Muddle's Waters IV

[MuddleThrough]

Storm in a teacup, I like that! Well, the weather has been all over the place this weekend. On Friday, W and I had a conversation. Started with W trying to start a fight with me (about what, I can't really remember right now) and escalated. I told her I didn't want to talk, that the conversation was over and that I was walking out of the room. She blocked the doorway and physical stopped me from leaving. She started banging on my chest and pushing me. She was getting angrier and angrier that I wouldn't comply with her. Eventually I opened up to hearing her out, and we had a REALLY good talk. We talked about what gets in between us when we talk, about how we (from my POV) bring our own insecurities into play and make the slightest conflict into something much bigger than it actually is. She brought up some examples of situations that really make her upset (we were grocery shopping and I stepped about 10 feet down the isle away from her without telling her and then after she said something about this, at the checkout, I put 95% of the stuff in the cart on the conveyor belt and then walked around the cart to start bagging without telling her) and I acknowledged her feelings. The more I live this situation, the more I see that she thinks she needs someone to anticipate everything that's going to make her feel inadequate or insecure and eliminate it for her so she doesn't have to go through it. Anyway, during this talk she felt heard and I was able to point out places where I felt that I was bringing my insecurities into play and jumping to conclusions and feeling slighted over things that were not intended. I got a hug initiated by my W for the first time in many, many months.

I was almost pissed at this turn of events. I have been closed to the situation recently. I know that things will not get better, if at all possible, for a long time. My W needs to grow a lot, as do I, but she has a really long way to go before she is capable of having a healthy relationship. But that hug felt good. The positive attention felt good. I woke up in the middle of the night longing for her. It made me angry to want her - to yield my personal power to her when I know I don't want to be where I am right now.

Yesterday was my brothers' birthday. W wanted to make them dinner, as she has done every year for some time. She had her friend help her (because I think she needed to have an ally there with her) and my mother wasn't excited about her being there, nor were my brothers. It went over really well (I made a nice cake - decorated it really nicely too!). Well, there were a couple of issues - my family never come to the table when called, and this was no exception. This pisses W off, but what can you do? We left with S4 practically a puddle of Jello, and didn't get a chance to go out for a drink with my brothers afterwards. Anyway, this morning, W was telling me that she had a bad night. She was really annoyed and upset that my parents didn't make things happen faster regarding starting dinner, and she faulted me for not doing something to make it happen faster. I told her that nothing I could do would change anything. She picked at the evening for a while, pointing out all sorts of things that frustrated her about the experience. She even admitted that because her friend was there, they fed off of each other's bad energy. She said if she had been there without her friend, she wouldn't have had as much of an issue about the evening. Profound. Anyway, the point for me was that she's (and her friend too) got this idea that she knows what the right way to act is, and if people stray from what she thinks is right, then they are wrong. She felt frustrated, so my family should have changed to fix her feelings. That's the theme to me.

So, later last night, W's friend (who also happens to be the XGF of my brother) went out with my brothers for drinks. W got a call this afternoon that my brothers were saying things about my W. W was really upset, saying things like "I'm going to look like the bad guy in all of this" and "It doesn't matter that I made them dinner, they still talk about me like I'm trash." I could really get the story from her, and when she told me about it she was sitting at the computer IMing. It was a little difficult to give her any sympathy, or even try and hear her out while she was there. I wanted to even say something to her like: "It's difficult to comfort you while you're cheating on me" and other comments about how she's cheating, and that's wrong no matter how you look at it, so yes, she's going to be looked at like she's doing something wrong. Really silly and frustrating.

Basically, I'm fed up with the situation and I truly feel like I am losing respect for my W. I still think there may be a chance for things to work out, and that conversation the other night was proof that we can see eye to eye and address our issues, so we could do it if we both wanted to. So, I've got some real cognitive dissonance here. I don't want to think about making things work, or about trying, or about hope any more, because basically I'm my future now. I'm having a difficult time, though, emotionally. This afternoon, she went to take a shower and asked me to talk to her while she got undressed and then while she was standing in the shower. It really makes me somewhat sick now when I think about her in a sexual way. I desire her, but I also start thinking about all of this internal conflict I have, and about my cousin, and about my W's emotional reality, that I'm not there. I don't understand why she would want me in there while she's naked, but a part of me thinks she's trying to maintain power over me, and giving me a reason to want her keeps me hanging on. The trouble is that because of the connection and hope produced as a result of the conversation on Friday and the shower scene, I have gotten these renewed pangs of pain. It's like the knife was pushed in a little more deeply. Despite the fact that I know better, I'm still allowing myself to reattach to her and the situation at every opportunity. I'm sure it's normal to do so to some degree, but it drives me nuts.