We talked.

We’re still together. We talked for a couple hours last night, and I think I was able to say everything I needed to say. I had a mental list of things I absolutely wanted to say and tried to stick to it as best as I can.

** My post has gotten really long so I bolded the essential parts. If you just want to get a general idea of how things went, read those. If you’ve got time to kill you can read my entire analogy. Hah!

1 – Tell him how I saw our current status and how that wasn’t enough for me.
2 – Tell him what I want/need to be happy (this is probably the hardest thing to do because it’s hard to define exactly what I need, you know?)
3 – Tell him how important it is for me to get married and have kids. I realise this sounds like an odd thing, but I never actually said these things to him and I felt like I wasn’t being true to who I am.

It’s clear we have crazy communication issues and it’s something we have agreed to try and work on together. We both have trouble saying what I what/need and we both attempt to interpret what the other person wants without actually confirming our assumptions.

When I told him I saw our current situation as dating until something better comes along, he totally didn’t see it that way. I’m not just there until something better comes along. I tried my best to express how I came to this conclusion, or what he says/does to make me feel this way, but man it’s hard! I told him I need to know that I’m part of his life and that there is no one else he wants to be with… that he wants to be with me. I couldn’t help but laugh out of frustration when he tells me of course there is no one else I want to be with. Of course I want to be with you. He still has trouble understanding that his actions don’t always reflect this. I told him I need to feel like I can call him because I’m having a bad day or because something wonderful happened and I want to share it with him or I if I just miss him and want to see him. He didn’t realise I didn’t feel comfortable doing this. I asked him if there were times he would have liked to see me but didn’t call. He said yes that sometimes he would have liked to see me but since I hadn’t called he figured I was too busy with my studies and didn’t want to bother him. Meanwhile, I’m sitting at home thinking I want to call him but don’t want to seem too demanding… and round and round we go. So, the final agreement was to be honest with each other at all times. If I want to see him or talk to him I call him. If he doesn’t want to do something that day or if he’s busy, he’ll be honest and tell me. I’ll do the same thing for him. I know it’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to try.

I think he has some skewed views on relationships. I tried figuring out where these come from, but can’t. For instance, he thinks commitment means loss of freedom or missing out on the things he wants to do. Well, I guess this comes from his experience with his first girlfriend. They had been together for two years when he left for a 6-month trek across the Appalachian Trail. When he left he said she didn’t have to wait for him, but she said she would. When he came back she had a new boyfriend. I guess I can see how he might associate doing something he really wanted to do with loss of a relationship. He also thinks commitment means giving up his friends and having to tell someone where you are and what you are doing every minute of the day. He kept trying to pinpoint my freak-out on a specific event (freak-out is my word, not his). At first he thought I was jealous because he talked to his new neighbour. Then he thought my freak-out was related to having supper with my Mom on Wednesday. I didn’t really know before where the freak-out came from, but I think it came from having a really crappy day and feeling like I couldn’t turn to him for support. That’s when I told him about the lump on my breast and feeling like I couldn’t talk to him about this.

As for point number 3, telling him how important marriage and kids where to me was easier then I had expected. He said this wasn’t news to him and that he knew I wanted kids and to get married. It was nice to finally say what I wanted out of life and just how important kids are to me. I finally told him that if I couldn’t have kids (biologically) or didn’t have a partner that I would try my best to adopt. I think this helped him understand that this was a non-negotiable for me and that even though he didn’t need to decide if he wanted kids right away, that if he felt having kids was something he absolutely didn’t want, then I needed to walk away. I think it went rather well because he didn’t seem pressured by this discussion, but I was still able to stress the importance of this.

It’s been really difficult to figure out what I want because I’ve gotten so many differentiating opinions for people that my head is spinning. On the one hand I have many friends saying he’s not giving me what I want and I should leave, but on the other hand I have my family and close friends who tell me they’ve never seen me so happy with a guy. That I talk about him unlike any other guy. I know I need to reach deep inside and try my best to see what I want, but sometimes it’s so hard to hear myself above the chatter. I’m going to try my best not to have a monthly freak-out. :-)