I got a private note from someone who asked me what I meant in my last entry by “conditional vs. unconditional” love and that shouldn’t two people love each other conditionally anyway? For example, the love that parents have for their children vs. the love that romantic couples have for each other. And the fact that love is conditional in the way that if he cheated on me, I’d have a lot less love for him. If he became abusive, I’d have to leave the situation, etc. etc.
Yes, all that is true. Perhaps what I meant to say is that EXMS’s love had “requirements” (conditions?) that I have always had to meet. And as I met these challenges (or changes that he asked me to make), he’d create new sets of requirements, and the relationship bar would be shifted and moved and I never knew what was going to set him off or make him proud or .whatever.
And he would say, “See, these changes are making you such a better person!” And I would gush for a while and feel proud.
Or else he would say, “You really need to work on [such and such].”
And there were always things that I needed to improve. Things I wasn’t getting right. I thought that I was doing things to make him happy to make us a good couple. But you see, I’m not perfect.
And EXMS told me that he would accept NOTHING less than perfection where his kids are concerned (he even told the minister this in our counseling, and the minister basically said that he was setting things up for disaster with the kid thing because it would NEVER be perfectthe kid thing will ALWAYS be a trial and error situation).
And there were smaller things he would comment on the portions of food I’d put on my plate .how I wear my hair the clothes I wore and what I shouldn’t wear .my goofy side when I was with my girlfriends my flirty side my bubbly drinking.
All of it, he put conditions on.
All of it, I wanted to change to make US harmonious.
But see, I could NEVER keep up. I could never get it ALL right at the same time. And like I said, the bar kept shifting.
And I’m not trying to play victim here. He’d ask me what I’d like him to change, and honestly (truly!!) there was NOTHING about him that I would change ( .except for his occasional negativity). Seriously, I’d look at him and see a guy that I was deeply, seriously in LOVE with someone I wanted to improve FOR.
And I’m frustrated because I feel like I failed. At yet another relationship. But this one was different because I wanted it soooooooo much and I was willing to work sooooooo hard for it. My GUT told me that I should make changes for the better and then it would all work out fine.
I can’t even trust my GUT anymore.
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