Another online daing journal

[reinventmyself]

Is this the same S?

Yep. . . .

[Sportster2005]

I hope things work out well. Please take your time and keep your wits about you. Set firm boundaries......... I'm sure you're way ahead of me

 

Keep us posted.

[WithLove]

I think that only you are the person that will know if this is meant to last. You know yourself and him better than anyone. I also think that if it doesn't work out this time, it just won't at all.

 

Keep in touch with your therapist this time. Keep him in the loop.

[faraday]

If you have the opportunity, go back in your journal and read forward from page 40...just so that you go in with your eyes open.

 

I think this is a horrible idea, but I wish you luck. Please don't ignore red flags as they pop up...don't continue the pattern of overlooking and overstaying when things aren't working. Take care of your heart.

 

I'm sending so many good vibes your way...best of luck with this.

[reinventmyself]

If you have the opportunity, go back in your journal and read forward from page 40...just so that you go in with your eyes open.

 

I think this is a horrible idea, but I wish you luck. Please don't ignore red flags as they pop up...don't continue the pattern of overlooking and overstaying when things aren't working. Take care of your heart.

 

I'm sending so many good vibes your way...best of luck with this.

 

Thank you all.

I am determined to be smart about all of this.

I may regret it.

[reinventmyself]

I talked to someone from OLD maybe 3 weeks ago.

It was a pleasant conversation, though I felt a little uncomfortable seeing how he over shared a bit.

I hid my profile the following day.

He continues to text all this time and mind you, I have not reciprocated - even once.

 

Every couple days. . and just now. `have a nice day'

 

It just weirds me out that someone can do continue to do this.

 

I shouldn't have to do to this but I just responded `Hi Dan, I think it's best that you no longer contact me'

[WithLove]

Why haven't you blocked him yet?

[reinventmyself]

I was seriously surprised that he continued!

Each time I figured it would certainly be the last.

I told him to not contact me today. . he didn't respond

[WithLove]

So what's going on in D's world? What cool holiday plans do you have??

[reinventmyself]

So what's going on in D's world? What cool holiday plans do you have??

 

Things at work are reeeaaally stressful. The industry I am working is volatile and there were 5 lay offs last week.

 

My job consists of 2 parts. One part projects, of which I am told I have none for 2017. The second is daily operations which I pretty much delegate.

I am afraid I am boxing myself out of job.

 

I have a work party, a friends party tomorrow, a party next Saturday with S, a nieces `gender reveal' party the following day and I always cook dinner for about 15 people on Christmas Eve.

 

I also own a VW diesel that is being bought back, imminently and I am shopping for a new car. My employment will dictate what I buy, so I am a little overwhelmed.

 

That and I need to take out a home equity loan to fix my leaking upstairs bathroom. Again I need to apply for a loan before I get laid off. If that does indeed happen.

 

EEeeek. Is it January yet?

Aren't you glad you asked? lol

[WithLove]

Absolutely! It will be good for you to be busy all month!

[reinventmyself]

The only guy I communicated with (OLD) who continued to text me, just text me again. I told him to no longer contact me last week.

Logged onto my phone account and blocked him.

 

What are the odds? This can't be good.

[reinventmyself]

I read a book on communication styles in relationships and I think it spoke a lot about my and S's issues. In the midst of the drama earlier this year I asked him to consider reading it and he seemed half interested and never followed up. I said I would get the correct name and author if he was interested and he never brought it up after that moment.

 

I was wanting him to be motivated to read it and not just appease me. It never happened.

 

In one of our recent conversations I brought this up and he asked me about the book. I text him the title.

He briefly mentioned sometime after that that he was reading some crime novel, so I figured it fell on deaf ears once again.

 

I am not sure how invested I am in his reading it but was taking note that it likely wasn't going to happen and I wasn't going to bring it up again.

 

Twice now he has made some acts of goodwill and used a couple of the catch phrases that are mentioned in the book that leads me to believe

he has or is actually reading it.

 

I have seen him a total for 4s time and Saturday I will go with him to his friends Christmas party that I went to this time last year.

Don't know what to think of all of this because no doubt we can maintain good behavior for some time. . time will tell.

 

Either way my life goes on. I have enough going on to keep me sufficiently distracted.

[reinventmyself]

OHhhhh. . This time of year makes me crazy!

 

We leave work today at 11 to go to company holiday party.

