I’m Mistrusting of My Wonderful and Loving Relationship

I’m going to ruin it. I just know it.

Photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash

It’s been nine months.

Nine months of dating a wonderful guy. After divorce, I’ve dated (and documented here on Medium) what felt like hundreds of dates. Fucked more guys than I will ever admit (even half the number is too many). I fell in love with one guy who didn’t reciprocate and destroyed my heart. But Clark is everything I could ever imagine.

I don’t want to put him on a pedestal. Clark’s life right now hinges on paying loads of child support; he lives in a less-than-ideal 2-bedroom apartment for three people. Until those kids go off to college and he’s done paying child support, he’s stuck. That dumpy-adjacent apartment is staying for another four years.

I don’t want to put my first post-divorce boyfriend on a pedestal.

I think I already did.

We came back from the most magical fucking UK trip imaginable. I had my list of fears, which I shall proceed to enumerate until my point is made.

1. I can’t easily apply estrogen cream to my vajayjay to stay wet and avoid bladder infections; however, if I keep applying then that’s not ideal for a man’s meat to rub into.
2. Eventually, I’m going to have to poop. I know UK bathrooms aren’t like the US, where, in the worst case, I could run the water. Plus the smell. I don’t need to hear that everyone does it. I’m not at that point yet.
3. The cost. I’m paying for three nights in one city because I wanted to look like I wasn’t a gold digger, even though $2k turned my bank account into a melodramatic emo kid wallowing in misery.
4. What if we fight? Then I’m stuck on another continent for ten days.
5. Clark’s sex drive is way higher than mine; how can I convey that my girl bits can’t handle his extra-large cucumber all the time?
6. Will my hair get frizzy because it’s wet and rainy there?
7. I’ll be bored out of my mind watching the theater show I splurged on for his Christmas gift.
8. Will I accidentally say “I love you” before he does?
9. How will I survive all the stairs (fucking medieval bros throwing bricks everywhere like Minecraft), given that he has longer legs that are insanely muscular because he runs every day?

I shall proceed to answer my own questions.

1. I figured out that after morning sex, I could apply it before we headed out for the day. I only applied estrogen cream two or three times, but it was good. Vag stayed wet.
2. Because I have unhealthy body views, I took six laxatives before the trip and emptied the hell of my intestinal tract. Then we began eating like bears hoarding for winter, and my body was all, “Yo, we survive on pb&j, you can’t show up with buttery creamy sauces with protein at every meal! You can’t eat sticky toffee pudding every day!” I kind of lucked out that we were stuck in an airport midway through the trip, and I ended up having diarrhea in the airport bathroom. Sounds gross, but I was relieved (pun intended) to empty myself, and it wasn’t a shared bathroom with him.
3. Yeah, the cost sucks. I’m good at talking myself out of expensive purchases, but the bill was pretty high. I couldn’t let him pay for everything. We had dinner that was almost $700. I would look like a complete dick if I didn’t buy him a scone the next day.
4. We didn’t fight. At all. He was snippy with me when I grabbed his arm because the car skidded on the narrow road with loads of oncoming traffic, and homeboy acted like it was California driving time. It was a gut reaction (along with my scream), but I apologized profusely, and that was it. My problem is that I hate confrontation, so his snapping at me to not grab his arm when driving (which is a perfectly reasonable demand when grabbing a steering wheel in an unfamiliar car) has sealed in my brain that he thinks less of me.
5. I think my sex drive was higher than his on this trip. What can I say? When I don’t starve myself, I become a happy person who wants to shag like bunnies.
6. My hair was a hot mess. But it was so cold, I mostly kept it under hoods and warm hats. On the plus side, I usually wear giant, embarrassing sun hats because I avoid all things UV like the plague, but the overcast weather was perfect.
7. That night at the theater was absolutely magical.
8. I said it first.
9. Those stairs sucked balls. Really. I powered through as best as I could, but at least I didn’t flop down in the middle of a castle stairway, exclaiming that I was forever done walking. One castle had two hundred stairs. I’m pretty sure I’m a descendant of whoever invented the elevator.

The night of the theater, we were late and had to run from the Uber to the show barely on time. It was a rare night when I would be in dressy shoes, and my heels became a bloody mess. However, because I’m a paranoid traveler, I had dozens of hydrocolloid bandages in my purse. I also had shoe glue in case a heel broke off.

The show was magical (trying to stay ninja, but it’s a very, very famous musical). Better than I could imagine. When we got out, Clark decided to splurge on our transportation back: the tacky, decorated, glow-in-the-dark, music-blaring carriage ride by a guy on a bike. I froze my ass off. Instead of going back to the hotel, we went to one of the many pubs and drank whiskey. We stumbled back to the hotel, and I felt exceptionally sexy because of the aforementioned whiskey. Clark was on a high, finally seeing a show he had been dying to see for over twenty years. The sex was intense and amazing. I let him put an inch in me for anal and let him hold it there (I still need my butt to poop when I’m ninety; that giant meat of his isn’t going past one inch because it feels like twenty). He loves the intensity and control, knowing the sensation is overwhelming, and I’m on edge with the small fear that he’ll put it all the way in.

