Been fairly quiet on the home blog-front lately, didn't figure anything was really worth posting, but I guess I was wrong. Dad has mentioned a couple times he was curious what I was thinking with the whole marriage thing (not in a bad way, mind you!), and I guess now that it's coming to a close, it's as good a time as any to reflect on it.
In short, when I met dude (now ex), we really seemed to have a lot in common. We agreed that relationships took work, life was worth living every moment of to its fullest, and there was no point in sitting on the side and letting it pass you by. He expressed interest in picking up Russian to help me out, and I admit, I'm a sucker for someone who's willing to play along with my love of languages. We went hiking with the puppy in Garden of the Gods, we would spend hours talking about things, even difficult topics like money, kids, the future, etc. I was very happy, and felt I'd really connected with someone.
Time passed, as it tends to do, and I spent every weekend down in Colorado Springs with him. I wasn't too keen on the drive down and back during rush hour with a dog in the car, but he made a good point that his place was nicer than mine, and he didn't have a roommate, much less the messy and socially awkward one that I had. I learned to deal with the drive, and my attitude towards driving (a chronically emotionally charged and angry one) began to soften; road rage became less, patience became more, I was pretty proud of myself. A little later, dude made a comment about my wardrobe, which, while it was kinda sloppy, I felt fit in well on campus, the main place I was occupying. A couple more comments were made, along with opinions on my hair, and how draggy it looked. Again, I admit that since I didn't do anything with it other than put it in a braid, it did pretty much look always the same and a little droopy, but my hair has been kinda who I am for so long, I resisted that one a lot. He kept nagging at it though, so eventually I went to the hair salon, and got a new 'do, shorter than I've had my hair in 19 years. It looks nice, but takes some getting used to- it's always in my face! Shortly after that, we went clothes shopping, and I got a new look there too. Again, I look nice, but I felt like I was being pushed a little too much.
Sure enough, not long after that, I started getting grief about my glasses, lack of makeup ("Am I not special enough for you to put makeup on for me?"), shoes, even the operating system on my computers! In the middle of that, I moved down to the Springs, since he didn't want to leave it, and the gloves really came off. It turns dude was allergic to dogs, so puppy had to go. He didn't like how I drove, so we always took his car. If I wanted to go somewhere, he usually stayed at home, but if he went somewhere, I should go with. He was upset that I didn't want to hang out with his friends for 6+ hours at a time. I should get a PS3 controller so we could run games in 2-player mode, but when I bought one, and a copy of Little Big Planet, that game was silly, and he didn't want to play. The hair gel I'd gotten for my new 'do smelled odd, the facial stuff I'd gotten wasn't as good as his; he wanted to game together but got mad when I would suggest something other than what he wanted to do; my jacket looked odd and he bought me one that looked like his (a nice jacket, but still)... the list just never seemed to stop.
Before I'd moved in, we made a point to never go to bed mad, even if it meant having a hard conversation at 2 am. If an issue came up, we'd talk it out, and I felt like I'd found someone who was as dedicated to a long-term commitment as I am. On Christmas Day, however, the atmosphere felt really strained, and no matter how many times I asked what was wrong, all I got was, "nothing." It was so tense that we never got around to opening the presents that we did have, and I ended up going to bed early because I was so worn out by the mood in the air. The next day, he admitted he'd been thinking about whether we'd made a mistake in getting married- not the first time he'd mentioned it- since we seemed to like different things now. He was fixated on the fact that I didn't love the movies (horror, mostly), or music types (heavy metal type stuff, with an eclectic mix of older bands thrown in) that he liked. Despite the fact that I'd made the effort to watch films with him, he never said when he was starting one, so often I'd come into the living room and find him in the middle of a movie, which is no fun to just jump into halfway. I listened to his music when we were in the car together, but I like to sing along with songs, and heavy metal doesn't really encourage that much. Anyway, I pointed all of that out, and he just seemed to get frustrated and dropped the topic, instead of talking things out like we used to.
