It's the slowest day in Slowvinia. So how's about some overshare?

Oy. It's past lunch and the only "work" I've had to do all day is to deliver one piece of mail. I'm not complaining, and I know I'll be plenty busy this afternoon helping on a big printing project, but for now I'm teetering on the edge of boredom. I bet I'll never have days like this once I actually start bringing my writing to work on.

So to distract myself from the temptation of reinstating my productivity-killing TWoP habit, I shall dispense some random relationship advice. It's not so much advice, really, as something I'm just starting to figure out. I've established a new rule for myself: I'm not allowed to get angry at Matt for doing (or not doing) something if I never actually tell him that said activity (or lack thereof) makes me unhappy. No matter how obvious and common-sensical I think it is, or should be, that something would upset me, I can't and shouldn't expect it to be obvious to him, because boys are dumb.

Okay, scratch that. It's not that boys are dumb, or at least not all boys. It's that they truly are wired differently and things that are intuitive to us have to be spelled out for them, and vice versa. I'm finally starting to get this. I figured out that I can't be upset with Matt for blowing off my nephew's high school graduation when I never actually came out and told him that I wanted him to go. That "Do you want to go?" is not the same question as "Will you please go with me?" and that the latter question won't necessarily be inferred from the former. Or that a sniffly "No, it's cool, do whatever you want" will not translate to the male brain as "How dare you even contemplate making me go to this thing alone where I'll have to make embarrassed apologies for your absence and convince distant relatives that no, really, you do exist?". That I don't have the right to expect him to read my mind/emotions and get angry when he doesn't, especially when he'd probably do what I want if I'd just be straight with him in the first place.

I had a related epiphany the other day about myself that helped me reach this conclusion. I realized that--through no fault of his--I haven't been able to let myself trust him to put my happiness first. Even though I both want and am willing to go to great lengths for his happiness, I don't allow myself to expect the same from him. It has to do with daddy issues and a history of abuse, and I need to knock it off. I need to stop being passive-agressive and self-protective and assuming that if I come right out and tell him what I want I'll just set myself up for rejection and disappointment. I need to learn to take him at his word when he says that my happiness is his priority, and remember that, so long as I've been straightforward with him about what I want from him, he's never given me any reason to doubt that. I have to stop going out of my way to please him and depriving him of the opportunity to do likewise, which translates to never speaking up for what I want and then turning into a pissy, pouty martyr when all we ever do is what he wants.

Man. Every time I think I've got a handle on the depths of my screwed-up-ness I find a whole 'nother layer. Thank God I've found a mate who is as patient as he is loving. Hopefully I'll figure out how to trust in his love for me before his patience begins to wear out.