Sometimes I can be a real jerk. My boyfriend is an atlas when it comes to his ability to handle my brutal honesty. I say I like your old hair better than your new haircut. He says nothing. He mentions I might look nice with some highlights after I ask him what he thinks I could do to update my look and it is on again off again all out war for a month. You don’t love me the way I am! I feel hurt! You are trying to control me.
When I get like that he says he is confused. I use my brilliant logic to tell him he’s wrong and I am right. He sighs and apologizes for hurting me and tells me how much he cares about my feelings. The next day I apologize because it suddenly dawns on me how wrong I was.
Feelings….they are so potent and powerful. What exactly is the point of them? Right now they just seem to stir up trouble. Sometimes I wonder if I am simply being a brat because for one of the first times in my life someone cares this much about me and won’t leave me if I am not perfect. I know he is safe and my real self starts to come out…okay, not quite my real self…but the messy bits that have been hiding deep inside, refusing to rear their ugly heads for fear of complete abandoment. In the past I was railed for misdemeanors and blamed when I should have been consoled. I learned to keep my balance in a world that was constantly reeling under the emotional earthquakes of violence, rejection, yelling, mockery…bigger, stronger, meaner people who always won while I always lost….and I lost too… because all I wanted was to be loved, not to win the argument or to be righter or stronger.
Why do I do this to him? Why am I not more easy going like he is? Why do I get offended over misplaced words when I know his heart is in the right place?
I am terrified of rejection. I love how perfect I seem to appear in his eyes. He finds so little fault with me. Even my skewed view of God doesn’t love me as consistently as he does. I finally found the man of my dreams, the man who loves me as I always wanted to be loved, deeply and purely….and it hurts so bad if I even get the slightest hint that he might realize I am not perfect or might not be blonde. Sigh…being a girl. The highlight thing still hurts even though it’s completely illogical.
Sigh. I am trying to figure out a way to make the pain go away. I can’t. Crap. Maybe I could ask him to not talk about it anymore or stop talking about it myself….but I pick at it like a scab…hoping each time that maybe he’ll say something that makes it all better. I bleed the issue all over him…he says he loves my hair the way it is….but it is too late now, and I think he is lying.
I could just forgive him…but for what? Is it a crime to think I’d look good with highlights? I probably would agree. But I just don’t want to be changed. I want to be liked for me…and he says he doesn’t care, that he wants me to feel free to do whatever I want and that he loves and likes me for who I am…and he isn’t lying. But what I want is to delight him…to be a delight. Just for who I am…and to feel like there is nothing I could do that could make him love me more.
And I know he wouldn’t love me more. But I see his response when I get dolled up…and when I don’t. The love and attraction is still there, but not the same sense of wow and immediate response like when I’ve got on eyeliner. And I like that my efforts are appreciated…but I just don’t feel as special when I see his response when I don’t make an effort. And there is something I love about sincerity and loving of the true self. I like putting on the glamour as well…but it’s an illusion. Sigh. I’m just as bad as he is. Sometimes. But he doesn’t complain like I do. What’s the deal? I’ve been around this mountain like 15 times in the last two months…is it just a guy/girl thing? How do I make it stop? Why do I refuse to just come to terms with this thing? I just don’t understand.
Any advice?
My relationship: 99.44% two amazing people and a genius relationship. He’s a prince, the best I could have ever found
.56% insecurity and pain and lame arguments that should have never happened in the first place.
Perhaps I should pray. There has got to be an answer.
April 15th, 2009 - 7:51 pm
You are having ups and downs, every person has them, especially every relationship. It is much better to know about these and try to understand and change these chaotic parts of yourself than to hide it and let it explode later. The relationship is not the problem, it is the personal baggage, those negative concepts of self that each bring into the relationship… and I am sure while he may seem perfect, he has his own sets of problems that maybe have surfaced and been ignored for the most part of will rise up as you are around and get to know one another better.
Prayer is definitely helpful!
Oh, just another thought… the irony of you wanting to have him just as excited if you wore make-up or did not (because you want him to be excited about just you) is that he wouldn’t be showing you extra attention for your extra work when you did, then you would likely be irritated at that as well I am guessing. And that is the Catch-22 that really confuses guys :.)