Things remained tense, so I just kept giving in and going along with things in an effort to lighten the mood. I'd said "'til death do us part", and I'd meant it, so I was trying to make it work- a phrase that, apparently, I was alone in believing in. School started, and I'd hoped that having something to do, for both of us, would help snap him out of this funk, and give us something else to focus on. He'd come home, full of stories and opinions about his classmates, his teachers, and his classes, and I felt it was getting better. One week later, my school started, and of course that Monday dawned over 4" of snow on the roads. I set out as carefully as I could, but someone cut me off and I ended up off the road in the snow. Fortunately, I was able to dig myself out and keep going, but I was a little rattled. Classes were ok, but boring as sin, since I'd had to compromise to get ones that would fit with my commute. When I got home, I got a lecture on driving more safely, and it was only after I got mad about being lectured for something that wasn't my fault that he said "I'm trying to say be safe, because I care about you." Silly me for not realizing that's what a lecture means, apparently.
The week goes by, nothing seeming to go quite right, until Friday, when I was in the mood for some steak (dude prefers chicken, so I hadn't had red meat in a couple months). On the way home from school, I sent a text asking if he wanted to go out for dinner. No response. I get home, and ask again, and he tells me he couldn't be bothered to reply to my text, since he was working on homework, and figured we could discuss it when I got home. Keep in mind I was starving, and had been waiting on his response to see if I should just feed myself on the way home or wait. Since he still didn't bother to reply, I started making myself a snack, and he got all snippy with me, asking why I couldn't wait for him to finish answering me.
Side step here: dude had a habit of trailing off in the middle of statements or conversations, and then picking them back up minutes or hours later as if nothing had happened. While I can usually follow along with this, we had studied turn taking and semantics in various LING classes. Generally speaking, if a sentence ends on a down tonality, it's a statement and it's finished. If it ends on an up tone, the sentence is not done, the speaker is simply pausing. So, given the statement, "I'm not really hungry right now," if it ends down, it's done. Think about saying that phrase as a statement, as opposed to how you would end it if you were about to add "but I'd still like to go out soon." Dude was very bad about ending with a down tonality, but thinking he was still going. I'd usually wait about 2-3 minutes, and if nothing followed, assume he was done. In his mind though, that wasn't long enough, I needed to wait more.
Anyhow, back to Friday. I answered that he'd said he wasn't hungry, he responded with, "I wasn't finished. I was going to say I'll be done with homework here soon, and then we can go." Shame on me for not waiting longer to hear that. So I put my snack away, and went to check email while he finished. After 10 minutes or so, he comes in the room, gives me a 5-minute lecture on how I need to wait for him to finish a statement, and that he doesn't like text (I should know that!), and walks out again. After another 30 minutes, I'm starving, so I go out to see if he's ready to go. I get another lecture about how he'd waited for me to say we should go, and now he'd started some other homework, so he didn't feel like going out now. At this point, I'm ravenous and furious, so I just go out by myself to Wendy's and get a hamburger. I brought a book so I could cool off before I went back, thinking we could talk it out.
I get back, I get the cold shoulder and silent treatment. This lasts for 3 days, making it the most uncomfortable weekend I've ever had. He doesn't talk to me, he doesn't look at me, he doesn't stay in the same room that I am, he's sleeping on the couch, I get one-word answers to inquiries, and once again, everything is "fine," and "nothing" is wrong. Finally, on Monday, I get this: "I think we made a mistake. All I seem to do is hurt you, and that makes me feel bad. I know I put a lot of demands on you, and that makes me feel bad. I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort anymore, since we don't seem to agree on anything now." I don't know about you, but that's not "fine" to me. We have sporadic talks for 2 days, with him just repeating that he feels bad, and making no decisions. When I tried to reason that we swore an oath, and we should work things out, I get accused of trying to sway him into staying with the marriage (well, duh), and that relationships shouldn't have to "make things work. They either do or they don't." News to me. Finally, on Tuesday night, I offer to move out, and he jumps on it like a cat on a wounded mouse. In a month of living together, he had never taken the time to make room for my dresser- it had still been sitting in the dining room- but in one day, it was moved down into the garage to await the move back north. That seemed oddly symbolic to me.
