I’m finally going there. I’m finally letting myself be pissed off. Because there is oh so much to be pissed off about. Up until now I’ve felt sad and torn and guilty. No more sad, torn, or guilty. At least not today. Right now I’m just letting the anger come up and allowing myself to feel it.
I didn’t realize how much anger I was holding onto until I let it come up. And now that I’m letting it come up, boy is it coming up. I’ve decided just to let it come without trying to stop it or judge it.
Wanna hear why I’m angry? Well if you don’t you may not want to read on lol.
God I’m angry about so many things. So, so many things. Where do I even start?
Okay let’s start on the whole marriage thing. A while back – I can’t say exactly when because I’m horrible with timelines – but let’s just say whenever marriage for same-sex partners became legal in my state, my partner half-heartedly asked me if I wanted to get married. We were all ready for bed. In our pjs, about to turn the lights out… And she said something to the effect of “so now that marriage is legal, I don’t know, would you wanna do it?” Perhaps not those precise words, but you get the drift. This was perhaps a year ago? I never said yes. And here’s why.
I don’t feel married. I told her that. I told her, how can I get married when I don’t even feel married. Because I don’t. We’ve been together for seven years, living together for four. And yet somehow I ended up in a relationship that feels more like roommates with benefits than a true partnership/marriage should. We don’t do things together. What I mean by that is, we don’t do things that couples do together. We don’t go grocery shopping together. We don’t go clothes shopping together. We don’t buy stuff for our apartment together. We don’t walk our dogs together. Hell, we don’t even do our laundry together. (You don’t have to tell me how odd this is, I already know.) This isn’t from a lack of me wanting, or trying. It’s my partner who prefers this way of living. But it’s just not for me. We pay all our bills separately. We write two separate rent checks. I have my money and she has her money. There is no joint checking account.
It’s a very lonely existence. And you might say, well you don’t do those mundane things together, but I’m sure you do lots of other, fun, “couply” stuff together, right? Sure, we attend our friends birthday parties. We go on the occasional hike with the dogs together. Sometimes we go see a movie in the theaters. We go out to eat in restaurants on occasion. And to a concert every now and then. Wanna hear what I’d like to be doing together?
I’d like to go to museums together. It’s been years since we’ve been to a museum of any kind. And I love museums. I’d like to go take picnics in the park with our dogs. Having a picnic is one of my favorite things in the world. How many times have we done it? Once. In maybe our first year together I baked her a boysenberry pie (yes I used to bake for her), blindfolded her, and took her to her favorite park to have a picnic. Rather than having a lovely, loving time together, I remember her acted distracted and aloof. That’s the last time we’ve had a picnic together, just the two of us. I’d like to take drives up the coast together to watch the sunset. I don’t think we’ve ever done that. Okay, maybe once. A long time ago. But I can’t even remember. I’d like to plan meals together and cook together. We’ve never done that. It’s either her cooking or myself. I’d like to work on projects around our apartment together. We’ve never done that. Once when I was out of town for work, she told me that she had spent the day polishing the wood floors in our apartment. That’s something I would’ve loved to have done together. I would like to drive over to see my family, either my parents or my brother and his kids, regularly. We never do that. The only time we see my family together is on holidays and for someone’s birthday. I’d like to be an active participant in my niece and nephews lives: attending their piano recitals, going to watch their soccer games, etc. We’ve never done that. I feel like a crappy aunt. I’d love to drive up to the mountains for a day. Or out to the beach. We don’t do that either. One of my favorite things in the world is camping. We’ve been camping twice together in the last seven years, and both those times were during the first year of our relationship. I’d love to babysit Little Guy together. I dragged her along with me to do that a few months ago. She drove separately and only stayed for a couple hours. She left before the best part: snuggling up to watch a movie together after the kid goes to sleep.
You are probably wondering what we do do together. Well, we eat together. And we watch lots and lots of tv together. Romantic, isn’t it?
Wanna know something else I’m pissed about? There is no “our stuff.” It’s either my stuff, or her stuff. Recently, I mentioned to a friend of mine that my partner has two tents. I know it seems random, but it would make sense if you saw the bigger conversation. But that’s not the point. The point is, I was telling her that my partner has two tents. And my friend was like, “you mean, you have two tents. The two of you.” And I was like, “no… My partner has two tents.” And that’s how it is. None of the stuff that either of us own is seen as common property. It’s either mine or hers. Not ours. There is no “ours.” Well, except for our animals. Thankfully.
You know what else I would like? To plan a trip to go somewhere that I want to go. We’ve been fortunate enough to have been able to travel out of the country three times together. All three times we went places that she wanted to go. Granted, I’m up for traveling almost anywhere. But it’s never been about me. And that’s the problem. Our relationship has never been about me, or what I wanted, or what kind of sofa I preferred, or where I wanted to go, or who I wanted to see. It’s been consistently about her and what she wants. And she won’t do much unless she really wants to. And that includes simple things like going to see my parents, or going to visit friends. Or taking me to a show that I liked.
Many months back, she asked me if I would be interested in seeing The Book Of Mormon, the musical. I love a good musical. (Are you surprised when I tell you we’ve never been to one together?) It’s playing in the city I live. I was shocked. I kept asking her, “you’d really take me to see that?!” I told her that I’d absolutely LOVE to go do that. The reason that I haven’t splurge to take us together is, well one she isn’t much for musicals. And two, it’s crazy expensive. So if I’m gonna spend my hard earned money on something for the two of us, I’m gonna make sure it’s something she is excited about as well. Well, I know you will all be shocked when I tell you this but… She never took me to see The Book Of Mormon. But I’m kinda over being disappointed about things pertaining to our relationship. I kind of expect it at this point. I’ve also been telling her for years how much I want to go camping together, how much I love camping, and how I’d love it if she planned a camping trip for us. Never happened. Surprised?
I understand that people get busy in their lives. They get distracted and caught up with other things. She changed jobs last year and had to take a pay-cut. Her mom was diagnosed with cancer this year (which seems to be gone now thanks to the cancer treatments she’s undergone). I get it, people get caught up in their own lives and forgot about planning fun stuff. But when it’s never really happened, when I really have nothing to look forward to in our relationship, it gets tiresome.
Okay now I’m just getting tired of listening to myself talk about this. I need to go think about other things because I’m getting too depressed. But there you have it. Some (and trust me, not all) of the reasons I’m angry. I’m not holding out any hope that things will change, because after seven years, how much can another person really change?
nothinginmynoggin 