I started this post in the week prior to Christmas and kept adding to it. It’s up to date now, unfortunately.

I’m reading between the lines of his alternating enthusiasm and absences that he’s again struggling with grief, unsustainable working hours and other pressures that are pushing him back into a depressive hole. One day he’s promising to catch up, the next he’s forgetting to cancel and leaving me angry, and I haven’t been shy in telling him how his self-absorbed behaviour has affected my planning. Something was invariably going to snap because at the moment I don’t have the inner resources to be his stabiliser.

He sent a long and rambling message that I should again consider someone who is more available and reliable, but he didn’t end things or reach any kind of conclusion. I could sense from his up-and-down pattern that this message was coming, but I was angry before all else that he seemed to be leaving the decision to me. I wrote back with some thoughts and stubbornly didn’t offer which way I was leaning. He fired up at my suggestion that perhaps he should seek someone else who doesn’t want much of his time – it wasn’t my fairest fighting, but I hope it stops him saying what’s best for me.

We agreed to sleep on it. I want to keep seeing him and work through this ongoing rough period, but I’m wary as his return to normal life has no end date at this stage. I am equally tempted to pull up stumps and tell him to leave me alone as I can’t deal with the upheaval again, but I know after a few days’ relaxation both of us will probably regret rash actions. However, if we keep limping along, our holiday rest might make everything artificially salvageable until he is thrown back into his overloaded routine.

I’m happy to enter battle as I’m harbouring a lot of work and seasonal tension that wants an outlet, but I have no idea what I want to fight for or against. I am going to wait for him to make the call.

Postscript: I softened and he softened and we agreed to take it easy on each other during our holidays. I sent him a message a couple of days prior to Christmas and hadn’t heard back by Boxing Day, so I sent a message saying I could deal with challenges but not a lack of communication so I would leave him in peace again. He didn’t reply and I still wonder what happened. 

My sense of observation is usually crystal clear when reading other blogs and knowing when people’s attempts at re-uniting won’t work, but I ignored the signals in my own situation. We weren’t going to last long if the circumstances causing our problems weren’t resolved so I set myself up for failure again and let hope overrule logic. I will never say no in the future if he is organised and stable but I think I would probably feel guilty for not supporting him more at this time. Regardless, I need to deal with the current situation and move on.  

I don’t have any posts in my draft pile so things might be quiet here for a while. I’m not in the mood to do my annual review or things I’d like to do in the coming year (‘not make too many mistakes’ and ‘find someone nice’ hardly comprises a list).