 

From there I'll bug out about 3 to rush home (90 min commute) to catch a 6 o'clock train to S's.

I should arrive by 8pm. I'll go with him to his friends holiday party tomorrow to catch a train the following

morning to get home in time for my nieces `gender reveal party'. I am weary just writing this.

Some time on Sunday I need to decorate my tree.

 

I work four days with next Friday off and will cook Christmas Eve dinner for 15. Somewhere in between I need to finish shopping and wrap gifts. I'll leave early Sunday morning to catch a flight to WA for 2 days and then on to OR for 2 more days

and come home and work for one day.

 

I have no idea what's up for New Years, but right about now nothin' sounds good.

 

It's just a drop dead run from now until the end of year. Phew!

[reinventmyself]

I'm sitting at the airport waiting for my 2nd connecting flight home. S comes from a family of 7 kids and after 5 days and 4 different beds, I exhausted.

 

I met a couple siblings earlier this year and now 4 more. Add in 2 sons and 2 grandkids, holiday functions, dinners, driving to other states and curteous smaller talk, I feel like I've been on a 5 day job interview.

 

All in all its been nice but I'm eager to get home and stay in my pjs and isolate.

 

S has been amazing. He's sweet andd sensitive to my feelings all week.

 

I'd like to say 'we are really trying'

But though we are different in some ways we respect that and are accommodating to it.

 

It's as if "you scratch my, itch, I'll scratch yours"

 

I get what's important to him and it's simple enough to give it. . .certainly way before he asks for it or gets frusterated it heads off issues. Same in return.

 

When we talked about reconciliation he asked for verbal reassurance. I resisted it before and I've been told I fall short in that area in other relationships.

 

In turn I asked him for trust.

I get it unequivocally and I am more verbally responsive to him and we seem to have found our sweet spot.

 

S stayed behind for a couple more days and I am headed home, happy, tired and spent.

[WithLove]

Are you sure you're not just telling him what he wants to hear and compromising your own ways?

[reinventmyself]

Are you sure you're not just telling him what he wants to hear and compromising your own ways?

 

nope. . . at least old enough to know better on that one.

Support is nice just once in a while

[WithLove]

Then I am glad that you're finding a happy medium with S. I'm hoping this continues and you both continue putting in the effort to accommodate each other so you can be happy. *hugs*

[reinventmyself]

Not much to report other than things are going really well for S and I.

I half expected to hear or see some of the insecurities I had seen before, but I haven't.

 

I've tested him on occasion and he seems to have a handle on things. In a weird way I think the exchanging of emails for the time

before we agreed to meet up seemed to have helped.

We were both able to say what we wanted to to each other and figured at that point we had nothing to lose. No holds barred.

 

S doesn't forget anything I say. This is a really good thing and sometimes unnerving at the same time. But he's taken a lot to heart and it shows in the way he treats me.

He can pretty much recite verbatim everything I shared in the emails. He definitely heard me.

 

It was nice to see him with his family. 7 kids in all. Add in children, grandchildren, nieces, etc. It's apparent that he's the one of the ones that the family looks up to and

respects the most. There is a hot mix of personalities and of course the proverbial black sheep brother. Interesting how many times in my history that I am the one usually involved with the black sheep son, not the wonder son.

 

He's got this intense demeanor and unless you are in his inner circle you don't get to see that playful sense of humor he has. It's a nice balance. He's a big kid at heart.

 

Since we have been back his mother has been in the hospital and in and out of intensive care. He's on notice to fly out any minute and despite 3 of her children living close to her, S is the one who has the medical and financial directive. He's been managing things by phone up 'til now.

 

It's a wake up call that we have to cross this bridge eventually with our own parents. Having done so with my father and now being the executor for my mother.

It's one thing to talk about it, it's another staring it in the face.

 

S left his gun, badge, ID, cash, checkbook and all his passwords in a pouch that he placed under the seat of the rental car. One week later and several phone calls, it's being returned in tact.

By day 4 I figured it a definite goner! So did S.

 

He's 3 for 3 in the past couple years. He's got a horse shoe around his neck somewhere but definitely needs to change his habits some. I asked him when he was active if he ever fired his firearm and after saying no, it would stand to reason the occasion might be minimal seeing he's retired? Yah think? He needs to change his habits some. Now that he has his ID in route, he's free to travel back and make some difficult decisions about his mom.

