09/17/2011

This is sort of a brief addendum to the last entry. 

Regarding the personal stuff: Nick had some sort of epiphany in CO (before I arrived) that I really am the person with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life.  I think that cohabbing with both me and Lynn is more difficult than he’d anticipated, and he’s progressing farther and faster in the direction of breaking up with her than he had initially thought. 

Our tentative plan is to move out, the two of us, in June when our lease is up.  Nick wants to simply move to a different apartment in the same building; I would like to have a normal-sized kitchen again and will be pushing to look at other listings.  In the meantime, our life together is far from perfect, although we’re both making progress.  I am less crazed about cleanliness since leaving the Bux, and have somewhat gotten used to the current living situation.  His bi-polar mood swings have evened out considerably, he is no longer waiting for me to leave him, and is working towards quitting smoking. 

I still worry about him a lot.  His frequent inability to pick up after himself, or to attend to relevant administrative tasks (he lost his student ID a month ago and has yet to replace it; he only just replaced his faculty ID (lost in April), and that was at my insistence) trouble me.  Who does he expect to do these things for him?  Despite a great deal of progress, he still often feels like he has no control over his time and space (his desk is in the ‘den,’ a room that our housemates tend to monopolize for recreational purposes), but won’t take any further steps toward changing this situation.  He still considers Lynn and Matt to be family enough to justify their demands on his time and energy.  Though he won’t admit it, he still feels terribly guilty for not being around when Lynn was first diagnosed with RA.   His grandfather just passed away, and his father is unsuccessfully battling a terminal illness.  And these little details sort of feed into an incessant conundrum for both of us about the long-term viability of an M/s relationship (relationship in general, in my case) and the inherent power dynamic.  In other words, he remains significantly damaged from poor decisions and unhealthy behaviors (both his own and those of others), and despite his progress towards a healthier state of mind, the old ghosts are still prone to manifest when we least expect. 

I think a lot of current problems will solve themselves starting in June.  I’ve also been pushing Nick to take steps to ensure his physical and mental well-being–helping him sign up for health insurance (the Office of Student Affairs actually lost his paperwork, which means he has to resubmit everything) and encouraging him to take advantage of the mental health services offered by the Wellness Office.

And look, folks: before you all start urging me to seriously reconsider my involvement in this relationship, remember that no one, and no relationship, is perfect.  I am all too aware that in a year’s time, the further progress that Nick and I have made may not be enough for me to want to remain in the relationship.  What’s more is that Nick is aware of this, too, which is why he has been motivated to make progress in the first place.  He and I both have private fears about the other person–he, being more experienced with relationships, has reconciled his, whereas I am, as you can see, still in the process of reconciling mine.