So that's where things stand. I had asked him if there was anything I had done right, and he was unable to come up with an answer, instead just walking out of the room. I gave it my best- my all even- and it got me nowhere but accusations of trying to control him. I tried to compromise, to give in, to negotiate, and all it got me was taken advantage of. He said he'd call to figure out the annulment paperwork; three days later, when I called him about it, I got voicemail and a text saying I should take care of it. I've been trying to stay civil, and I got yelled at for saying "thank you" when he finally responded to me. I'm not really sure what happened, and I'm angry as can be that my oath of forever was so quickly nullified, but I refuse to be someone's slave or whipping-boy. If at any point he would show hesitation or willingness to work at it, I would gladly take that path, but one person cannot make a relationship work. I've always said it takes two to succeed, but it feels like it only takes one to fail, and this is the second time in my life that the person I relied on as my partner has let me down. I'm not saying it's all his fault, I'm sure I made my mistakes, but I don't know what else to do when my efforts to salvage things become accusations of controlling him. I just don't know where things changed.
Am I mad? A little. Am I depressed? A little. Did anything good come out of this? Well yes. It may be a character failing of mine, but I try to look to the future. The day I came back up to Boulder (I am staying with my aunt and uncle up in Lyons) was the last day to add classes. In one frenzied afternoon, I dropped all but one of my classes and got into ones I actually WANT, including Business French and fourth-year Russian. I checked with the admin offices, and as long as I declare it after my graduation, I can keep attending CU as an undergrad this fall, studying for a Russian degree. I've been debating picking up tutoring or teaching, and I got an email from the LING department last week with an offer for training and paid teaching over the summer in Denver. Now I'm just waiting for a response on that, and word from my landlord in Boulder on whether I can stay there til June, or if I need to look for a new place. The paperwork for the annulment will be filed this Friday here in Boulder, which I'm not really looking forward to, but at least it'll be done then. All that's left after that is the court date, and getting my stuff out of the Springs, once I know where I'm staying, and then just focus on getting the most out of classes. It's not a perfect life, but it could be so much worse.
In short, when I met dude (now ex), we really seemed to have a lot in common. We agreed that relationships took work, life was worth living every moment of to its fullest, and there was no point in sitting on the side and letting it pass you by. He expressed interest in picking up Russian to help me out, and I admit, I'm a sucker for someone who's willing to play along with my love of languages. We went hiking with the puppy in Garden of the Gods, we would spend hours talking about things, even difficult topics like money, kids, the future, etc. I was very happy, and felt I'd really connected with someone.
Time passed, as it tends to do, and I spent every weekend down in Colorado Springs with him. I wasn't too keen on the drive down and back during rush hour with a dog in the car, but he made a good point that his place was nicer than mine, and he didn't have a roommate, much less the messy and socially awkward one that I had. I learned to deal with the drive, and my attitude towards driving (a chronically emotionally charged and angry one) began to soften; road rage became less, patience became more, I was pretty proud of myself. A little later, dude made a comment about my wardrobe, which, while it was kinda sloppy, I felt fit in well on campus, the main place I was occupying. A couple more comments were made, along with opinions on my hair, and how draggy it looked. Again, I admit that since I didn't do anything with it other than put it in a braid, it did pretty much look always the same and a little droopy, but my hair has been kinda who I am for so long, I resisted that one a lot. He kept nagging at it though, so eventually I went to the hair salon, and got a new 'do, shorter than I've had my hair in 19 years. It looks nice, but takes some getting used to- it's always in my face! Shortly after that, we went clothes shopping, and I got a new look there too. Again, I look nice, but I felt like I was being pushed a little too much.
