Last week wasn't a particularly good one.
Not that anyone knew about it but me.
Starting a new job and continuing another after hours was hard going. After three nights on the trot of not getting to sleep until 1am, it felt like I didn't switch off.
It was also, as I blurted out to him on Friday, the first time in just over a year with the Boyfriend that I'd felt insecure in my relationship. This might sound odd seeing as I spent five months being on the other side of the world from him, but there it is. He's just never given me cause to worry.
While I was having a busy week full of new starts and after hours work, the Boy's job was frustratingly quiet, and he was at boredom point. We had stupid arguments over nothing. The first half an hour of a dinner and cinema date ended with me exasperated, saying 'Sod this, I'm going home' within 15 minutes of us meeting. Both of us stormed off in opposite directions, but tellingly, neither of us could commit to going underground, out of phone signal and onto our relevant tube lines. There was a stand off: him at Covent Garden, me at Leicester Square. After several 'where are you?' phone calls, we converged. I approached him, sheepish. He tried not to laugh. I stifled a smile. We hugged to say sorry, and the night continued as if nothing had ever happened. It always does.
We are not a couple who litters our conversations or text messages with "I love you". Although it bothered me at first, I've come to realise that saying those three little words isn't necessarily the big deal I always thought it was. For the last year and a bit, he's made this girl feel entirely secure in her socks - wherever she is in the world. And that's good enough for me.
That said, if words are lacking, I explained that I needed reassurance in other ways. Our bickering built up and culminated in me feeling panicked, wondering if this was the turning point I experienced in the latter half of my last relationship, where I felt insecure nearly all the time. Everything he (or his friends) said was playing on my analytical mind, and last week I became convinced that this arguing was all part of a bigger problem. The bigger problem being that he was tiring of me, and would one day - maybe not right now, but one day - bugger off and leave me wounded.
As all this tumbled out of my mouth, it was a surprise to find that suddenly, the tables turned. It was me reassuring him. A boy who, in his own words, "doesn't even think about me not being there. You're just there", and lavished me with attention for the rest of the weekend.
Brains are a bit like blogs; they exasperate the smallest details out of the most trivial things, give events a storyline and try to answer 'why'.
All I know is that couples will argue, they will storm off, they will snap at each other after a mad and / or boring day at work. Sometimes they'll say "I love you", sometimes they won't.
But if you come out the other end feeling better for it, then sometimes, that's all you need to know.
Subscribe
8 comments:
Or maybe you will get tired of him. In relationships sometimes you're the hammer and sometimes you're the nail. While obviously actions are far more important than words, sometimes those 3 little words are all it takes. There are peaks there are valleys, there are plateaus and probably lots of other topographical features thrown in to boot.
Which comes first the insecurity or the analyzing the significance of every little thing? Does it matter? Probably not, but sometimes (there's that word again) Descartes was wrong - the unexamined life can make life a bit more bearable at times.
Glad you discovered you were in a teapot when the tempest was brewing (no pun intended!).
Relationships (or relationshits as I once coined one in its formative months) always seem to have their ups and downs. We are quite similar I think, in that we analyse things and sometimes that analysis takes us in the wrong direction or to a wrong conclusion.
Strange how a little conversation can make all the difference isn't it?
All I know is that couples will argue, they will storm off, they will snap at each other after a mad and / or boring day at work. Sometimes they'll say "I love you", sometimes they won't.
We had a thing last night, a small, minor, tiddly little thing. But things happen so infrequently in our lives that even after making-up last night, today I feel like absolute shit.
Sometimes it's like you're living my life and I'm living yours when it comes to the parallels that seem to present in our relationships.
My boy and I both experience a real fear of losing one another after a row. But we each think we are the only one feeling that way. To learn that he feels the same gripping feeling in his throat after crossed words offers some comfort. But it can be hard to rationally tell myself "you've argued, he feels as shit as you" when we've stormed off from one another because the loon in me just shouts louder.
Thus far, we've both always come out the other side feeling better. I couldn't be without him. I'm pretty confident it's reciprocated.
Until the next fight anyway...
I'm glad you and your boy are ok. You two seem to be able to talk to each other in a way that a lot of couples lack.
x
It's what's unsaid that ususally kills a relationship, not the things that are said but so often we stop ourselves from saying things, the nice things, because we don't want to look a loon. Those small reassurances that pop out unrequested are part of the invisable glue that hold people and relationships together. Because they're not forced you know they're true, honest. Yet so often we fail to do that and in the vacuum of silence the other person can easily build a story that reinforces itself negatively as time goes on.
Yeah, better to say things than not.
Brains are like blogs.
Like it.
jman - I honestly can't see me getting tired of him. He's extremely receptive to my stomping. I try not to analyse too much in this relationship, which is partly why I never blog about love troubles unless I've already resolved the problem in my head / with him.
Perp - Yeah, it's difficult not to let the old brain wonder, and sometimes when it does start wondering, the wrong path always seems the most logical thing, even though it's definitely not. Does that make sense?
Brennig - Arguments can be a shock. The one we had last week but an intense, 15 minute jobby (including stormings off) and it shook me for a couple of days.
Soup - Yep, it was super weird, I had this blog post all written and ready to send but couldn't click publish. Then read yours and was like, that's a bit weird, I was having almost exactly the same thing going on at my end. It's definitely weird to be with someone who has the same reaction to arguing as I do, like, let's not blame each other or keep a grudge, let's just wake up and apologise and get on with it. My ex was like a dog with a bone, and wouldn't let it go until I'd admitted fault most of the time. It's refreshing to be able to argue and chat and be honest and get over it.
Not twitter - I don't think the reassurances need to be constant declarations of love though. I mean, my ex said he loved me (grudgingly, when asked) right up until he said we needed to have a break. You're right though, it's the little things like "You're lovely, aren't you?" which are uttered as you're all cuddled up in front of the tv, that make the difference.
Ellie - The similarity hopped out as I wrote the other day. Uncanny ;)
What matters is that at the end, you always come together and you always love.
Post a Comment