The morning is progressing ... we talked without yelling - both of us :) :)
Good morning … I think I’d like to say that we started the morning off right in that the first cup of coffee has disappeared and we changed the default font to be Cambria 12 pt. See that was a good move … why were we changing it manually every day? Ok, we’re now all past that … Ann was being smart this morning – we get credit for that This was our post of the day over on Facebook.
Ann Ludford Garvey Good morning ... woke up today and found the world did not end ... I was questioning it from yesterday after Rich said he loved my house, but didn't think we could do it yet. Not sure where to go with that though started the thoughts I might need an extra job. Felt about the worst thing you could do with dreaming is ...to crush the spirit. I remain resolute. Rich is still my knight and day. :) :)
This will probably take some time getting over, because he bit off more than we could process yesterday. I know we closed down. We stayed angry until we could focus our minds on something else. I felt bad because I was misbehaving. We came in the house last night and Rich was cooking. We pretty much walked past him and changed into our pjs and then sat down on our corner of the couch, bowed our head and closed our eyes hoping the Earth would swallow me up.
Rich brought in dinner and then said he would eat out in the kitchen so he didn’t bother us. We didn’t stop him. And, then after dinner we went into the bedroom with the door closed. The good part was that we didn’t shut down all the way – though we were shutting out. The good part came in that we brought our new book, or at least one of them. It was one of Jinny Beyer’s on patterns.
Before Rich left for his officiating meeting he came in the bedroom to tell me that he was going, but would be back in a couple of hours. We didn’t say anything. Then we spent the next couple of hours reading and comprehending the book. There were a lot of pictures because she included about 136 designs that were one or two to a page. I think we spent the last 10-12 pages of the book back out in the living room.
I don’t know how we did the transition … hmm, I know we had taken our medicine, so then decided to lay down and go to bed – with the door open. I heard Rich come in.
He answered the phone. I’m pretty sure it was Bob. He was talking out in the living room and we’d left the music on so we couldn’t hear most of his words. I’m pretty sure my behavior was brought up because when Rich was gone Bob called me up to scold me. He sprinkles in “I hear ya’” And, I think he really does, but naturally he understands his friend. He was like you could have waited … you zinged him before he left and then immediately after getting back.
All we could say was that we knew, but that he’d worked to efficiently to close us and our dreams down and that we thought we should at least be able to plan for a future, but he just stomped on everything – basically saying he didn’t ever want the responsibility of a house or having stairs would be terrible and he thought the house was beautiful, but, but, but…
We didn’t feel like we had to defend ourselves with Bob as much as we were saying there’s this other side where feelings, thoughts and emotions were happening and would need to play themselves out. I think Bob worries about frustrating Rich because he empathizes that that much pressure could have been him and that it would make him feel bad like he thought Rich was feeling bad. We did explain the feelings of being put off and put off first for so many days while he was away, and then when he got home he put us off, and then he wanted to spend time with us, but he wouldn’t deal with it. Then he wouldn’t deal with it when we woke up, and then he wouldn’t deal with it when we got to work. Each of those times he had said he’d look at the pictures the next time, and next time, but he didn’t … kept putting me off.
I don’t know if this all had much to do with our change in behavior with Rich, but I think mostly it was just getting away from those thoughts … we really did have an excellent experience with the book.
When Rich came into the bedroom, we opened our eyes and he was able to look at us without us looking mad. I think the feeling was sorrowful. He did his bedtime rituals and then came to bed. He laid down in his … you can give me a backrub mode, but we weren’t that far along yet. After a while we did lightly touch his hair. We told him we would still need to discuss it and when he asked about what we wanted to discuss we said later. But, then a little snuck out and he said a little back, but he was still being too harsh and so then we closed down again after he had to get up again to check his phone. We turned around in bed to our sleeping position and pretty much decided that was enough for one day.
The point we tried to touch on last night was that both of us should make a one year commitment to putting $650 a month aside for a house of approximate value of $250,000. That way we would both be used to saving the additional $1300 a month necessary to do a mortgage and the initial money saved would be $8,500 down and about 7,000 for closing. Rich was still saying that he wouldn’t want the responsibilities of a house, but then we were saying that we didn’t want to live in an apartment. He was like then fine move out. I said that if that were the case I’d have to move into something less and my ideal was to move up in the world.
He wanted to impress that he couldn’t put away money, but after a bit he said tentatively that if we put away money he would match us. So nothing is done, but we have that small hope. He said he didn’t know where my money was coming from, but then we told him we had applied for about 5 “at home” work positions and that we’d keep working on it. About by then the phone rang and we decided to turn over.
It had been an exhausting day. He still doesn’t understand that our conversational ability between the two of us was really horrible. I think on my part I tend to push too much and too hard and on his part – he’s holding on to negative thoughts and is absolutely certain there is no other way to look at things. He doesn’t understand the part where he is “closing me down” in a sense sucking all the air out of my idealism balloon. This seems to be one of the hardest things, because I feel that I not only have to deal with my own problems of negativity, then I have to deal with his too and he’s like an angry dragon. The communication is terrible because he wants me to listen and believe him, but he exaggerates the terrible. If I believed in that I would simply have to die.
We’ll have to talk to Dr. Marvin about it because Rich doesn’t seem like he’s moving in that direction. This is the same terrible feelings and thoughts that I’m the only one working on the relationship and that Rich doesn’t understand my needs. He might understand that I should eat a well-balanced dinner, but he doesn’t see that in ways we are emotionally starving.
He asked to be woken up at 5:30 and he was woken up at 5:35 and now it’s 15 minutes later and he’s stumbling out of the bedroom. He wants to make me breakfast and we’re saying we don’t want breakfast because it interferes with our donuts on the way to work. He then says this would be better for us … and we think “fuck-it” I didn’t ask you to do this part … then because we don’t want what he wants us to have, then we’re like obviously not ready to do anything sensible. It’s a terrible judgmental facet of our relationship.
Shoot, shoot … he’s up for 1 minute and we’re already frothing? No, we can’t keep doing this. There’s this part too where I would like not to be scolded by his friend, but then we have to think even though Bob will support anywhere that Rich is that we’d rather know where he was at than not and if the two of them need to take me on together than to hell with boundaries … let me take that on. Just then have to get over the anger of being tag-teamed. I’m pretty sure though if Rich knew that Bob was calling then he would put a stop to it, but I know that’s Bob’s way and Rich seems to need that support.
I think that after Rich gets done in the bathroom, we are going to take our shower.
Ok, that’s about now. BRB
Ok, good that is done. We took our shower, got our medicine and packed our lunch. Well part of it. Rich was packing a half sandwich I didn’t ask for. He asked if I wanted eggs. I told him no. He gives me things I don’t ask for, but doesn’t want to work with me on things I do want? This is then more about him then it is about me. We’re going to need to continue working on this so I don’t feel smothered.
Ok, we’re going to have to remain calm. We better go on to what we were …
Hmm, Rich and us been talking the last 45 minutes. Mostly its us listening and him going on … more about this later. It’s time for work now.
posted by Ann Marie @ 2/25/2010 07:05:00 AM
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