National Geographic – the sequel

Things took a bit of a turn for the worse yesterday. #shocker

 

Yeah I hashtagged. So what.

 

After I wrote that entry yesterday I thought to myself, you know, this is going to be pretty awkward since I invited myself to dinner with them when they obviously wanted it to just be the two of them. I felt like I was imposing and I really didn’t want to put myself through that awkwardness when it shouldn’t have even happened in the first place.

So I asked Paco to call me, and when he did, I told him exactly that. I don’t want to feel awkward, I don’t want to impose, but I am also not okay with them going to DINNER one on one. He said, so you don’t want to go? And I said no, I don’t, but I’m not comfortable with you doing it either. He said he wasn’t even sure what the plan was and would let me know later.

After work, he calls me and says, so I thought about it and why don’t we all just meet up sometime next week, as a group, that way there’s no awkwardness, and you don’t feel uncomfortable? I said that’s fine with me. I then asked him, are you still meeting up with her tonight?

He said, yeah, do you want me to come over afterwards? 

WTF?!?

I took a deep breath and said, no, I don’t think I want to see you tonight.

Cue very intense conversation with me saying that I’m not happy that even after I told him repeatedly from the beginning that I wasn’t comfortable with him having dinner with her alone, he continued to do it. Him saying that if I’m going to have a problem with him being friends with exes or girls in general, we’re going to have a problem.

It’s like he doesn’t understand a word I say. It’s not that I have a problem with him being FRIENDS with these people, it’s that I don’t think that DINNER with someone that he’s been sexually intimate with is appropriate. Dinner is a date. Dinner is an intimate setting.

And honestly, if he’s going to dinner with a female friend, I would want to know what the reason is.

Preferably, getting ONE DRINK with an ex/ex-like person and then having me join immediately after would be ideal, or meeting up in a group.

Anyway.

It was not good.

Paco said he was just going to cancel and go home and not talk to me for the rest of the night and I was like FINE … you know how that goes.

We obviously were not going to agree.

After I hung up, I got really super emo about our relationship in general. I always do that. I sent him a FB message saying that I was worried about us and that things aren’t as magical and all-consuming as they used to be and that his work stress is chipping away at us…

It was a really heavy message and I feel pretty embarrassed for getting so overly upset about everything when it obviously came from a place of insecurity.

I will say, however, that my issue with him going to dinner with National Geographic (we will call her) does NOT come out of a place of insecurity. This is a hard line for me, and based on many responses and my own internet research (the internet never lies) my perception of this is not wrong.

One of my faves pointed out that every relationship sets their own boundaries and I completely agree with that. Some people are totes cool with this sort of thing. But because I’m not, that needs to be respected.

So I hopped in my car, drove to the store and got a pack of cigarettes. It was a bad decision. I haven’t bought a pack in probably 6 months. But my heart was racing, I was spiraling and needed to do something impulsive…

Katie came over, bless her heart, and we discussed, AT LENGTH, what the fuck is going on with me. In addition to this particular issue of course.

Two separate issues – dinner with National Geographic and the blatant disregard for my requests against it, and my own feelings that the magic was rapidly diminishing between me and Paco.

She agreed with me about National Geographic. Seems like most people do which makes me feel like I’m not a psycho. A helpful feeling, to say the least.

But regarding my feelings about the magic diminishing, she had amazingly awesome advice. It’s nothing I didn’t already know myself but to hear someone else say it so clearly made a million light bulbs go off in my head and gave me more motivation to make a change.

In her words, she said that because I am naturally an insecure person (admittedly), I have a ‘deep need’ that was filled during the beginning stages of our relationship when both people are infatuated with each other and everything is new and exciting. Inevitably, phases in relationships shift, and things become more comfortable that there’s not a need to be obsessive about each other anymore. I expressed that I don’t want him to take me for granted and she was like, he is going to sometimes. That’s just life. Everyone takes everyone for granted from time to time. Which also makes sense, otherwise we’d be walking around in awe of one another constantly and that just can’t be sustained for a lifetime.

So because our relationship is getting to the more comfortable point, my ‘deep need’ is not filled up solely by him, and to compensate, I need to fill it up. For myself. I need to be a part of my own fulfillment.

I knew this, I’ve wrote about it in here, but the way she put it is pretty genius.

She’s totally my therapist and all I had to do was pawn her a couple forbidden cigarettes.

We brainstormed some things to do that would help me fulfill myself… it’s where I always get stuck. Maybe getting a yoga membership, but those are expensive… going to movies by myself or with friends, reaching out to friends more often, volunteering at soup kitchens (because I love to cook), reading more books, vintage shopping…

Just things for ME. Things that make me happy, apart from Paco.

I feel like I’ve said this so many times but haven’t really made any strides… which needs to change, otherwise I will run our relationship into the ground. It’s too much pressure for him and it can’t be sustained.

So after our conversation, I felt really guilty about that ‘explosive’ (Paco’s words) message I wrote to him after our phone conversation.

I called him, he answered, and I asked if we could talk. He said he would come over, and asked if I would like him to stay the night. I said yes.

We sat down and I asked if he had anything to say regarding the message I wrote, but then decided to start. I had some recanting to do.

I apologized for the doomed tone of my message, and let him know the revelations regarding needing to fill my own ‘deep need’ – which I had talked to him about when we were flying into Chicago a few weeks ago. But this reinforces it and explains my irrational outburst.

Then I reiterated that I am completely okay with him being friends with exes/ex-like people but I am NOT okay with dinner or other date-like activities.

He was responsive to most of it but then got a bit defensive about my op

position to him hanging out with exes. He also assumed that I had a problem with him being friends with any girls which obviously is not the case.

He then said that he understands why dinner with National Geographic is not okay. He didn’t understand before, but now he does. When I sent him that FB message, I included a link to an online questions forum where someone asked ‘Is it okay for my boyfriend to go to dinner with his ex?’ and all the answers were a resounding NO – except for some trolls that were like ‘you’re insecure’ and bullshit. But I think even seeing a stupid questions forum made him realize that I wasn’t off-base with my thoughts on this.

I told Paco that I understand that he has some learning to do, experience to gain, regarding relationships. It’s strange that at age 30, a person could be so inexperienced… but that is the case, people. It happens. You heard it here first.

I also told him that he is absolutely perfect for me, that even in our moments of disagreement, of seeming despair and doom, we always make it through together. Once we remember that we are on the same team, we talk it out and make it through as partners.

It’s really pretty incredible to experience.

Long gone are the days when I was with Will and any disagreement went unresolved due to his unwillingness to admit there was a problem.

 

So that’s what’s happening with that.