Breaking up is hard to do, part 2

Let me apologize for breaking one story into two parts. I was getting tired and could tell I needed a lot more space to finish my story. I don't want to force you to read a super long post to get the background and the details. A quick recap for those of you who didn't read part 1. After two weeks, I finally saw Terry and we had a special guest. I've been pissed at him and wanted to lay into him in person-not over the phone/text/email.

Once Terry is lying in bed happy about the special guest, I ask him what's going on with us. He says, "what do you mean?" What the fuck do you think I mean? Terry proceeds to tell me that he wasn't prepared to be a boyfriend and that there are so many demands and expectations on him. What? Demands? Wanting to spend time with him is demanding? Meeting my friends is an expectation he can't meet? Un-fucking-believable! He then says that he has felt stressed out because I'm always demanding to be touched. And he felt bad because I was angry at him. Also he was tired of us having the same conversation about the things I wanted him to do. Now I never meant to make him feel bad (that's the truth) but I feel like a lot of it could have been avoided.

Although our talk was only about 15 minutes; I was too drunk and stoned to get more involved than that, it was full of interesting tidbits. Our talk included this gem- "before I met you, I hadn't seen you in 49 years. Two weeks isn't a big deal." This was in response to my statement about not seeing him for two weeks. What an ass! He also told me that he needs to spend time with his kids - granted he wasn't spending that much time with them before-and that sometimes he needs to have time to himself. I said I understand that you need to spend time with your kids and then he promptly said that I really didn't understand because we keep having to talk about this. On this point, he is probably right. I don't have kids and up to this point have never dated anyone with kids, so they are not part of my thought process. I even mentioned to him that I was trying to get my head around that fact that he seemed kind of underwhelmed by me and this is not an experience I'm used to.

Ultimately I didn't get the resolution I was looking for. And while I did appreciate his honesty, his reasons for basically being a dick weren't good enough. I really just wanted him to say he was sorry. That was it. Since that didn't happen, I just stopped arguing with him. I don't have the energy or interest to argue like I used to. In my younger days, I would fight until I won and would say anything to win the fight and I mean anything. I once told a boyfriend that maybe he should fuck his sister when he suggested I act more like her. But there I was just giving up on the fight and accepting Terry's shitty behavior.

So when this conversation was over, I asked Terry if he'd hold me. One of the things I really like about Terry is that he holds me while we sleep. He jokingly says that'll cost extra. I tell him I didn't bring any money and I'll have to owe him. We both laugh and to my surprise, he holds me real tight and we start to fool around. It was great because I didn't have to do or say anything to make it happen. I thought to myself-Finally! And then we went to sleep- which was good because I was exhausted. When we got up in the morning, Terry asked what I was doing that day because he was free. I was getting a haircut (turned out cute, BTW) and wasn't available. We made plans to get together on Tuesday. That morning it was like our fight didn't happen the night before. Terry was affectionate and sweet.

Now Tuesday came and while I needed to push our time together back, we didn't even get together. I found myself back in the same position as before-no return calls and avoidance. I can't believe that I've been accepting Terry's shitty behavior. It's totally shameful and yet I'm barely doing anything to stop it. I've been trying to ask myself why I put up with this and I don't have an answer aside from sheer laziness. But at some level I've now become the kind of woman I hate-the kind who'd rather have someone instead of no one. I guess I'm keeping hope alive that Terry will turn it around and things can go back to being fun. But even if that happens, there are plenty of things he doesn't do.

As I write this post, I'm scheduled to see Terry tonight. We'll see if that even happen.