“I just noticed that it is my own private National I Hate Myself and Want to Die Day (which means the next day I will love my life and want to live forever).”
Franz Wright
I only hope that the second half of this quote is true because the first totally applies to this day. All I want to do is crawl under the covers, eat chocolate chip cookies, and cry. But I have to work and live my life so I’ll settle for a lunch of grilled cheese and french fries instead.
I think I’m in love with a narcissist. I mean, I know I’m in love with him…that’s not that part that I’m unsure about. It’s the narcissistic part that I question although if I had to place bets, I’d say that I’m right.
I know relationships are hard…I’m don’t live under a rock. I know that the words “and they lived happily ever after” only exist in the worlds of Cinderella and Snow White. And I know that there’s a reason that I love “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” – because it’s all so true. The things I love about him – his passion, his zeal, his intensity and excitement, his creativity, his brain, his ability to live in the moment – are also the things that sometimes tear me apart. I knew all this going in, so why am I even remotely surprised now?
I don’t know the answer to that. I thought that somewhere along the way, we would settle in. We would “just be”. We wouldn’t have to examine everything so much, so hard, so long. But it seems that everything in his world gets scrutinized with a microscopic eye.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me…if my relationship is not only hard but harder than it SHOULD be.
Our therapist FINALLY looked at him this morning and said to him, “Actually, this isn’t about her. This isn’t about anyone but you. This is your issue. YOU need to look at it in order for this to stop happening. Because nine times out of ten, YOU are creating the situation in your head. You. She’s just being. You’re turning into something else.”
The “this” is the fact that he is constantly thinks that I’m raining on his parade, trying to ruin his fun. The person that wanted to marry me thinks this. He thinks I don’t have his best interests at heart. That I don’t want him to be happy. That my actions are intended to put a damper on his party. I am baffled by this. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand why, if he truly believes this and thinks it’s true, why did he want to marry me? And then I sit there asking myself if he thought this before we got married or if it only happened after? I don’t think it was going on before. I can’t imagine that the smart, savvy woman that I do truly believe myself to be would have said yes to a life of that. But then, I can’t imagine why on earth he would change after the “honeymoon” – so to speak. It’s not that he’s a different person than he was before we got married (see above reference to the fact that I knew what I was getting into) but this is different. I don’t remember this being part of what I signed up for. Because despite all of the things that I absolutely adore, I’m not quite sure I would have signed up if this had been a clear cut part of the package.
As I write this, I feel like a horrible person. I can’t believe that I’m saying some of this out loud. But it feels better to ask these questions out in the universe than in my head.
When our therapist said that, I felt this huge sense of relief. I was so grateful that I was tempted to hug him on my way out the door. I’m not saying that I’m perfect…that I don’t have issues. But I remember when we started dating almost 5 years ago and I was bitching about something going on with him in my therapy session. My therapist looked at me and said, “Miss Jelly, don’t worry about him. Worry about you. If you work on your stuff, at a certain point he’ll have to start looking at his. But sitting in here talking about him is not going to change who he is. You can only deal with you.”
She couldn’t have been more right. Five years of therapy later, we’re in therapy together, and we’re doing a whole lot of looking at him. At least me and the therapist are. He’s still looking at me.