 

Things are good.

I need to go call my mother. . .

[notalady]

It's good to hear things are going well with S! Sorry to hear about S' mother, I'm sure S will take good care of things.

[Sportster2005]

Good to hear a positive experience. Hope things happily continue along.

[reinventmyself]

S and I had our first conflict since we've started seeing each other again.

 

I won't belabor the details and was willing to write it off over miscommunication over text.

 

I was supposed to pick him up from the airport and his flight got cancelled and then delayed.

We were supposed to speak over the phone during his layover, which in the end wasn't much of a layover seeing he literally had to run to catch his next flight.

In haste he is texting me logistics on the plane. . I am not understanding him and getting frustrated and he is not understanding me. Before he hangs up he says `I'll call you from home'

I sit there knowing we are both rattled for no good reason other than trying to sort something out in haste, over text.

 

I decided to drive the 90 mins to pick him up and when he landing I text him saying `I'm here'

 

Honestly, rehashing it wasn't worth it and I decided to let this one go. Mostly because it was silly and partly because we haven't had much luck with conflicts.

I know it's not good to brush things under the rug, but I also believe in picking my battles.

 

Later that night he's the one that brought it up and in the past when we typically couldn't hear each other, it didn't happen this time.

I am very far from perfect but S can be pretty aggressive and has a strong need to be right at times.

This time he was generous and told me what he was feeling during the moment, but as he reread the text he said he could then understand how I might have interpreted it

and apologized.

 

Phew. . simple right? Well, not for everyone.

Progress!

 

He was pretty pleased that I made the effort to drive down especially in light of being sick all week. It just goes to show acts of good will has it's benefits.

[notalady]

Text message miscommunication strikes again!

 

I would've been the same as you, see no need in rehashing it and just let it go. Pick your battles indeed.

[Sportster2005]

Yes, seems simple, and it seems like you both handled the conflict as best as can be handled.

[reinventmyself]

I have a very ex bf who I dated for the first time 14 years ago. We broke up and tried two other times.

It didn't work for a variety of reasons. (I've mentioned him before)

 

During the time S and I were not speaking, J (ex) and I communicated back and forth routinely.

This is no different than other times, except for the fact that he was moving back into my area the first of the year and he often is playful about us being more than friends. I don't give any weight to it. I've been hearing this or some version of it for more years than I can count.

He has an outrageous sense of humor and we often have this familiar banter.

 

But this time it felt different. I did feel he was working himself up into considering something more than friendship. For me, I am not remotely interested. He drinks too much for me, we have way too much history and that window for us closed a long time ago. Besides, I wouldn't want to lose his friendship. Despite everything and a lot of time in between, he became a good friend.

 

One night in Nov. he asked me if I had spoken to S. At that time I had not but it was probably the next day that I had.

From that moment S and I have worked our way back.

 

In the meantime J is scheduled to move back to my area the first of the year.

I had posted something on fb that if anyone was paying attention, it placed me in S's vicinity the beginning of Dec.

Well, J noticed.

From there he sent me a Christmas gift basket to my work without a card.

I got a snarky text at almost midnight Christmas eve about not acknowledging the gift basket. (S was in the shower)

Christmas morning I returned the text thanking him for the basket and solving the mystery. No response.

I text him NYE and got no response.

I figured he was upset.

 

This is where I check myself. I did nothing to encourage him or give him any indication that something would happen between us.

Considering our history and everything he put me through he has no place to get twisted about my personal life.

And. . .I didn't know the gift was from him.

 

It's been quiet all month. I don't feel I owe him an explanation. I'm just leaving it alone.

 

He succumbs to his resistance and sends me a little sticker through fb messenger.

We have a short exchange yesterday. We go from chatting about a tv show and w/o notice it takes a sharp right turn and he blurts out:

 

J: Did you return to your old burn out or are you dating someone new?

me: (after a long pause) old burnout

me: (trying to change the subject) did you get moved ok?

J: Can I ask you why?

(pause)

Me: A lot of different reasons

J: I figured as much

J: Pay attention to your pilot . . .you know he's sensitive. . TC

 

I signed off. Grrrr

 

Makes me angry when I think of how much I loved this guy several years ago

(when I wasn't very smart) and how many times he set me up just to pull the rug out from under me.

 

And then he has the nerve to be snarky just because he figured his timing might be right for apple picking.

He just forgot to run it past me.