Private Section: Updates on Various in Open Diary 2001-2018 (Pre-Prosebox)

I’m almost afraid to write it out, but I really need to [going private] tell you what happened on Friday night (and please note—another disclaimer—you’ll see below that I’ve come to realize that we are not a normal cookie-cutter couple. I KNOW we need work, but this doesn’t mean we’re doomed. What’s written below is going to sound like a train wreck, and maybe it is, but it is ours, and we both have biggggg issues).

It all started out so wonderfully. Grrrr was making a special steak dish for dinner and he’d gotten our favorite bubbly, and we were ready to start another beautiful weekend.

We are slowly starting to work through our premarital prep work through the church, and the minister had sent us these workbooks to go over. We were supposed to go through chapter 1 before our meeting (which is coming up this Thursday), so I was reading the book to Grrrr while he made dinner.

Now, let’s look at some dynamics here: I am very much a “by the books” kind of person, while Grrrr likes to do things his own way. I’m the kind of person who will follow a recipe to a T while Grrr will veer and venture into new flavors and techniques. Yes, I realize that I’m rigid—I need work. I do. And I truly admire that trait in Grrrr. He’s had to be flexible all his life (though he can be incredibly stubborn, too. Sheesh).

So when I see that our relationship doesn’t quite match “the book”, I tend to worry that we’re not going to work out (see? I am such a paranoid freak!!). So I was reading the book with this…I don’t know…tone. Accusatory, I guess. I don’t know. Whatever it was, it wasn’t right. And I knew it, and Grrrr knew it. So he called me on it.

And words ensued.

And I left in a huff and drove to a restaurant down the street and ordered a glass of wine and called Best Bud who was boarding a plane for Taiwan, but was sweet enough to talk me off the ledge. And during that time, Grrrr was texting and telling me that I need to come home and work things out.

I was relieved when the texts came, so I got home as quickly as I could. Ugh..I’m tired of dragging this out. Long story short, we argued a little more, and he walked out (I guess just to clear his head), and I “accidentally” locked the deadbolt and proceeded to fall asleep until about 2:30am, when I realized what I’d done (locked him out of the loft with no way to get inside!! He had left both his cell phones inside, and had tried to wake me by knocking on the door, but I was asleep!). Now, I have to add here that I did lock the deadbolt for effect, as a statement. But I absolutely DID NOT mean to fall asleep and keep him locked out of the loft ALL NIGHT LONG!!

[Aside: God, I am so embarrassed writing this. It’s making me see how unbelievably childish I am in this relationship. How to I now pull myself back up to a level of decorum?? I realize this sounds like the biggest train wreck.]

Longest. Night. Ever. I had no way to get in touch with him, and I thought he’d gone to his brother’s place. So I started up at 8am by calling his SIL (left message), and then I drove to their place (his car wasn’t there), and then I called another friend (thought he might have stayed there), but I couldn’t find anyone and started to get a little frantic.

Finally, at around 10:30, Grrrr showed up. He’d spent the night at a hotel. And I was ashamed and apologetic and….just…again, the worst.

But believe it or not, we talked right then and there. A very good talk. A breakthrough of sorts. I know this is tiring to read, but each time “things” happen with us and we find a way to work back to square one, I feel better. Perhaps this is absolutely wrong for normal relationships, but I’m finally coming to realize that our relationship is NOT normal, and I need to stop trying to MAKE it normal and textbook. It’s not, and it will never be. And I wasn’t fine with that until…well until the past couple of days. I have to stop struggling to fit what we have into a neat little container and learn to be okay with its…uniqueness.