I started this particular blog to document a journey to healthier living. A training plan to a 1/2 marathon. I started this blog because I wanted it to be a different focus than my other blog – which is me rambling about my life in St. Louis. Also, I don’t publicize this blog site to any friends or family. And I needed an anonymous space. I could get an old fashioned pen and paper journal, but it’s 2012. And also, perhaps there’s someone I can help with a story, or more likely, someone who can help me with mine.
I had such good intentions but there was really something holding me back. I wan’t motivated and I wasn’t losing any weight. And if I’m very honest, which I’d like to be, I was overeating. A lot. And intentionally.
A year ago the man I was dating called to attention that I had gained a considerable amount of weight. It was a fact and I make it a rule not to be insulted by facts. He did not bring this to my attention to let me know he was concerned about my health. He told me I embarrassed him. His exact words were, “Everyday I have to reconcile the fact that my girlfriend weights more than me.” Yikes. Ouch. Pow. He and I broke up a couple months later. But a few months after that we got back together. He called and said he was ready to be there for me in a way he hadn’t in the past. I had always appreciated who he was and missed him so we tried again. And the elephant in the room that no one talked about was how much I weighed. I hadn’t lost any of the weight. I knew how he felt and that hadn’t changed. I knew he didn’t want to see me naked that way and I was so self conscious that I didn’t want him to see me that way. This put a damper on our sex life, which is a bummer because I’m a big fan of having sex. I wondered what he thought if I ate a cookie or talked about going out to dinner.
But I stayed chubby. I was binge eating. Never around him. But I would stop at McDonald’s after leaving his house in the morning and get an Egg McMuffin and a McGriddle meals. I would eat donuts. I would order pizza form Domino’s and eat all of it plus some of those new parmesan bites (which are so warm and cheesy and comforting). And I would hate myself. It didn’t even feel good doing it. Did I want to spite him? Show him that I can look however I want, it doesn’t define me.
I finally could vocalize what the primary cause was just a couple of days ago. I needed to overeat to stay sad. Because I needed to be sad to be with him. I feel diminished and unappreciated around him. I feel it’s not okay to let my light shine with his negative view of the world overshadowing everything. He has an overly defensive personality, so any suggestion on how to improve our relationship was met with choruses of, “I’m not doing anything wrong,” which left only the option that I was. You can imagine how this then discouraged me from sharing things with him. But then he would get frustrated that I didn’t tell him what I was feeling or thinking.
Through a good therapist I finally got a hold on the binge eating. I signed up for a 1/2 marathon training team with a higher purpose – the Team in Training raising funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. And I was making healthier choices. And my body is changing. And weight is coming off. And I feel better. And then I asked the boyfriend if he could stop making dinner while he was on the phone with me as I was driving to the airport after a grad school weekend because he seemed distracted and what I was saying was important to me and I wanted his full attention. And this led to World War III.
In my head the logical solution is to not fight over silly stuff like this. Had I been asked this, I would have put the fucking knife down and turned my attention to my boyfriend. Boyfriend gets snippy and petty and says things like, “I guess I shouldn’t drive and talk to you either because that’s doing two things at once.” And on, and on. I wanted his attention. I wanted him to be part of a conversation with me and it turns into how I have unrealistic expectations. And on, and on. And I think we put that fight to bed Monday night. To make amends I got to his house Tuesday night. I make dinner. I bring interesting beer. He seems fine. He tells me we’ll be okay.
But something seems funny. I don’t believe it’s just women who have intuition, but something was different. And after he went to sleep I did something I’m not proud of, but I admit it. I looked at his text messages. And there it is. He dated a woman for a month or so while we were broken up last year. He told me he ended it with her because he realized he still had feelings for me and for the first time ever he had casual sex and he didn’t want that. I knew that she texted him every now and then making sure he was still not interested and he never responded to her. I told him I would have difficulty with him being friends with a person who still clearly had feelings for him.
He initiated the text conversation with, “I’ve been thinking about you.” He started this Sunday just after our argument began. I say again, I’m not proud of this, but I read the whole conversation. Some old private jokes, a quick update on school and work, and then a date being made. Boyfriend was going to leave work on a Wednesday at 4pm to meet her for a drink. Boyfriend who doesn’t have time for socializing on school nights. Boyfriend, who I have standing Wednesday night dinner at his place date with. Boyfriend made a date.
I woke boyfriend up. I told him I was leaving. I did so calmly. I wasn’t yelling, I wasn’t crying. I said I got it. It’s her. I admitted what I did and said if you want to be with her, go right on ahead. He tells me he needs a friend. That she has interesting stories. (Might I remind you that this argument originated because I wanted him to listen to me more. This was not helping the case.) He says I’m over reacting. Talks about his right to privacy. It’s one of those fights that goes on and covers everything. It always comes back to I’m not keeping up my end of bargains by not keeping my house cleaner. I feel he’s deflecting right and left. I don’t know that he’s ever offered to leave school early and meet me for a beer anywhere, even though I have often said what a nice night it would be for an outdoor glass of wine, or something. He claims he would be thinking about the dog being cooped up in the house if he did that. He told me the conversation I wanted to have the other day while I was on the phone and he wasn’t giving me his undivided attention wasn’t that interesting to him. I was talking about my classmates and our night out on Saturday. He wants to (and I’m quoting) only be part of conversations about things he deems interesting. This other woman works in the ER and that’s more interesting to him.
No one wants him to have friends more than me. That is a true statement. But I don’t believe that after 8 months of radio silence, you text a girl with, “I’ve been thinking of you”, disclose that you and your girlfriend have “good days and bad days” and make a date to get a drink as a first step to friendship.
He claims I’m reading into this. Blames me for being so insecure.
I had to be sad to be with him.
His automatic defense systems make everything my fault.
He doesn’t synthesize discussions for how we can get better as a couple.
He doesn’t own his part of wrongdoings. He tells me he’s tired of feeling guilty all the time. I feel this is his way of demonstrating that he just doesn’t want to try hard enough to be with me.
He accused me of not doing enough stuff to try and understand him when we first started dating. Which means he’s forgotten the time I showed up to his racing series, the vegetarian cookbooks I bought, the biology terms I would look up, the local events I would recommend doing together, the 20 to 1 ratio of nights I spend at his house to nights he spends here…
He is so quick to point out all of my shortcomings, yet seems to have such a limited acceptance of his own. He tells me all the time how good he is, what a catch he is and how I don’t appreciate him enough.
He made a date with another woman on our standard date night. When I asked him about that specifically he said I never would have known. He would have been home at his regular time.
I don’t think great couples keep secrets like that. I think I’ve done all the work I can do.
It devastates me to think that after this is over, and it will be over, he’ll really believe I’m the crazy one and he didn’t do anything wrong. That I over reacted. And he’ll move on, I’m assuming right back to this woman. She’ll tell him I was controlling and didn’t get him. He’ll go on not examining what makes him so defensive and how to overcome it.
And I had to keep myself sad to be with him.
