Cafe Hitch-hike

2024-04-16

The relationship you cannot get out of

I guess a relationship I've been in for a while has been like a couple in a loveless marriage. There's little fun, no intimacy, no reciprocal exchanges. They are there for for some sort of necessity (taxes, health insurance, financial, or even social). Sometimes there may be low-grade abuse or a chronic disengagement with each other. Yes, this has been going on for just over a dozen years.

There's disappointment. I thought I was doing what I needed to keep up my end. I thought I knew what I needed to do, and to the point of constantly stretching and contorting myself, yet the overall sense never changed. I wondered if it was me, what was I doing wrong? Then, there's the other side. They were very demanding, and things would turn on a dime. I didn't have too much say in those things or the direction things would take. If you've been reading, you've already seen the chaos I've described.

Then, the relationship perhaps stopped being on the agreed-upon terms; when that happened, I'm not sure. It was just becoming clear that I needed to change, I had to deny myself, and I needed to 'take it.' I discovered some changes were around the bend, and there was nothing I could do about it. All I knew was it was going to cause considerable pain to me and others.

Sometimes an outsider notices things and innocently says something that rang true. They notice the nature and conditions of things that I've been blind to or denied. Someone said I didn't seem to be getting what I deserved. Another person succinctly said the relationship was not what I thought it was and gave convincing evidence of that; things really aren't what I (or the other half of the relationship) seemed to think.

After a scrape last week, I decided to get a little time away to get my head straight and clear after getting slammed with frustration and another unreasonable demand. I mean, Mack Truck slammed.

I guess it's what it takes for me to finally claw through the anger and fear, and call things for what they really are. It's time for me to reclaim my voice: "no, this is not okay!" It's also time for me to take some action even thought I've tried dozens of times to get out of this, but to no avail.

Of course I'm frightened. Things have been a certain way for a long time and change is scary. I'm nervous that I'll have to settle, but maybe that's not a bad thing. I'm nervous about going without for a long time. Maybe I'll never get anything near this? I'm lovely but weird and difficult at times, and I'm aging; who will take me?

In case you wondered, I'm talking about my job. I once joked to co-workers that the place is like a relationship you cannot get out of. You get barely enough to get you by and you absolutely hate that, but you do care and there is love (although there's also hate). All of the above rings true for me.

I think I have little choice but to listen to what I've been noticing: my former boss's death soon after their retirement (and that they spent their whole career there), the dream where I danced while the building burned down. I know I have a tendency to panic, but maybe there's a true alert underneath all of that.

I just hope for the best, hope for the best, and hope for the best.

There's more to all of this in my own pretty head, especially with my changing definition of success, my life goals, and a right to be. After I was relieved of a significant responsibility, my former boss thought I was gonna buy a van, run away from here, and live out of it while I traveled the US. I'd rather than not do that, especially since it's so hard to get by nowadays, but wow... They definitely sensed the freedom behind a move like that, and perhaps that it was something they figured I thirsted to have.

There just gets to be a point where I had to really think about myself rather than that extremely loveless relationship and what it gave me to get by.

downwind | upstream