Hops - after 3 years, we're kinda past the swoon-y stage of feelings. The R'ship/connection side of things still has those butterflies from time but most often I experience a deeper, calmer, more peaceful - "rightness". Others may see different things about us (and Hol is the most intrepid about making her perceptions known) but between he & I, things are more practical, pragmatic and simply going through life together.
Oh the Ex is still hanging around & being nosy Lighter. But bothering him less internally. I think he's finally decided he is long past feeling responsible for her current circumstances or her fate. Even though she created the whole situation to take advantage of what he could provide her - upon the current whim. I'm glad you brought that up - because I need to research some stuff about immigrants married with a green card. Just to get the ins & outs clearer in my head. Obviously, he was her sponsor. She won't naturalize and is dragging her feet while whining about wanting to go back "home" to live with her sister. Kinda nutsy, to me... but it explains a little of his "once burned, twice shy" characteristics that pop up from time to time (they don't move in and make a pest of themselves).
B is understandably impatient and irritated by any more - each & every - paperwork, bureaucratic, or just incompetent office help delay he encounters even in this new med system. He's been trying to fight his way through this for 5 years now. Then covid, which has made the situation worse in some ways. He wasn't doing too well attitude-wise about having any hope of resolving it when I butted into his self-talk back then. (Hol got it from somewhere ya know.)
The reality is he never had anyone advocate for him; stand with him as he tried to navigate all this; or care enough about how he felt about it all to listen to him grumble. He is a good bit ADD; and while he does have the ability to concentrate, focus, and stay on task... in those interactions with healthcare people he has so much at stake with outcomes that anxiety amplifies and enlarges every little thing to him. My role as shield maiden is to ask the question that flew out of his head, cover all the bases about how the "process" is going work (managing expectations), calendars, etc and keep him as calm as possible. Found out feeding him after a Dr. visit that hasn't gone well helps a lot.
Because the pain pump is a long-term "management" situation, involves narcotics (which invokes the whole opioid mess) even though it doesn't affect his brain directly (goes into spinal cord to soothe nerve endings)... taking a psych eval was part of the process. I didn't get asked to leave and I have to say the questionnaire wasn't exactly subtle. Not to mention how easily it could be gamed. (I used to write these kinds of things to collect info about my faculty's tech needs/wants.) B has already been assessed as not having an addictive personality. He's not a depressive. He's the furthest from suicidal as can be. And he's not even anti-social. This eval was the least messed up part of what he's been waiting for & going through as part of the process and we're a year into it now.
Going through something like this with him - before we were an "item", all throughout the beginning butterly stages of the relationship is a pretty interesting (and different) "getting to know you" gauntlet and not exactly romantic. But if there is a successful outcome, his quality of life becomes more pain-free than it's been and even if the pump only knocks it down by half - he will accept that. He's not the kind of person to sit around feeling sorry for himself. He'll go do what he can do, to keep part of his mind anyway - off obsessing on the pain. I've been able to see this obsession in real-time myself... and have some ability to interrupt that, shrink it down to size in the bigger picture; provide perspective. He has a willing apprentice now, in Hol, too. They've already done some things together.
So, we've kinda jumped past a lot of "new relationship" stuff. right to real life stuff - for now. And I think our age, and what we've both been through in our lives, has contributed this kind of "fast forward". There's no point in putting on any masks - we just went to warts & all. And still, there are enough fun romantic moments that come out of nowhere and cause many smiles. But it's the strong deep connection between us that's contributing to the visible speed of events now. We did all our "homework" the past 3 years. We balance each other making us more together - than apart.
Or so, today's words for trying to describe how this FEELS goes. I ain't much of a poet.
