Sweet Catastrophe

No couple is perfect. There are always ups and downs. I’d say about 90% (if not more) of the time something is up between me and Ryan, it stems from his one-track mind. He gets so absolutely focused on whatever he’s doing at the time and nothing else exists. I’m sure you can see where that can cause some issues.

Ryan works with his best friend right now. They day-trade and so far, they’re making a good go of it. His best friend also just bought a house, so they’re working on that as well. Between their ‘job,’ helping with the house, and obligations to his friend (both spoken and internal…too much to explain) Ryan is spending a lot of time there. I’m talking, it’s pretty much the norm for him to be there from 9am till 2am. That doesn’t work for me. Even though I understand it, I have a hard time keeping my mind from looking at it in a more negative light, when it really and truly isn’t true. I’m a female though, and not the most secure person in the world, so yeah.

The situation tonight was this: Last night his car wouldn’t start. He’s absolutely, 100% out of gas and his last paycheck hasn’t appeared, and they haven’t been day-trading long enough to be able to actually write a check (3 more days though!!) so he’s in the hole right now. So Joolie and Brandel drove him back over on the idea that he’d ask me if he could just grab some clothes and just spend the night there. I didn’t like that. I don’t want to be the girlfriend that makes his decisions for him, so instead I just let him know where I stood–honestly, it would hurt my feelings. There are too many other options for getting him over there in the morning rather than him spending more time away from me.

That was all well and fine and we actually had a great night–talking till 3. Then tonight he sent me a message telling me he was staying there tonight. Well duh, I got upset. He was doing something he knew would hurt my feelings and that didn’t seem to matter. After about an hour of being upset over it, I finally got to the point where I understood why he felt the need to stay, but I was still mad that while knowing it was going to hurt my feelings, he didn’t feel the need to call and explain it all to me instead of letting me try to figure it out on my own.

So there was a very quick, mad conversation and we got off the phone. I can’t leave things unresolved, so I called back and called bullshit, and after that, it was the calmest ‘argument’ I’ve ever had in my life. We talked for a while and I think after all this time that this has been a problem, we finally came up with what could truly be the solution. We’re gonna talk tomorrow night and decide on a set time frame that he’ll call me every day. We’ll set it so that it’s a time at which point he should have an idea of when he’ll be home so we can stop arguing over that, and also if there’s anything I need to know, or want to question then we can cover that as well. We’re both hoping that will help him get into the habit of communicating with me when there’s something to be told, rather than waiting until after the fact, when I’m already upset about it.

I think it’s gonna help a lot. I know he always has good intentions, and honestly, he’s been doing better, but it just hasn’t gotten to a point where it’s fully adequate yet, so I think this will help. I know how he is, and I know you could set him on a project and tell him that in one hour, he needs to just go press a button and he’ll instantly have a million dollars and 3 hours later he’d remember it. He just gets that focused.

I’m really proud of us though. This has been a big problem and I feel like we’ve conquered it as a couple and that just makes me really happy.