Sure enough, not long after that, I started getting grief about my glasses, lack of makeup ("Am I not special enough for you to put makeup on for me?"), shoes, even the operating system on my computers! In the middle of that, I moved down to the Springs, since he didn't want to leave it, and the gloves really came off. It turns dude was allergic to dogs, so puppy had to go. He didn't like how I drove, so we always took his car. If I wanted to go somewhere, he usually stayed at home, but if he went somewhere, I should go with. He was upset that I didn't want to hang out with his friends for 6+ hours at a time. I should get a PS3 controller so we could run games in 2-player mode, but when I bought one, and a copy of Little Big Planet, that game was silly, and he didn't want to play. The hair gel I'd gotten for my new 'do smelled odd, the facial stuff I'd gotten wasn't as good as his; he wanted to game together but got mad when I would suggest something other than what he wanted to do; my jacket looked odd and he bought me one that looked like his (a nice jacket, but still)... the list just never seemed to stop.
Before I'd moved in, we made a point to never go to bed mad, even if it meant having a hard conversation at 2 am. If an issue came up, we'd talk it out, and I felt like I'd found someone who was as dedicated to a long-term commitment as I am. On Christmas Day, however, the atmosphere felt really strained, and no matter how many times I asked what was wrong, all I got was, "nothing." It was so tense that we never got around to opening the presents that we did have, and I ended up going to bed early because I was so worn out by the mood in the air. The next day, he admitted he'd been thinking about whether we'd made a mistake in getting married- not the first time he'd mentioned it- since we seemed to like different things now. He was fixated on the fact that I didn't love the movies (horror, mostly), or music types (heavy metal type stuff, with an eclectic mix of older bands thrown in) that he liked. Despite the fact that I'd made the effort to watch films with him, he never said when he was starting one, so often I'd come into the living room and find him in the middle of a movie, which is no fun to just jump into halfway. I listened to his music when we were in the car together, but I like to sing along with songs, and heavy metal doesn't really encourage that much. Anyway, I pointed all of that out, and he just seemed to get frustrated and dropped the topic, instead of talking things out like we used to.
Things remained tense, so I just kept giving in and going along with things in an effort to lighten the mood. I'd said "'til death do us part", and I'd meant it, so I was trying to make it work- a phrase that, apparently, I was alone in believing in. School started, and I'd hoped that having something to do, for both of us, would help snap him out of this funk, and give us something else to focus on. He'd come home, full of stories and opinions about his classmates, his teachers, and his classes, and I felt it was getting better. One week later, my school started, and of course that Monday dawned over 4" of snow on the roads. I set out as carefully as I could, but someone cut me off and I ended up off the road in the snow. Fortunately, I was able to dig myself out and keep going, but I was a little rattled. Classes were ok, but boring as sin, since I'd had to compromise to get ones that would fit with my commute. When I got home, I got a lecture on driving more safely, and it was only after I got mad about being lectured for something that wasn't my fault that he said "I'm trying to say be safe, because I care about you." Silly me for not realizing that's what a lecture means, apparently.
The week goes by, nothing seeming to go quite right, until Friday, when I was in the mood for some steak (dude prefers chicken, so I hadn't had red meat in a couple months). On the way home from school, I sent a text asking if he wanted to go out for dinner. No response. I get home, and ask again, and he tells me he couldn't be bothered to reply to my text, since he was working on homework, and figured we could discuss it when I got home. Keep in mind I was starving, and had been waiting on his response to see if I should just feed myself on the way home or wait. Since he still didn't bother to reply, I started making myself a snack, and he got all snippy with me, asking why I couldn't wait for him to finish answering me.
Side step here: dude had a habit of trailing off in the middle of statements or conversations, and then picking them back up minutes or hours later as if nothing had happened. While I can usually follow along with this, we had studied turn taking and semantics in various LING classes. Generally speaking, if a sentence ends on a down tonality, it's a statement and it's finished. If it ends on an up tone, the sentence is not done, the speaker is simply pausing. So, given the statement, "I'm not really hungry right now," if it ends down, it's done. Think about saying that phrase as a statement, as opposed to how you would end it if you were about to add "but I'd still like to go out soon." Dude was very bad about ending with a down tonality, but thinking he was still going. I'd usually wait about 2-3 minutes, and if nothing followed, assume he was done. In his mind though, that wasn't long enough, I needed to wait more.
