Break-up Eve

I'm writing this on Thursday, the 21st.

I bought myself a Valentine's Day orchid today (at Costco) but was a good girl and put the Valentine's Day Belgian chocolates back.  I'm buying my own flowers and dumping the boyfriend, I joked to my friend.

I have never broken up with anyone.  It takes a certain sense of self-worth to break up with a man because he is taking me for granted.

Intellectually, I know I have dated pretty steadily since 2005, but I still have this feeling of the gal no one wanted.  And breaking up with Tony feels like losing a chance to be with MaxEarnest too, as weird as this is. It would be much easier to be with MaxEarnest again if I were staying with Tony.  MaxEarnest was originally not interested in being a third member of an  open-relationship, but that seemed to be changing.  He wanted to talk about it last week and I blew him off because I felt like there was an 80% chance I'm breaking up with Tony (and now I think there's a 90% chance).  I wanted to keep the issues with Tony clean and it felt really unfair to Tony to tell MaxEarnest that I thought I'd be breaking up with him before I told Tony!  If I break up with Tony, which I will, and MaxEarnest and I started seeing each other again, I'm scared that I will hurt him again.  I love MaxEarnest.  I still do.  Best relationship of my life.  But I want to meet someone I can build a life with.  Just because Tony isn't that man doesn't change that underlying fact.  I don't know if MaxEarnest will want to go through this sort of emotional roller-coaster and I can't promise him anything else.

So, why am I break up: Two weeks ago, right around when Tony told me he didn't do Valentine's day,  I told Tony that I was feeling taken for granted and I wanted to go out for a nice, romantic date.  That I wanted to be surprised and that it was important to me and let's do it in the next 2 weeks.  Well, it hasn't happened, and I'm going away for a week on Saturday, so tomorrow is it.  (There have been a LOT of other things too--the whole "I feel like you're taking me for granted" and even after I finally had the courage to say it, he didn't do anything about it.  A whole lot of me doing all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the shopping, paying for most things and planning everything.  When we went away last weekend, I brought a lot of food for us to cook and he didn't bring anything, then made comments that I only brought poor quality whiskey because I was thinking of hot toddies and whiskey sours, not drinking it straight, or disappointment that I hadn't thought to bring trail mix.  And he never offered once to carry my bag with the wine, olive oil, whiskey, and all the less-heavy food things.  I've made other comments about wanting help, wanting him to actually go out on dates and not just stay home and work every single night.  It is funny--Tony was to me what I was to MaxEarnest.  I loved spending half our nights together just working over our respective computers, but when it turned into every night together, I felt really isolated.)

So tomorrow Tony will invite himself over for dinner in the late afternoon.  And I'll say "I think we should talk--let's get coffee."  And then I have to be clear that this isn't working for me.  I won't give reasons unless he asks for them.  I don't know the kindest way to break up with someone.  Despite all evidence of his behaviour, I do think Tony has really appreciated the experience of being with me; in fact, he may have become complacent because my home felt like his home and he thought our lives were fitting together well.  Too well.  I've felt like I have all the complaints housewives did in the early 1960s.  Oh, and I'm covering all the bills too!

A couple of friends have urged me to dump Tony now (or days ago, once I started talking with people about my concerns), not wait till tomorrow.  "You deserve better" they say.  But I don't know how much that is true.  It isn't what I deserve.  It is what I think I can live with.

It is funny because Tony thinks he is a feminist, but we had the worst gender-stereotyped relationship I've ever seen (except in bed, where he still won't pin my wrists down even.  He spanked me once like me meant it, and I thought he was really turned on.  I thought that would be a turning-point for us, but it never happened again.)  It is funny, but in a weird way (or maybe an incredibly obvious way), good kink has to involve a huge amount of empathy.  In a way, with a Male Dominant, Female Submissive relationship, the man has to do far more of taking care of the woman's needs, figuring out how she is feeling, being aware of what she wants, likes and needs.  I remember John used to order all my meals for me, without asking me what I wanted.  My drinks too.  And thing is, he knew a) what I liked and that b) since he paid for everything I would order the cheapest chicken dish on the menu.  He knew me well enough to say things like "she'd like extra mushrooms on that, but the dressing on the side."  He would order exactly what I would have wanted, if cost were no issue.  He ordered me a blueberry and pear martini once--I think it was like $16 dollars.  I would never, in a million years, have asked him to spend $16 on my drink; but I felt so taken care of.  MaxEarnest was SO aware of my mood, so aware of what I wanted kink-wise.  We only had crossed signals once, when he punished me and didn't realize how hard it was for me and I thought he was pissed off and didn't care.  If he had realized, he would never have done it.  Sometimes I wanted MaxEarnest to push me a little farther.  I loved having resistance brushed aside, and yet that is a kind of fucked-up dynamic and MaxEarnest always listened when I said I didn't like something.  But when I fell last week on the ice (we were hiking on a frozen lake), Tony just gave me the keys to the car and I waited for him to enjoy his walk for over an hour when it was 11 degrees outside.  He doesn't cherish me.

I came to the conclusion that Tony wouldn't have been a good dad because he lacks empathy.  If our hypothetical future child  (OHFC---sounds like it should be tried for fixing LIBOR or something) were curious about the world, Tony would have been awesome at feeding at nurturing that curiosity.  But if OHFC were frustrated by school, or being picked on by kids, or not learning something as quickly as Tony thought, Tony would become quickly exasperated.  And if OHFC needed to have a diaper changed at 3 in the morning, it would never occur to Tony to do it.  He might, if for some reason I was sleeping through said cries and he wasn't, wake me up and say "do we have any clean diapers--I think OHFC needs to be changed."  And he might be willing to change OHFC if I said "Could you please change OHFC. Please make sure you wipe down OHFC's bottom before you put the new diaper on.  And could you please put the old diaper in the pail and then put OHFC in the crib and turn off the light" he would probably do 4 of the 5 things.  I can see how it becomes so hard for women not to nag!

So I break up with Tony tomorrow.  And it must be done.  But I'm very sad.