know that I was very, very happy with how far we have come but I needed to see that the changes we have made are premamnent. Two weeks ago we sat down and made lists of what was considered a necessity and what was highly important and what would be desireable in our R. I used that as an occasion to let him know that at the heart of it I NEED honesty, compassion, and respect in my R for it to work and it was his responsibility to figure out what exactly that meant to me. and I was to do the same with his needs.
I found a place online the other day that sounds absolutely AMAZING! I had to check it out. I asked H if he would like to see it and let him know that I was just checking to see what is available to us as we begin to work towards living together again. H agreed and then after reading the description started talking as if we would move into this place.
I put the brakes on (one- I'm still not ready and have made that clear to H and two- I'm in a legal contract which I can't break w/out serious reprocussions.). H got upset and said "Fine. I'll move in and you can move in in 2 or 3 years whenever you are ready." I tried very hard not to react to this snide comment of his and stared at him and said "Babe, it's not a matter of me wanting to move in with you or not. I do want to live with you again but the reality of my situation is this." He went on to say that his life wasn't going to be ruled by anything like a lease, etc, etc...
I thought about it the next day and did some research. Basically my options are to sublet or to try an assign my lease back to my landlord. Breaking my lease is not an option because I could be sued and and it would go on my credit report.
The whole exchange the night before is exactly what I need H to pay attention to. That is respect for my situation and my feelings. He's being immature about this and it makes me want to put the breaks on even more. That and it makes me very down about my R. When this happens, I think that H should leave me and be with OW, herself very immature, or someone who lets H do whatever he wants.
Last night I told H that I had spoken with a lawyer at my work and they advised me of my options. I said to him again that this is what I am dealing with. I asked him what his concerns or fears are and he said that he is tired of being compromised in our R. He's afraid that my situation will drag on and it will be a very long time before we can move in with each other. I said that I couldn't look at it that way. I reminded him that we ARE living together and that I look at this as even more time to work on our R.
He also said that he was frightened that I didn't want to live with him again. I said that's not the case. He said, but you are not ready to live with me and I don't know how long this is going to take. I paused, ready to fall into the habit of lying and saying otherwise, but I couldn't. I said "you're right. I'm not ready to move back in with you." "I'm afraid of falling into old patterns with you and to be taken for granted again." I told him that this is the most important R to me and I don't want to push things simply because we were impatient. I said that this wasn't some bulls**t, "easy" R (nasty dig at OW, who H described as being an "easy" friendship). "This is the real deal and I plan on being with you for a long, long time.
Ok, enough for now. I have to go to the office Christmas party.
