Once upon a time, I wasted a quarter of my life on an asshole who never did selflessly kind things for me without an ulterior motive [like sex or a solution for his inherent loneliness.]
(Example: Once on my birthday he ditched me to throw a party with his friends and lied to me about not being able to hang out/buy me a gift/etc. Then, a couple years later he ditched me
again on my birthday to go look at a car he was thinking about buying. Are we getting it?)
Now, I've gotten over all the hurt and anger involved with aforementioned idiot and moved on, but being that this relationship was the first for me, it conditioned my mind to accepting a warped perspective of "healthy" and making fast assumptions about anyone else in my life. While I hate and fight this, it's simply something that continues to haunt me, despite the apparent pointlessness.
Case and point: Mother's Day wasn't a really big deal for me until it was here and it hit me. Greg offered to watch the baby while I went to Charleston overnight, which was sweet of him but then he didn't do much else and acted like he hadn't thought about the day at all. He picked up our traditional "special occasion fancypants" dinner that day while he was out getting more baby wipes from Sam's and even said "I don't know what to get you; I don't want to run out and just get you something." To which I replied, "Oh honey, you watching the baby is enough. Thank you!"
Only later did I realize I was lying. Honestly, it really wasn't so much the no-gift thing as much as it was the hadn't-put-any-thought-into-it thing that hurt my feelings. (My mom bought a tile for $1 and put Chloe's footprints and "Happy 1st Mother's Day" in red paint on it one day while she was watching her. It wasn't expensive but it meant so much to me...you get the idea.) I didn't say anything because I didn't want to sound like a total materialistic bitch; I mean, the guy is working his ass off to give me a house and a comfy lifestyle so I can stay at home and watch a baby. What kind of woman would I be for bitching at him for anything else?
Well, then it festered with me all week and so last night when I walked in after an especially taxing day of work and running errands and saw him sitting there wasting time playing video games (another previous-asshole trait I loathed) I
fucking lost my shit. Suddenly I was abrasive and confrontational and felt like I just couldn't hold it back. I was putting him down for killing time while there were dishes that needed to be done and garbage that could've been taken out and "Why don't you ever initiate help on your own?" and just all this fodder for my frustration that really made him sound like an incompetent ass. Finally, when he broke down my [totally empty and aimless] arguments I realized that the Mother's Day frustration had rampantly overflowed into my perspective of everything else, and so, a little ashamed, I admitted what was
really bothering me.
Greg didn't make excuses. He didn't shift guilt to me. He told me he understood my frustration and asked why I didn't say anything to him earlier. And then he gently showed me how he's been researching cameras for me for the last few weeks and has been working out a deal with a local photographer in hopes to buy me a relatively new
Nikon D40 (or similar model) with a travel case and a few extra specialty lenses for a little more affordable price.* He knew it wouldn't happen on Mother's Day as the photographer is waiting on another camera to arrive before he sells this "old" one (it's about a year old) but Greg was hoping to walk in and surprise me with it one day and just blow me away with surprise. He laughed a little when he admitted he'd acted like he hadn't put any thought into the Mother's Day thing to throw me off, but felt bad that I'd bought it so readily. Then he said, "I'm not an asshole, honey. I know assholishness is what you're used to, but you've gotta have a little faith in me."
:::Sigh:::
Honestly, I stopped consciously comparing men a long time ago. Even with men that came between A-hole #1 and Greg, I never put anyone side-by-side in my mind to make a comparison list. (Although after Dicky McTaintface, my "List of Shit I'd Put Up With" was cut down to a significantly shorter version. Thank you,
'He's Just Not That Into You'!!) In fact, in the years that have passed I've even lost my Waiting-for-The-Other-Shoe-to-Drop mechanism that I'd grown accustomed to. So when I do things now in response to the way I've formerly been treated by someone that I haven't been around in years, I feel like the whole freaking toolshed lot.
Which is what I feel like rightthisminute.Why didn't anyone tell me that there's a difference in
realizing that I have a genuinely good man and
accepting it?
*
A few months ago I was trying to submit my digital photography to istock.com in hopes to make a little extra money on the side from commissioned work. Turns out the 5-year-old camera I have renders too much digital noise to be used commercially, which blows. Greg wanted to encourage my creativity in a field besides writing and was going to get me the camera so I could start doing freelance work. Swoon. ~ In other news, we sign the lease to our house today. We're going to paint and such for the next week but technically after today we can spend the night or go over there ANY TIME WE WANT!! WHEEEEE!
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sad
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grateful
