my real life fairytale

The problem is there is no winning, there is no outcome in which I can get everything I want. Even if he decided he wanted what I wanted, it wouldn’t be the same. I will never have that connection with him, I will never have that bond, that closeness, that shared vested interest. And even if I did, that doesn’t replace anything, that doesn’t take anything away, so would that even be enough?

I want it more than I can even begin to try and say. I thought I didn’t, I said I didn’t, but I did what I swore I’d never do and I changed my mind. So now what? It’s not like I can convince him. It’s not just like it wouldn’t work, but that even if it did, if he caved, it wouldn’t be worth it. I don’t want to have to convince him to want a family with me, that’s not fair to either of us, but can I really swallow these feelings for the rest of my life? Can I really keep up this facade where I smile to his face but sob in the shower, wishing so desperately to hold something of ours in my arms?

I am going to be miserable on this trip, I am going to resent him, I am going to be upset, but clearly he doesn't care enough to take my side or support me. He says he has, but he doesn't stick to those convictions. Because I'm more expendable than the person whose connections he's using to escape from his own ill-beared reality, I'm disposable, I'm temporary, just as I always have been. I've known from the start there's no place for me in his life, and I've been a fool trying to forage that non-existent place all this time. I was never meant to be happy, with him or anyone else, and now I'm left with nothing more than regret from ever trying to begin with.

All the things that were important to me no longer matter, none of it is important anymore, at least not to the person who I thought I could trust, who I thought loved and cared about me and would be my advocate in this. But I'm nothing more than a bother, an inconvenience, looking like a child throwing a temper tantrum when I don't get my way because that's how he wants me to seem. This is nothing more than a manipulation tactic, to prove to me that I'm less important to the man who claims to love me than he is. I bet it's all a lie anyway, it doesn't make any sense to me as it stands. But that doesn't matter, he's proven his point, he's gotten his way, they're all free, excited, and without stress while I've given up everything that means anything to me and am left unhappy yet again.

I'm going to be so fucking miserable and there's nothing I can do about it because there's nothing he will do about it. So that's it, I've lost, and if this is any indication of the future I'm just going to keep losing. For the next eight months I'm just going to keep losing every single battle because the man I thought had my back doesn't. And do I really want to live like that? Every day, day in and day out, absolutely fucking miserable, unhappy like I've never been before in my life, because I'm outnumbered? And subsequently less important?

"I love him so much, but I feel like he doesn't love me back" or "I don't want to break up with him, but this is just so much stress and pain".

I feel so sick, I feel so stressed, I feel so terrible, but a good relationship shouldn't feel this way. Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm unhappy. I suppose that's true. I hate my life right now and I don't even know why. I have absolutely no reason to be unhappy and yet I so desperately am. I'm so hopelessly unhappy. I tell people that and they're shocked, they say they thought I was doing so well, that they don't know why I'm unhappy. And I can't explain it either. By all logic I should be happier now than I've ever been in my life.

All I've ever wanted is a man who I love and at least seems to love me in return. A healthy relationship with lots of food and sex and laughter. But is it really healthy? Regardless, since I was 11 years old that's all that I wanted, I said that as long as I had that there was no way I could still be unhappy, still be depressed. And yet, here I am. With the one thing I swore up and down would keep me from being miserable and it isn't working. So will anything? Will I ever get to be happy? If this doesn't make me happy what will? Will anything? Maybe I just don't get to be happy in this lifetime.

And it sucks, I feel so guilty, because really what do I have in my life to be unhappy about? By so many people's notions I have no reason whatsoever to feel the way I do. I feel guilty for being so depressed, like I didn't earn it, like I don't deserve my unhappiness, that is isn't warranted. My life is perfect from the outside and yet in my head I'm so fucking broken. I'm miserable. I'm stressed out and angry all. The. Time. I'm so angry because I'm on the verge of tears at all times. But why? What reason do I have to feel the way I do?

I wake up every morning not wanting to get out of bed. Crying when I think of having to go into work. My house is a mess because I have no motivation to do or accomplish anything at all. I need to go grocery shopping but I have no motivation. My clothes are all on the floor because I can't find the strength to hang them up. I have boxes, full and empty, for Christmas gifts littered all over my home, and I want to wrap them but I have no sense of desire or urgency to push me into productivity of any kind. I have so many creative projects I've been wanting to work on for weeks and I've barely gotten a thing started on any of them. I'm a wreck of a person. Hell, I even stopped shaving for almost two weeks after doing it nearly every day for five years because I was so unmotivated. I think, multiple times a day, that I would be better off in the ground but I don't end things simply because it's too much effort. I'm just a mess.

So maybe this isn't about my relationship at all, and yet that seems to be what's in the forefront of my mind with all of this. But my unhappiness, my depression, my mental illness isn't his fault. None of this is. He isn't perfect, he's frustrating and I feel like he doesn't really do much to show me he cares about me but me wanting to end it all is absolutely not his fault in any way. This isn't on him, it's on me, and I really don't know how to handle that.

And it was possibly the best night of my life.

I always knew I wanted love. I always knew I wouldn't be able to find satisfaction or contentment with any other aspect of my life until I was in a real, loving relationship with a man I adored. What I didn't know, however, was how stupidly happy the notion and starting practice of domestication would make me.

As much as I desperately wanted love, as much as I hoped and pined for it, I was always secretly assumed it simply wasn't in the cards for me. As much as my quest for a healthy relationship fueled, rather, dictated my entire state of being I had this notion in the back of my head it just wasn't realistic. And so with that I never saw myself in a situation where I was happy with someone, where I was living my life with them where I had a future planned with them. I didn't like the idea of "domestication", settling down in any way, but now?

Now I share a 70's dream home with who I can only assume is my soul mate. I'm planning a move across the country into a condo on the beach in Florida. He comes home to me each night after work and brings me coffe at the office because he knows I couldn't sleep the night before. He calms me when I'm frustrated or anxious and I'm his cheerleader when life gets him down. Our date nights are to dive bars for cheap drinks before picking up 24/7 burritos and grocery shopping when there isn't a soul in sight.

me: You're making cookies for dinner?

boyfriend: Yeah.

me: Like a whole batch of cookies?

boyfriend: Yeah.

me: At 11pm?