Our Trip

By the time we went to [Timbuktu], Dana was fully immersed in her own breakup, leaving me without my normal emotional relief valve. My family's idea of "staying close" - which I was obligated to participate in - was announcing on a three-way group message when we got in and out of planes or long car rides, which meant they knew I was in [Timbuktu]; they just didn't know about you.

I was actively struggling with not telling my family about you - made worse by my existing thought that perhaps this issue undergirds all my significant anxieties in the relationship. Though my family never normally said anything of any substance, the very awareness that I was much more reluctant to tell them was weighing on me heavily.

When we were at the jazz bar, I desperately needed to talk to you about confronting - and the very real possibility of your meeting - my family. Perhaps even when they were still in a quasi-unwelcoming state. Our trip had been very symbolic to me. Even though there were rough bits, there were also really great bits. Most bits were. Even when there were bumps, I found you endlessly endearing. I was ready to risk what ultimately came to pass with my family, and I needed your support in that moment.

But while trying to get the words out, I felt you didn't understand what I was going through, or the emotional weight I was bearing in our relationship. Combined with what felt like another conversation where your need to tell me about some fact, or something about you - which could have waited 30 minutes for your turn - trumped my need to talk to you about my family completely.

And, John, that's when I became so furious with you that I intentionally emotionally manipulated you into a state where I knew you'd have to get something out. Then I intentionally frustrated you over and over and over again, to reflect the pain I was feeling in that moment right back at you. The more frustrated you got, the more I felt validated in having been frustrated and hurt myself. The more validated I felt, the angrier I got, and so I just kept twisting the blade, because your visible frustration itself - which mirrored my internal frustration - felt like the very validation I was craving and would never get. And I was willing to take it from you by force.

John...I deeply regret how I handled that moment. It was truly unfair, seriously hurtful, and driven entirely by my own pain and anger - not anything you had done. There was no way you could have handled that conversation with some sort of skill that would have avoided the outcome. I manipulated you to validate my hurt, and for that, I sincerely apologize. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I have cried over and over again rereading this paragraph.

Then, on the plane home, after I gave you the gold coin I purchased without you seeing - which I felt like shit about because it was nothing compared to the rug you bought for yourself - you did just one more random thing that required I swallow yet another slight without any acknowledgment, and I snapped. My emotional gestures - trying to get that coin without you seeing, my being willing to take what I considered to be a monumental step of commitment, our ability to successfully compromise for each other's needs on the trip - were met with "oh, that's cool," a lack of awareness, and invalidation.

I knew it wasn't your fault, that you didn't mean any of those things. I knew you well enough to know that, by and large, these things weren't even visible to you, and were just me reacting to my own feelings. But I was putting into our relationship what felt like a monumental amount of effort. All of which seemed completely invisible to you and went totally unacknowledged.

Of course, I knew immediately that tearing away from you during deplaning was an overreaction - even before I got through passport control. And I knew you didn't understand why the emotional stakes had been raised so high for me. But it was also partly the start of my acute awareness of my unmet emotional needs in the relationship.

The way I always felt belittled by your friends, and the significance of my telling you I needed you to initiate plans and then stepping back to see if you reliably would, were really huge for me. I needed to know that if I had an emotional need, you'd be able to accommodate it, even if it seemed silly to you. That, perhaps, I could convert my emotional needs into some structured format that worked for both of us.

But I couldn't have felt any more humiliated than when you implied - when your friend was over - that I was embarrassing you in front of company, by telling me in front of him that I wasn't helping correctly and to stop. I had to escape to your pantry so no one could see me cry or notice I had needed to excuse myself, after I had to hold back tears, trembling, sitting across from your friend who obviously disliked me and didn't say anything despite my repeated questioning.

When I finally asked to come over to pick up my stuff - after your not having initiated any plans for a week and a half, not even asking me about my weekend plans, and your having just hung out with friends and chilled - you might as well have suggested I get an Uber van so I wouldn't have to make a second trip. Practical, yes. Thoughtful, sure. I knew where all these things were coming from, and that they weren't malicious, nor did they represent a true lack of care. They were your way of trying to honor my wishes, my boundaries, and keep the peace - but I needed you to see my insecurities and vulnerabilities. I hadn't even said we were broken up. I felt like you were too busy sunbathing to even consider me.

But I had also accepted that I could neither sustain nor work around our incompatibilities, and that what happened was just the result of my letting go of having held on so tightly.