After the post-coital bliss, he quickly hops in the shower. When Clark came out, I blurted, “So, when will it be okay for me to say that I love you?”

Thankfully, he felt the same.

The enormity of feeling like this is the real, long-term deal that sets in. Clark adores and loves me as much as I do him. Holy hell, I didn’t think this could happen to me.

I told him that I began falling in love just a few months ago. I then found out that fucker was already falling in love with me after two months because I took an interest in a hobby of his and took him to a museum showcasing it. (That hobby is motorcycling, which is a giant, glaring NO that I tell my children, but Clark is an adult and I have made it clear that if he ends up in the hospital, I reserve the right to scream “I told you so!”, punch him, then walk out.) I panicked over my emotions for no damn reason.

In Clark’s eyes, I’m special because I actively take an interest in the things he likes and am willing to participate in them (to a degree, fuck ever riding a motorcycle). As Ali Wong says, it’s great to have a man who’s been pre-yelled at. A pre-seasoned skillet. Because then I look like the fun cheerleader in comparison to his previous relationships.

We had long car rides seeing nature stuff. That meant nonstop talking. I told Clark that while he is a rare man of action, his words don’t convey his plans or how he feels. I don’t know long-term what his plans are after his kids are in college.

That led to a discussion that if this works out, he could easily switch gears and move into my place until my kids move out. I discussed that the odds are high that my son will always live in the house, even if I’m not in it, because of his Autism. My interest rate is stupidly low; there’s no planet where I’m ditching the house.

We got into all the potential roadblocks, concerns, and things that could derail us. Heck, since we had loads of driving time, we discussed ultra-long-term plans. He has two pensions plus a well-funded 401(k). I have a better-than-the-average-American-but-I-can’t-fund-it-like-I-used-to 401k. Since Clark is four years older, he can retire before me.

It blew my mind when he said that when he retires, then I’m retiring too, because he will easily have enough money to pay for both of us (at least until I can withdraw Social Security and all that). While my entire life hinges on never relying on a man and always having a career, if we’re still magically together in a decade, then it would be amazing to bail out before I’m 67.

This entire time, I agonized over telling him that I loved Clark because I didn’t want to force the progression. It turns out he wants the whole thing as much as I do.

New anxieties unlocked.

I now have a man who tells me regularly that he loves me. Because my brain ruminates and has thousands of TV screens playing different thoughts, I think about him almost obsessively.

Nah, let’s be real. It’s obsessive.

I’m scared that Clark will realize I have nothing to offer. I already confessed that I’m worried my family situation will make him run. My parents are old-school religious, and in their minds, I’m back to a virginal state. They haven’t told the enormous extended family that I’m divorced, despite it being six years. The world of brown people is complex. I can’t tell my parents I’m dating him or that we’re traveling.

I wish I had that kind of relationship with my parents. His mom regularly texts messages asking about me and sends little thoughts my way. Clark’s siblings know about me. I tried my best to convey that it’s not about being open and honest with my family. It’s that the endless amount of grief isn’t worth it. It doesn’t improve my life to tell them.

You’d think after nine months of dating and long-term planning that I could finally breathe a little.

Hell to the no.

Now I have more to lose. Now I have all my insecurities and shame coming out of the woodwork like ants at a picnic. I need to get super fit. I need to convey that I’m a competent human adult. I need to stay upbeat in that cheerleader state. In other words, I need to be perfect.

During one of the drives, I read some relationship questions. The topic turned towards sadness and depression. Clark said the last time he felt complete sadness and cried was when his father died. That was six years ago.

I cried six minutes before writing this article.

He turned the question on me, and I danced around the topic. When he tried to learn more about the sadness in me, I told him that if I let those demons out, then they’ll never stop, and that I pride myself on keeping those demons in check. Thankfully, I redirected to another topic.

It’s shocking to me that most people don’t live with a giant Depression Monster living within them. They aren’t fighting for their lives internally while plastering a smile externally.

They’re sad and depressed because an event caused it. Job loss, death, too much stress from work, whatever.

I’m sad and depressed because I just am. There is no reason other than feeling like I’m a worthless POS. I don’t need an excuse to feel bad because my default state is depression. Events like giant UK trips temporarily ward off the Depression Monster within, but it’s always there, pacing like a caged animal waiting to be released.

One day, Clark will realize that I have nothing to offer and leave me.

If you’re in the mood to donate to my diet soda addiction to keep me awake as I juggle my hot mess of a life, I would be forever grateful: https://ko-fi.com/ninjagirl.

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