I (36F) have been with my partner (43M) for five years. We met when he was living in my city, but he grew up in another town nearby. Three years ago, he took a job 350 miles away. I agreed to move with him, but it was a small red-state town and I was abysmally lonely. I lost my work-from-home job and spent a year depressed, unemployed and drinking too much. Things were really tough for us.
Recently it has been better. Financially, things improved enough to let me move back home part time. So now, I drive back and forth every few weeks and am trying to start my own business... things are better, in the sense that I am with my friends and have my home and life back a little bit, but I am still struggling so much with anxiety and whether I should keep sticking it out in this relationship. The source of my anxiety is... well... unclear. So I need some perspective. And my friends have none to offer because they don't know what this is. I don't even know what this is.
1. I find myself feeling like we do not have a life together. I want to have mutual friends, and build a community of people we love and trust. I feel like this is really important as we get older (no kids). Without living in the same city, I can't imagine how this is going to happen.
2. I miss a routine. I struggle to get myself organized to get anything done. I don't eat well and I don't sleep well because I'm constantly in a different bed and stocking a new fridge. I try to tell myself that I'm getting to have a fun single-lady life when I'm here alone, but I feel like I'm missing out all the time. When I'm here I miss him, when I'm there I miss everything else.
3. I feel like I'm missing out on my life? Like we are living his life, and mine is on the backburner. But this is my life. This is the life I'm choosing every time I get in the car. It just isn't the life I want.
How much sacrifice is too much? Then again... I also wonder if this is my nature, to be unhappy, and I should work on being grateful and glad for the great man and enough money and friends and my health and whatever else I have going on that is good.
1. Life is long and there is time. We will not live in this small unfriendly town forever and I still have my relationships, even if they're not as smooth as they were before this situation arose. We will eventually get there, and I should relax.
2. Routine is boring? Like... if I lived here in the city 24/7 I would probably go crazy from the noise and the crowds, but 24/7 in the small town was also ridiculous. What a privilege then, to have both?
3. A lot of this feeling is about not building my career and not having a "thing" that I do... but isn't that all social conditioning anyways? Why am I so desperate to have a full time job that destroys my soul? I've been there, it ain't pretty.
I'm not naive. There's no "the one" and I could eventually find another partner. But blowing up my relationship... for what? To be single and poor and go back to a job I hate?
The big issue is that he is a really shitty communicator (#cishetman) and hasn't been able to express any understanding of how hard this is for me, or come up with a hypothetical plan for how we're going to get to the same place (I believe he feels these things but cannot discuss them... its a fine distinction that may feel like a hair split, but it matters).
He has said that if I could earn enough to support us both, we would move back to my home... but he has also said that this city isn't his home so he doesn't feel the same way as I do about coming back. The cynic in me says that he is with me because this is very convenient and easy for him... it could be? He has told me it is difficult when I'm away but other than caring for the animals I don't know what specifically is difficult for him - he won't talk to me about it when I ask (see? he is a shitty communicator).
I'm just getting tired. Tired of all of it. I don't want to give up, but why am I doing this? What's the point? What is life for?
Halp.
Recently it has been better. Financially, things improved enough to let me move back home part time. So now, I drive back and forth every few weeks and am trying to start my own business... things are better, in the sense that I am with my friends and have my home and life back a little bit, but I am still struggling so much with anxiety and whether I should keep sticking it out in this relationship. The source of my anxiety is... well... unclear. So I need some perspective. And my friends have none to offer because they don't know what this is. I don't even know what this is.
1. I find myself feeling like we do not have a life together. I want to have mutual friends, and build a community of people we love and trust. I feel like this is really important as we get older (no kids). Without living in the same city, I can't imagine how this is going to happen.
2. I miss a routine. I struggle to get myself organized to get anything done. I don't eat well and I don't sleep well because I'm constantly in a different bed and stocking a new fridge. I try to tell myself that I'm getting to have a fun single-lady life when I'm here alone, but I feel like I'm missing out all the time. When I'm here I miss him, when I'm there I miss everything else.
3. I feel like I'm missing out on my life? Like we are living his life, and mine is on the backburner. But this is my life. This is the life I'm choosing every time I get in the car. It just isn't the life I want.
How much sacrifice is too much? Then again... I also wonder if this is my nature, to be unhappy, and I should work on being grateful and glad for the great man and enough money and friends and my health and whatever else I have going on that is good.
1. Life is long and there is time. We will not live in this small unfriendly town forever and I still have my relationships, even if they're not as smooth as they were before this situation arose. We will eventually get there, and I should relax.
2. Routine is boring? Like... if I lived here in the city 24/7 I would probably go crazy from the noise and the crowds, but 24/7 in the small town was also ridiculous. What a privilege then, to have both?
3. A lot of this feeling is about not building my career and not having a "thing" that I do... but isn't that all social conditioning anyways? Why am I so desperate to have a full time job that destroys my soul? I've been there, it ain't pretty.
I'm not naive. There's no "the one" and I could eventually find another partner. But blowing up my relationship... for what? To be single and poor and go back to a job I hate?
The big issue is that he is a really shitty communicator (#cishetman) and hasn't been able to express any understanding of how hard this is for me, or come up with a hypothetical plan for how we're going to get to the same place (I believe he feels these things but cannot discuss them... its a fine distinction that may feel like a hair split, but it matters).
He has said that if I could earn enough to support us both, we would move back to my home... but he has also said that this city isn't his home so he doesn't feel the same way as I do about coming back. The cynic in me says that he is with me because this is very convenient and easy for him... it could be? He has told me it is difficult when I'm away but other than caring for the animals I don't know what specifically is difficult for him - he won't talk to me about it when I ask (see? he is a shitty communicator).
I'm just getting tired. Tired of all of it. I don't want to give up, but why am I doing this? What's the point? What is life for?
Halp.
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