You can always trust someone to keep being who they are.


The ones you love the most are worth every fight and every tear.

I'm not sure if I mentioned that I'm back in therapy or not, but I am. I need to make sure I get my head on straight enough to really make a stab at having a good life, now that I finally have solid ground under me and a great partner. And I have every intention of staying with him until one of us dies. (If it's him first, I'll be so pissed that I'll bring him back just to kill him again, because how DARE he make me ever live a day without him!)

We have fairly infrequent, incredibly frustrating fights. One of them is exactly why I was a weepy mess in therapy yesterday. I feel like I really am a crazy person because it's just so ridiculous. But there's a line where giving too much unasked-for help just makes me feel like you think I'm incompetent. And he crossed that line three or four times over the weekend. Enough that I started counting, which I try to never do.

Love isn't about keeping score.

God, he's ridiculously sweet, but sometimes it is ridiculous. He fixes dinner literally every night. We have a sit-down, at the table, dinner every night like the damn Cleavers (but frequently with wine.) It's a warm, fuzzy filling to a hole I didn't even know was in my heart.

Sometimes I really miss doing for myself, though, so when Friday night was a build-your-own stir fry, I was happy. I was so hyped for this. I was ready! (I was also nervous about accidentally spilling anything that would trigger compulsive cleaning.)

He cut up all the vegetables and meat, he prepared noodles, but his son and I actually got to cook our plates for ourselves. Well, the son did - with some little supervisions and hints, because he's barely 14. When it was my turn, I put the meats and seasonings into the pan - and then David started turning the meats for me. If you wouldn't or didn't for your teenage child, why would you for me, a grown-ass adult with 20 more years of life experience? Someone who is supposed to be your partner, not your child?

I told you it was fucking ridiculous. I'm being ridiculous. I actually laughed when my therapist repeated what I said to her, because it's off the wall that something this small would make me cry.

And he really does think he's being helpful when he wipes up the crumbs before I'm even halfway done eating my sandwich, or tells me some more-efficient way of starting my car or whatever.

I don't know how to help him understand that sometimes it feels like he's cleaning at me. And I don't know what the line is before I'm demanding someone else to manage my emotional responses, which is in no way appropriate. He doesn't want to have to ask permission before any time he helps me with something. (I also don't know how much walking on eggshells to not trigger his obsessive-compulsive tendencies is me managing his emotions.)

His world is one of much order and aversion to spills, crumbs, or any inefficiencies. He times his drives down to the minute and took a while to understand why my drives take longer. (In a word, anxiety. I'm cautious to a fault, and I find that collecting myself before shifting into Drive, slowing my roll, and remembering to breathe is really useful, even if it makes the trip five minutes longer. Driving is one situation in which trying to maximize efficiency would just make me hyperventilate.)

Every drawer, cabinet, and section of the dishwasher has a regimented pattern of organization - I won't even take anything but the cinnamon out of the spice cabinet, because that's the only thing I feel like I can move correctly, without upsetting his order. But these compulsions are a part of who he is. My therapist told me she'd like to see me work on seeing it differently - he isn't angry with me or cleaning at me. He isn't angry at all. He is having a reaction to a situation that feels wrong to him, that he has a compulsive need to fix rightthissecond.

I need to be... not comfortable, but comfortable-enough with letting him be who he is.

But he also needs to do this for me. I was a slob for decades. I was raised by more than one hoarder. I've had to un-learn a lot of unhealthy things, and I've honestly done a hell of a job so far! But a lot of things, which come to him as naturally as breathing, don't come for me without a lot of thought and effort. I have chronic fatigue problems, and on my best days, I'm pretty ditzy. I might have trouble remembering what size spoon goes where in the dishwasher, even after he's reminded me 10 times in the past. Maybe - a helpful start would be, instead of just reaching in and helping, or being afraid to give any help without asking permission - would be just to offer.

Even on the days my "I love you" before going to work is shot through with dirty looks because he's corrected me unasked-for, my arms go the whole day feeling empty because he's not in them. I drink in his presence like water in a desert. My hands cry for his. There will never be enough time with him. This is home.

I'm not sure what the answers are. I just know I belong here.

Quotes are from the Facebook page for
The Seven Secrets To Healthy, Happy Relationships 
by Heatherash Amara and Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

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