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Breaking Strain
For the record, Aussie, I didn't find living with my significant other the first year especially hard, each of the three times I've tried it.
Now, platonic roommates are another matter entirely. I don't last five minutes with those - they just annoy me and I tend to hole up in my room and only return to the apartment to sleep, which is why I began living alone as soon as I could afford it. (Here in the Boston area, that sentence is inadvertently hilarious, but you must understand that in Louisiana, people can actually still afford to live alone. There are still one-person apartments in Louisiana that do not require you to be a diamond heiress.)
So while I feel rather sorry for Dianne, I would like to say that I have never been in a comparable situation, so obviously it's not an experience everyone has. In fact, I tend to read things the opposite way. In my opinion, living-together relationships get harder - much harder - the longer you stay together. My critical point, until this relationship, was three years. Both of my previous Serious Relationships ended at three years. I told Nonelvis that if she could put up with me for more than three years, it was a sign from above that I should marry her. It's been six and I intend to marry her - we just detoured to buy a house together first, which some people (me among them) would argue is a far more significant commitment than marriage.
I should note, out of fairness to Jette, who is reading this and gritting her teeth, that I ended that second Serious Relationship myself. (In other words, I'm the one who left.)
I am sure there were plenty of things that annoyed me about Jette - I can find things that annoy me about everyone, and Nonelvis is no exception - but in general those are never enough to get me to break off a relationship. I will put up with a lot. And the reason I'll put up with a lot ... well, this is where it gets complicated. Hang on tight.
Here's the thing: I'm acutely aware that I am very difficult to live with. I am often crabby and I do not make small talk well. I demand a lot of time alone, and I don't like a lot of shared activities. I am not demonstrative about affection, although I am very physical about appreciating other people's bodies once I realize it's safe to touch them. (It seldom is. Most people draw an invisible barrier around themselves and have strict rules on who's allowed to cross it. I personally am one of the worst; it's usually a lot less safe for you to touch me than it is for me to touch you.)
So you aren't going to get much in the way of emotional feedback from me, I guess is what I'm saying. On the other hand, I am basically a good person, and I feel guilty about my isolationism to boot. If you say, "Look, could you come out here and spend some time with me?" I'll do it. If you need me to do something for you, I may grumble, but I'll do it. If you have a crisis, or if you just need emotional support, you just need to say so - or give me some indication that you're in crisis, because I'm thick - and you will have my undivided attention and support. I am happy to help any way I can in the low times. But I tend to disappear in the stable times, assuming that my support and presence is implied until you need it.
A lot of people, I've learned, don't like to work that way.
And I develop alone. I tend to follow my own paths of advancement, make my own fun, further my own knowledge. I don't really share well, not because I'm greedy but because I figure no one else is interested. And some of my interests embarrass me, so I don't share them because I think it will affect the way I'm perceived. (In other words, it's the geek-stigma thing again.)
Why someone puts up with me, I do not know.
So gradually, at the same time that someone else's annoying habits are beginning to really grate on me, I am coming to the awareness that I am surely being even more of a strain on them as well, and maybe we'd both be better off if 1. I got to live alone, where I could be as evil and solitary as I wanted without depriving anyone else and 2. They got to live with someone who was actually emotionally rewarding to be around ....
I wrote about this at some length here when Nonelvis and I were at that familiar crisis point. That was, hmm, around the fourth year. I don't know how we passed it, to this day. Jette and I didn't pass it - I left - and Stacey and I didn't pass it - the only reason I didn't leave is that she sensed the general malaise and decided to beat me to it.
Maybe the third time is the charm.
Anyway, I think the point of all this rambling is that I've never noticed the first year is particularly hellish for me. That's when the honeymoon is still on, when all small annoyances are overlooked in the glowing haze of Actually Having Someone.
But it may be that the first year was hellish for my lovers, given that I tend to be the breaking strain in any relationship.
I couldn't say. I've never asked them, and I wouldn't get an honest answer if I did.
© Columbine
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