I'm 90% decided that I need to end the relationship in our T session with the Sikh tomorrow.
It's still very hard. There will be pain and loss and fear of future. But I have been absorbing a ton of reviewing what Nism is, how drawn to it and comfortable I feel with it at FIRST. (And started re-reading our early, romantic correspondence which, on reflection, was absorbing at first -- we both dazzled with literacy and verbal pyrotechnics -- but actually draining and false-feeling later.) I don't doubt at all that M was sincere, but it was all so grandiose and high-flown.
What's really brought me to the breaking point is the ongoing stress of being with someone who, however well intentioned, simply CANNOT listen and simply MUST talk nonstop and simply CANNOT not-instruct/force-teach. Because it really is the only language or behavior he can do.
Therefore, I would have to simply "put down", as CB says, any hope of being known at a deeper level, or feeling a harmonious intimacy. M THOUGHT we were intimate soulmates from an early point, but that was mostly his flights of hyperbole. I responded in kind at first, but as our year went on, I realize I was feeling less and less romantically interested, and morphing into companionship, which has been comforting at times, but inevitably led to considering how we actually ARE as partners.
How I am is suppressed, frustrated and stressed. He just doesn't feel stuff or feel it in a way that changes him. And so be it, he's not going to have a personality transplant at this age, and neither am I. I've come to the sad realization that living with or marrying him would tax me to the core. Not because he's BAD, just because he is the way he is.
We had a stupid power struggle over who was going to program my new streaming system (had to buy an upgrade so we could watch Hamilton). He immediately wanted to take over "I'll do it" not "Would you like me to do it?". I said very clearly and more than once, I appreciate that you could do it, but I want to work through it myself because that builds competence. He kept barking instructions at me, and I repeated and repeated and repeated -- Could you just sit quietly and pat Pooch? I'm working with two remotes and two pairs of glasses (one for reading instructions off TV screen, one for the booklet, etc) so concentration's really difficult. Please, please, stop instructing me, stope telling me what to do, I can see the instructions and I will work through it, maybe just more slowly than you would.
NOTHING worked. He could not/would not stop barking orders, reading things off the screen loudly that added to my stress in concentrating. I must have begged him 10 times to stop talking at me and be quiet so I could think, and he literally could not do it. At one point I said what's so hard is that you can't control yourself. (Meaning his talking.) I persisted and got it all done but the experience was soooooooo stressful that I was drained and literally sweating. At the dinner table, I just said, that was extremely stressful. He just looked blank.
So I picture trying to share ordinary things in a shared home. I just can't. It doesn't matter what the event or task is...he Must Be In Charge. There's no harmonious teamwork. To this day it's a struggle to negotiate something as simple as whether I can carry dishes to the counter. Everything's a struggle for control.
I don't think M intends or wants to be this way but whether it's his OCDish or Nish or ADHDish issues....they add up to me feeling that I would be fighting to just be present, to take up space, to have enough oxygen. And I am Nish too at times, and super super sensitive, and introverted in a way, and just too easily drained by a personality as powerful as his.
That's just it. As much as I dread loneliness returning, and anxiety returning, and a quarantined winter alone coming up...I dread the petty power struggles and sometime putdowns (when he's mad, which he never owns, and gives a freezing cold condescending narrative of what's wrong with my character) more.
I think marrying or living with him would damage my health. And I guess that's the bottom line.
Another thing--I asked M if on occasion when it might really help, would he consider a 2-hour session or two sessions in one week? Because I think now is a time it might help us. He said that would be excessive and too much and...No. I asked because I am at that cracking point and he senses it, I think, and does not want to go deeper, to be in touch or work with with his feelings (much less mine) and resents the probing that highlights his own issues, and so forth. What I thought about later was just--he can concentrate passionately 8 hours a day on his scholarship. But me asking for an additional hour of T in one week, only in crisis, was "too much." During the call later, M said: Too much thinking! Too much talking! You have to Seize the Day! We'll be dead soon! etc....
At the end of our last session the Sikh asked, Hops, is one of your biggest concerns that your boundaries are not respected? I said Yes from my depths. And yet a week later M simply cannot or won't respect a basic request that he stop talking at me during the electronics setup I was doing. It felt HORRIBLE, but was also such a clear sign that no amount of discussion in T or suggestions from the T can penetrate the rigidity of his dominating behavior. It truly probably is out of his control, and if that's so I feel badly for him. But I think it contributed to my stroke in the past and could contribute to worse (because I am made the way I am) in stress-related health consequences over time.
During that last session I laid it all out, and I actually had chest pain while talking and my hands shook throughout. In hindsight, I think if talking openly about emotions and problems produces such fear, then I've got issues of my own to work on with my own T. But it also says something about how fearful I am of letting down my guard, or boundaries, with M. Because I do not feel fully emotionally safe, despite all his declarations about love and life (which go on for pages). He wants to INSTRUCT me into the relationship of his own fantasies (travel! food! diversion! distraction!) but he really cannot understand my own (peace, harmony, cooperation).
So, tomorrow, I need to tell M and the Sikh that I've realized that as we've spent more time, that I cannot continue the dream/expectation of a lifetime commitment.
It's really hard and I'm scared, but I think it's the right decision. I so hope so.
(Possibly, I could offer to remain his friend and occasional dinner companion. But I think it's unlikely, because it's so common among people with highly N traits to become quite unpleasant after you say No to them or stop cooperating with their plans. I would anticipate a lot of passive aggression and jabs of hostility. And I would love to be wrong.)
Despite all I'm saying here about M's dark or difficult sides, I will also miss him, genuinely. He has at times been delightful, playful, sparkling and fun. And generous (trips! food and wine!). I will miss those times. But I think I've gotten a clear vision of what a DAILY future or a DOMESTIC partnership would be like with him, and it's not happy. It'd be filled with his ego and compulsion to control, plus his reluctance or inability to do work that requires a deep encounter with himself. Too scary or too irrelevant for him.
He really is extremely fulfilled by his scholarship, and though it'll be very hard on him, I think returning to his teaching (online) this fall is exactly how he'll survive. He is driven, deeply, by his profession. And he has adoring family on two continents. He can talk to his older sister (his "guardian angel") for hours. So he'll have a lot of long-distance understanding and support. I have my friends.
Believe it or not, I still love the man. And I'm facing deep risk of my own in deciding to end of it. At my age, with some health fears and loneliness looming, some might think I'm mad to end it. But I believe that personal integrity demands that I be honest and open and tell it like it is.
It won't go down well. I'm scared but will survive it.
I'm wondering whether it's wrong of me to do this during a T session.
I could ask M if I might come by this afternoon? I could tell him then and then leave it up to him whether he still wants to Zoom with the T tomorrow. (I would do that regardless.)
Advice welcome on the in-person versus doing it with the Sikh? In-person might be better behavior. With-T is the only way I know I'll be able to speak my piece without interruption. But alone in-person might be more honorable.
Please do let me know your thoughts on the last paragraph...or anything.
thanks all,
Hops