Anyhow, back to Friday. I answered that he'd said he wasn't hungry, he responded with, "I wasn't finished. I was going to say I'll be done with homework here soon, and then we can go." Shame on me for not waiting longer to hear that. So I put my snack away, and went to check email while he finished. After 10 minutes or so, he comes in the room, gives me a 5-minute lecture on how I need to wait for him to finish a statement, and that he doesn't like text (I should know that!), and walks out again. After another 30 minutes, I'm starving, so I go out to see if he's ready to go. I get another lecture about how he'd waited for me to say we should go, and now he'd started some other homework, so he didn't feel like going out now. At this point, I'm ravenous and furious, so I just go out by myself to Wendy's and get a hamburger. I brought a book so I could cool off before I went back, thinking we could talk it out.
I get back, I get the cold shoulder and silent treatment. This lasts for 3 days, making it the most uncomfortable weekend I've ever had. He doesn't talk to me, he doesn't look at me, he doesn't stay in the same room that I am, he's sleeping on the couch, I get one-word answers to inquiries, and once again, everything is "fine," and "nothing" is wrong. Finally, on Monday, I get this: "I think we made a mistake. All I seem to do is hurt you, and that makes me feel bad. I know I put a lot of demands on you, and that makes me feel bad. I'm trying to decide if it's worth the effort anymore, since we don't seem to agree on anything now." I don't know about you, but that's not "fine" to me. We have sporadic talks for 2 days, with him just repeating that he feels bad, and making no decisions. When I tried to reason that we swore an oath, and we should work things out, I get accused of trying to sway him into staying with the marriage (well, duh), and that relationships shouldn't have to "make things work. They either do or they don't." News to me. Finally, on Tuesday night, I offer to move out, and he jumps on it like a cat on a wounded mouse. In a month of living together, he had never taken the time to make room for my dresser- it had still been sitting in the dining room- but in one day, it was moved down into the garage to await the move back north. That seemed oddly symbolic to me.
So that's where things stand. I had asked him if there was anything I had done right, and he was unable to come up with an answer, instead just walking out of the room. I gave it my best- my all even- and it got me nowhere but accusations of trying to control him. I tried to compromise, to give in, to negotiate, and all it got me was taken advantage of. He said he'd call to figure out the annulment paperwork; three days later, when I called him about it, I got voicemail and a text saying I should take care of it. I've been trying to stay civil, and I got yelled at for saying "thank you" when he finally responded to me. I'm not really sure what happened, and I'm angry as can be that my oath of forever was so quickly nullified, but I refuse to be someone's slave or whipping-boy. If at any point he would show hesitation or willingness to work at it, I would gladly take that path, but one person cannot make a relationship work. I've always said it takes two to succeed, but it feels like it only takes one to fail, and this is the second time in my life that the person I relied on as my partner has let me down. I'm not saying it's all his fault, I'm sure I made my mistakes, but I don't know what else to do when my efforts to salvage things become accusations of controlling him. I just don't know where things changed.
Am I mad? A little. Am I depressed? A little. Did anything good come out of this? Well yes. It may be a character failing of mine, but I try to look to the future. The day I came back up to Boulder (I am staying with my aunt and uncle up in Lyons) was the last day to add classes. In one frenzied afternoon, I dropped all but one of my classes and got into ones I actually WANT, including Business French and fourth-year Russian. I checked with the admin offices, and as long as I declare it after my graduation, I can keep attending CU as an undergrad this fall, studying for a Russian degree. I've been debating picking up tutoring or teaching, and I got an email from the LING department last week with an offer for training and paid teaching over the summer in Denver. Now I'm just waiting for a response on that, and word from my landlord in Boulder on whether I can stay there til June, or if I need to look for a new place. The paperwork for the annulment will be filed this Friday here in Boulder, which I'm not really looking forward to, but at least it'll be done then. All that's left after that is the court date, and getting my stuff out of the Springs, once I know where I'm staying, and then just focus on getting the most out of classes. It's not a perfect life, but it could be so much worse.
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