“You find your things to be more important than mine,” is part of the text message I fired off as I got home Friday night. I was angry. After giving three days' notice, of planning and reminders, my partner decided to skip out on a friend’s birthday dinner to stay late at work with his boss. Fine. Then he proceeded to go to the bar with his boss on a night that he knew I had to go pick up my daughter. “Hey, we’re going to the bar, want to come?” I can’t, obviously. It’s fine. He got home late, and then the next day, he spent it sick due to a massive hangover. It’s totally fine. Internally, I was so angry that I spent a good chunk of my evening crying.
You see, we don’t get a lot of free time. Even if my daughter stays the night with her grandparents or at her friend’s house, our time is still spent doing other stuff. Fixing things. Working. Schoolwork. Cleaning. Running errands. House projects. It’s always something. So for us to get a night that is completely free for us to do whatever we want, well I had really wanted to take advantage of that. Instead, I was angry as hell because he had chosen to go out with his boss and friends on a night he knew that I could not go. He had skipped a dinner we had already planned to attend. He came home really late, and probably shouldn’t have driven. And because of this, he was entirely too sick to do anything with me on the following day. I wanted to scream.
“Well, you can still go do something by yourself. Or go with one of your friends,” is the response I got when I asked if he felt well enough to at least go out for dinner. And that was laughable. My friends do not live here and he knows this. The people who I would normally call up to join me for a night out are all gone from this area and any others I may have considered are all pregnant. Doesn’t mean that they don’t want to do anything, just that they’re growing humans and I remember how tired I used to get. So, no. I can’t go with my friends. And going out to dinner by myself? Or a show. While I’m sure it would have been fine it was NOT the point. I just wanted ONE night. ONE night where we could do something that I wanted. A night where maybe I could be the one to get a fruity drink or maybe a (light) beer, and not worry about having to drive home. A night of listening to one of my favorite local bands and doing some dancing. And I wanted to enjoy that night of no worries with him.
Had the tables been turned, I would have never heard the end of it. If I set us back even by thirty minutes on plans that he has made I’m usually met with, “Raquel, you KNEW this was what we were doing. I gave you plenty of notice.” Then I’m being hurried out the door. Because his plans are important. HIS plans matter. And mine are more like suggestions. That dismissive attitude is what pisses me off the most. Because when he makes plans, I don’t skip out on them or make other plans without him. I don’t approach it with a, “Well, that sucks for you but I’m doing something different because I don’t care about your feelings” attitude. This is exactly how it felt for me when he blew off my plans. When he prioritized his boss and his friends over what HE and I had already discussed. And even TALKED about that very morning as we got ready for the day.
I don’t care if he has a guy's night out. He’s had plenty before. What I do care about, is how disrespected I felt. How ignored and insignificant his actions and words made me feel. I care about the bad memories and the crappy feelings that were dredged up because of this. How, for a while, I felt like I did in my previous relationship. And that’s not okay. I did not go through the worst time of my life and claw my way back up only to have someone make me feel the same way. Not after all the years of therapy. Of all the prayers sent up by me and those on my behalf. The years of hard work. NOPE. Not on my watch. And this right here is exactly why some couples go through counseling. Because sometimes, you need an unbiased person to help you communicate. You need someone who will call both of you out on your shit. Because I’m sure everything I just typed up there screams of insecurity and co-dependency issues.
But do you know what the cool part is? This time around I have a partner that is actually open to this. For the first time, I have someone who was all in when I suggested counseling a few months ago. Because we communicate very differently. He processes verbally and I process internally. And sometimes he’s straight-up oblivious to his actions/words, and so am I with mine. On the other hand, sometimes we aren't. Arguments can quickly escalate because we’re both pretty damn stubborn too. Though let's be honest, he is more so than I. And overall, we just handle things very differently. So, even though I was super pissed off all weekend we decided this would be a good topic to cover in our next session. And y’all, weirdly, that made me pretty happy. Plus, that willingness to try things on my terms, is pretty dang attractive.
I’m still mad though.
But it's okay. Because we’ll work through it.
