Wow I've missed loads, the board seems to have got really busy in a few short days and Hops you seem to have crammed in a month's worth of stuff in a couple of days! I'm glad the weekend was good
I understand the 'is this good, is it not, am I scared, am I happy' thing (and sometimes we're just scared of being happy, right? One thing that struck me early on was this:
Where I see challenge, and don't yet know whether I can overcome it, is in the personality stuff. My own faults, laziness, stubbornness, impatience, etc. are very big to me and could become so to him. My other weaknesses -- ADD, cowardice, difficulty sharing my space and time, fear of enmeshment -- could be deal breakers too.
I know we don't know each other in real life and I know what comes across on a forum tends to be a certain aspect of a person and we edit ourselves and so on - but this description of you is the opposite of the way you have always come across to me.
Laziness - you've worked all your life, paid and unpaid. You dealt with that whole situation with your mum and your brother, and I remember reading on here about a big basement you had to clear out whilst your back was so bad you could hardly sit some days. The situation with your D was/is so complex and has required so much work and you've worked really hard on yourself and with yourself all through that, refusing to become bitter, resentful, or throw in the towel. You had that horrible N Boss that you put up with for years and when that finished you slogged through endless job applications and then reinvented yourself as a self employed carer and companion - all at a time when a lot of people would have just taken their pension and sat themselves in front of the telly. Added to which you refurbished your house, took in pooch (who needed a whole lot of love in those early days) and you're writing a book! Lazy is not a word that springs to mind when I think of you, Miss Hops
And then I can carry on in the same vein, basically; I think the way you've dealt with a lot of difficult people around you over the years and the achingly difficult situation with your D shows you are far from either stubborn or impatient - just this situation with B has shown how flexible and patient you are with other people. ADD is a tough condition to live with and shows strength, not weakness and cowardice, I don't think I can think of many people who are braver than you are. I don't know why you think about yourself in this way, Hops, as it's so different to the way you come across on here? And sharing space and time and avoiding enmeshment - I think these are just sensible ways to live, I don't see anything wrong with that. So I guess what's coming across for me is still a sense that you're not thinking you're good enough for B - but he seems delighted with you? I know I find it very hard to accept people can like me for me, including and/or despite my 'faults' - so I don't know if there's still an element of that underscoring all of this?
I get where you're coming from with the personality differences (although I love the fact that he loves your empathy and consideration for others - I think you might inspire him to think outside his comfortable box and show him a world he hasn't encountered before and that can only be a good thing). A friend of mine has an OCD about food type of boyfriend and it drove her nuts in the early days as well. What she did was basically give him full responsibility for all meals - he shops, prepares, whizzes about in the kitchen and enjoys every minute of it and she sits down to lovely meals that she doesn't have to lift a finger to prepare. I don't know if that sort of arrangement would work for you but I thought I'd mention in as an example of how some things can be shifted around to make them a bit easier to manage? In some cases; I'm sure there are some ways it doesn't work
Money - I'm very territorial about my cash and I hate wasting it on things that other people think of as treats (I think "I could have done that at home for £3 instead of spending £15). After a couple of horrible money + men experiences in the past I think the only way I would be comfortable financially with someone else would be to have a joint account into which we both paid the same for joint and household expenses and then our own accounts for anything else - to spend as each other sees fit. I think money can cause enormous problems but you have held your own for many years, Hops, I don't think there will be a financial situation that you can't deal with. Yes it's unbalanced but equally if you were both on similar incomes I bet there would still be imbalances in how the money was spent or managed. I think it's just one of those things where perhaps you agree on joint things and then do what you like with what's left.
I do a lot of that 'what if' planning in my head and I'm trying really hard to let it go at the minute. I think it comes from our fear - if we can plan what to do if x, y or z happens then we're safer. I think it comes from those endless years of being under attack, or just from having the rug pulled from under us and being left to pick up the pieces. I'm trying really hard at the moment to focus on asking questions, listening to the answer and then asking more questions, instead of my usual position of trying to imagine the questions and then having a defence in place. I did notice that when I talk to people I'm usually listening out for the barb or criticism and being ready to fend it off, instead of just listening to what they say and then asking more about it, without thinking about myself in that context, if that makes any sense? I think I've just confused myself now lol, but for example (and this is a silly thing) I'm going to the hairdresser this morning and usually I go into a situation with my defences up and ready to answer questions about my son (who will be with me) or defend other aspects of my life. I kind of plan it all out in my mind so I'm ready. But what I'm noticing more is that most other people aren't actually waiting to tear me down, they're just chatting to pass the time. So what I'm thinking now is how much I don't know about other people, because I'm not asking questions, I'm waiting to justify my existence to them. So I'm trying to change that to ask more questions and take it as it comes instead of trying to micro manage it in my mind beforehand.
I don't know if that makes sense or if that's how you feel about what you do (in relation to getting ready to B coming to visit) but it's what sprung to mind when I read your post so I thought I would waffle on about it
xx
