the conversation part II

The story continues . . . .

So the last thing I said in my previous post was that he had been thinking that if she had lived, his life would be on track and he wouldn’t be dealing with his financial troubles, his son being away, etc.  He said that he misses her and what a wife represents.  He misses having someone who knows him so well that she could say or think it before he was even aware of it himself.  At some point in that monologue I decided I couldn’t take it anymore.  I left the room and sat in the hallway and cried.  He eventually came to sit by me and I told him I wasn’t sure he was ready for me.  I wasn’t convinced he was ready for a relationship.

I wanted to leave, but didn’t think I was safe enough to drive the 30 minutes to my house.  I had left Superman’s house in an emotional state before and knew that it was too risky on the road and I value my life too much to put myself at risk for an accident.   I called 2 friends to see if they were available to come get me, and neither was.  So I decided to stay and calm myself before leaving.

As I was preparing myself to leave, he asked me to come in and talk with him again.  He gave an analogy to help me understand him (which I won’t get into – I got it, but involves cars and such and I’m not sure it’s clear enough for you all!).  He said that he knew eventually our relationship could be just as intimate and great or even greater, but he was missing that closeness and support he felt from his late wife.  He said that it wasn’t that I wasn’t being a good girlfriend, there’s just certain things that only a wife can do and can be.

He also confessed that with his son living 4+ hours away, that it feels at times as if he’s lost him too.  He’s been going through some rough times with that, and his job is giving him troubles as well.

Our conversation continued and I began to feel more empowered and less emotional.  He made a comment that sometimes he doesn’t know “which me” is showing up.  It’s true, I am an emotional person and we have had some extremely rough times.  But I thought he was being extreme (which is his personality – black and white). 

So I started calling him on all that he is inconsistent on.  I also said that it wasn’t right how he had treated me the previous week, how crappy it had been, and how I deserved better.  I also told him what my needs were that he wasn’t fulfilling by not being interested in conversation as of late.  I confessed to him that it had actually made me remember how my ex had treated me better in some areas.  I also pointed out how I had still been loving to him while he was treating me poorly.

At this point his face was pretty broken.  He got up off the couch and started walking upstairs.  I asked where he was going and he replied that he was going to bed because he felt like crap.  I walked with him and he told me how awful he felt now that he realized how terrible he had acted towards me.

We hugged and made up.  While I know some of these issues are not totally resolved, I think we made progress and since that conversation (it’s been 4 or 5 days ago now) things have been so much better.

Other things I’ll be writing about soon so I can process them: our first social outing with people who knew his late wife, progress report on how things are going with his parents, and my first real interactions with his late wife’s family.

the conversation part I

In the last 3 days I’ve lived about 2 weeks worth of posts!  Much has happened with Superman and I, and I’ll be telling you about it over the next couple days.

I went to his house this past Friday after work, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to.  He had seem uninterested in me, and when we talked on the phone it seemed as if he could care less if I showed up or not.  I was hoping we could still make it a good night, so I went and brought some of his favorite food to cook for him.

When I arrived he was working on the lawn, and so he barely did anything to acknowledge my arrival.  Shortly it began to rain, so we went in the house and I began making dinner.  While preparing dinner, he asked if we could talk about something after we ate, so I agreed and did my best to stay present during dinner and not let my mind be plagued with anxiety about what he was going to say.

He thoroughly enjoyed dinner, and I’m still learning to cook, so I felt encouraged by that!  We sat down on the couch in the living room around 7:30, and this conversation went until about midnight.  He began by stating that things had not been good between us for a few weeks and that he felt I’d been being self-centered.  I responded by telling him my thoughts about Superboy (see previous posts) and tried to get him to understand how I felt.  He seemed to get it a little bit.  He said that it had contributed to him feeling annoyed with me, and that lately he’d only been feeling attracted to me physically and not in any other way.

He told me that he was withdrawing Superboy from me because he was feeling uncertain about the relationship and our future.  He admitted that he hasn’t wanted to talk to me on the phone and has been uninterested in my stories about things going on in my life.

While it’s hard to remember all the intricacies of a 5 hour conversation, I believe it was at this point he began to talk like he was in a low-grade depression, and I could recognize it.  That helped me to detach myself somewhat and realize that he was not being himself totally.  However the next topic he launched into almost made me want to throw up.

He started saying that if she had lived, this would be about the point where life would be getting back to normal.  She would have recovered from her bone marrow transplant and life would be good.  He would not have to go through facing all of his financial troubles alone, his son would be living with him, he would have the support of a wife, and he would not have to deal with all the family issues.

That was like a knife to the heart.  So I’m not a support?  What about all I do?  I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, and I almost left the house.  I stayed knowing we needed to get through these issues and work it out.  And then see if there would be anything left in our relationship when our conversation was over.

to be continued . . .

mother’s day is the new valentine’s day

(This is my post from 5/11/08 – I had typed a lot and LOST all of it, and was away from my computer for much of the week)

As a single woman, I often disliked Valentine’s day.  I had been dreading Mother’s Day for a while, thinking about future holidays, envisioning being alone at home while my future family treks to the cemetery.  It’s been difficult for me to process “sharing” holidays and almost everything with another woman, so I was not looking forward to the day.  To cope, it came across my mind that Mother’s Day would be my new Valentine’s Day, which actually hit me as hilarious.  So thus the title of my post.

Well, I had typed a lengthy post regarding this day and it’s intricacies, most of which was really good but unfortunately I cannot remember.  Maybe it’s better I don’t rehash the day’s pain in great detail, but I will post some comments to help all you other WOWs/GOWs out there (sorry – I hate the acronym, but it sure comes in handy!)

My insecurity and his grief made for an extremely difficult day.  It was his first mother’s day without her.  In a nutshell: I shared how I was feeling and let him know I was scared I would never be honored (among other things), he got upset and felt I was disrespecting his late wife’s memory.  For about 4 or 5 hours, we were broken up and he thought our relationship wouldn’t work because I was having difficulties with him being a widower.  We worked it out, obviously, as I’m still continuing this blog.  So word to the wise: holidays are difficult and it’s best to have thick skin.  As a wife/girlfriend/fiance of a widower, I believe I’m beginning to discover sometimes we need to deal with our issues with the assistance of other people or on our own when our husbands/boyfriends/fiances are experiencing a period of more intense grief.  I know some wives of widowers would disagree, and I am probably dating a widower much earlier after the late wife passed than most.

So Mother’s Day sucked.  I’m hoping its better next year.  I may actually officially be Superboy’s mother then.  It’s a role I’m so looking forward to, it’s difficult as he is currently 4+ hours away staying with his grandparents.  I feel like I’ve already missed out on the first 21 months of his life that I don’t want to miss a moment more.  So even though I didn’t bear him, I felt that pain on this Mother’s Day.  I hope someday soon we will be a family.