This is not a Happy New Year… in fact it’s begun with a Huh.?!! Bear came home from work yesterday moody, antsy and with something very clearly on his mind. I said nothing, giving him the time and space he usually needs to collect his thoughts and find the English words to express what he needed to say, and waited. He said nothing. He spent the evening being distant, moody and didn’t want to interact with me or the dog. Which is pretty strange in itself, but when midnight struck and I got a peck on the cheek and a very lacklustre ‘Happy New Year’, I knew something was very seriously wrong. The New Year dawned and Bear got up and went to work, still saying nothing; and I spend the day cleaning, cooking and doing laundry, worrying about what’s going on in Bear’s head and if I’ve done or said something without realising it that had hurt him, and then of course, tried to think back over previous months to try to figure out what it could have been. I am known for being flippant, undiplomatic and not taking things too seriously so it could have been anything in all honesty.
Thankfully, it wasn’t me… well, not in that respect anyway. Once home, and with a mug of coffee beside him, Bear’s problem, as he expressed it was that life had become joyless and mundane, was boring and he couldn’t take it anymore. Gee, thanks buddy.! 😦 He cried and was really upset that life had taken this turn and said that he wanted to get back the social life he had before he met me.! He wanted to be more sociable, hang out with friends more and be free to do things when he wanted, but that he didn’t want to start resenting me because he felt he couldn’t. And there it was… that massive HUH.?! So, it was my fault.? I had been holding him back from being the social butterfly he really was for the past 13 years.? What the fuck.?! I gave his words some serious thought. I can totally relate, being indoors 24/7, staring at the same four walls with a dog for company but no intelligent conversation is soul-destroying. It’s boring as fuck, and if you’re not predisposed to isolation and being at the mercy of your own thoughts, it can make you feel like ending it all. So I totally got how Bear could be this upset and sympathised, but it being my fault.. go fuck yourself.!
Not only have I never held him back from doing whatever he’s wanted to do, when he’s wanted to do it, I’ve actively encouraged him to go out with his friends when they’ve invited him to gigs, concerts and movies, or just out for a beer. He is the one who refuses the invitations, saying he’s tired, or not feeling up to it or he has to work early the next day, so thanks but no thanks. So his friends stopped inviting him. Now for those of you who aren’t aware, I am an introvert. I have been people-averse for most of my life and choose to be separate from them as much as I possibly can. There are less than a handful of people in this world I am genuinely happy to be around. Over the past 13 years that has not changed. For the past 13 years Bear has insisted that he too is an introvert, that he’s very much a home body and prefers to spend his evenings at home with me rather than going out. He prefers my company to that of other people’s and he’s very content to be at home every night. It took him two years to introduce me to his group of friends, because he said, he wanted to keep me all to himself.
Which is complete and utter bullshit.!! Bear is the most extroverted introvert I’ve ever met. He has numerous Whatsapp groups full of people he chats to all day and night. He has a Twitter following of hundreds of people he interacts with daily and he spends all day and night on those apps chatting to people. Making me the scapegoat because he can’t make a decision for himself is not cool and I’m not taking the flack for it.! He’s made this rut for himself and dragged me into it. He feels that if he goes out at night, after being at work all day I will be lonely, because of course I am not a grown ass woman of 50 years who has entertained herself for the best part of those 50 years without any problem at all.! He feels that he can’t go out without me, because it’s not fair that I don’t get to go out all that often because of my mobility issues. Oh boy.! So basically, because my health issues have caused me mobility issues since before the day I met him, he feels he has to baby-sit me, even though he has been told and understands that I don’t need him to look after me. I’d been going it alone for nearly a full decade before I even met him,
I don’t know if I find it funny or infuriating that he thinks I’m so bloody helpless. Like I need a big strong man because I’m so fucking weak and feeble and need a personal guardian, for fuck’s sake.! What brought this avalanche of bullshit down on me was his friend Bas going to a gig that Bear had very much wanted to go to. When Bear asked Bas why he didn’t mention he was going, Bas said he thought Bear didn’t go out anymore. Which really hit Bear hard, understandably.. but Bear did this to himself. Pretending to be an introvert when he clearly is not has fooled everyone but me.
What I don’t get is why the hell he’s done this to himself.? Because of me is not a viable excuse nor reason. It’s total bullcrap, and he knows it.! I did not spend 10 months out of every year alone with two kids (who are also incapable of intelligent conversation) for 15 fucking years to suddenly need to be baby-sat. Yes, I have mobility issues, but they’re not permanent and when Dr. ‘you need to walk more’ gets his head out of his ass and deals with the problem instead of blaming the patient I might actually be able to walk like a real woman again, instead of a drunk on a pub crawl (although admirably I have that shit down pat). What he’s done is forced himself to be more like me to make me like him more/not walk away (possibly).? I don’t know, it all seems stupidly ridiculous to me, but he has and it’s backfired on him, as these things always do, but am I fuck going to be the excuse for it. You did it, you own it.! And Happy New Fucking Year to you too.! Dick.!
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