I feel like I'm losing myself.
I'm not really sure where to begin this... But I feel like I'm losing my grasp on sanity, reality, and myself. I feel like my girlfriend is trying her hardest to suck whatever life I have left out of me, so that I feel as miserable as she does. I just don't know what else to do, and I'm really being honest here when I say I'm very surprised with myself that I'm even writing this.
I'm miserable, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm frustrated, I'm at the end of my tether and I don't really know what I'm doing anymore, but I know I don't want to be doing this.
When my mother passed away three years ago, she was the primary source of income for the household. Don't get me wrong, neither my father or I am deadbeat layabouts, but she had lucked out and got into a position at a thriving real estate company and worked her way up to a good and well-payed position.
Anyway, when she passed, it was during a week-long vacation that started with my resignation from my previous job, and the starting point of not only a new job, with a start-up IT company as their first employee, but a career. We were building a company from the ground up. I had the brains, he had the corporate experience and money to make it happen, and it worked. Very well in fact, we were financially stable and had a 4-man staff of technicians within a year and a half.
Because of my insane hours (70-90 hours a week), and to help me cope with the sudden loss of my mother, my girlfriend moved in with my father and I so that we could still have a relationship. As she didn't have a job at the time, she was happy to agree to contributing to the household by tidying up and doing laundry (Dad cooks dinner, and I do dishes every day). This worked well for about six months, and our relationship actually got better...
I guess I got used to coming home from a long (LONG) day of work and stress to open arms and a loving embrace... Because it hit me like a sack of bricks when it stopped happening. About that point she began (as she had in the past with other things... ) to resent my job, and how long she was alone in the house, and how there was never enough money to do anything with (I'll go over why that is later on), and how we don't do anything anymore (this is six months into a brand new job/career/company, mind you!), and, seemingly overnight, became a miserable wretch... But... I still loved her, so...
I put up with the constant bickering and argumentative behavior, the yelling and stomping (temper tantrums, to this day, like an 8 year old), and her-way or the highway mentality... I put up with the "you need to change this" and "you need to change that" and "you need to do this" and "I need, I want, I need, I need, I want" and gave up... I think everything that made me "me", to try to make her happy.
I haven't picked up my guitar for over two years, I don't talk to or hang out with any of my friends (that time I spent on Facebook leaving a quick message on their wall I could have spent with her, after all), I don't have a hobby, I don't play games... I work... I eat... I sometimes have time to take care of general hygiene... But mostly I sit with her and watch TV... Because we can't afford to go out and do anything, and even if we did, twenty minutes into walking around or being out, she's in so much pain she needs to sit down and take a pill...
I'm broke, and in debt up to my ears with her medical bills (MRI's, blood work, general doctor visits, etc.) and store cards and clothes cards(two of these, platinum, maxed out for $1600 and $800... All still has tags on it) and credit cards and cell phone bills, and this that and the other thing...
Whenever I try to do something for me (like fix my car so I can get to work... Or fix dad's truck so he can get to work... Or play a video game on my computer to relax a bit), she gets angry because she wanted to go somewhere and buy something (junk food and soda, or clothes).
I feel like I'm working just to feed her and her misery at this point. She really spent the last two and a half years sitting on her ***, eating herself to death and popping pills to keep herself numb to the emotions that are a part of daily life. All while she made up excuse after excuse as to why she wasn't looking for work and promising to start after some point in time that was usually several months away for some, I feel, STUPID reason.
We even went to seven doctors who all told her it was a weight issue. That the pain, stiffness, difficulty breathing, and stomach issues that she has now is a result of her weight and complete lack of exercise. Aside from the complete rejection of the reality that it really is probably the weight that's causing a lot of the pain (and potentially damage to everything), these doctors prescribed diet and exercise instead of narcotic drugs. Something she became even more furious about.
At this point, let me make it clear that I don't care how much she weighs. I really don't. I was attracted to her passion and personality and her heart. The rest really doesn't matter to me. I feel, and always have, that you could be the most beautiful woman in the world, but, if you're ugly inside, forget it.
OK, so... She feels like even when I'm sitting right next to her, watching TV with her, or doing whatever she wants to do (watch TV or watch TV), that she get's nothing out of me. That I show her no affection, no love, that I don't care about how she feels because when she's complaining about how much I suck, I get this glazed over look on my face and don't really respond.
Well... I've been doing the laundry for her for the last six months, because she can't make more than two trips to the basement without needing to take a pill. I ask her if she needs anything every time I leave the room or go somewhere (like to work), and routinely will stop and pick stuff up for her at the store on my way home (even after a really long day), even if she didn't ask for it. I don't complain when I can't get a straight answer out of her, for example:
Me- do you want coffee?
Her- that should be obvious
Me (to self)- not really... Its hit or miss...
Me (to her)- hot or iced?
Her- well its cold out, dumb-***, what do you think?
Me (to self)- I think that's hit or miss too...
Me (to her)- I think I'd better ask you, because I don't want to make the wrong thing
Her- 9 years together and you don't even know that yet? Do you know anything about me?
After 9 years together, the one thing I DO know is you never "guess" what "she" wants... Because she always want's what you didn't get. That's just on a good day.
Lately, I've been working so much, and stressed so much, and aggravated so much after working with her non-stop complaining and whining and threats and yelling, etc. That it's become really difficult for me to live off 4 hours of sleep a night.
Oh, I almost forgot that. She tells me I can go to bed whenever I'm tired. So, naturally, when I do, she guilt trips me into staying up anyway (until 4am every day) because she's not tired (because she slept until 4pm that day), and she can't sleep if I fall asleep before she does (she snores too, you know... ). She tells me I don't have to wait for her to take a shower, that I can go whenever... But when I do, its an issue, because suddenly, after not taking a shower for 4 days, she decides that she had wanted to do it that night, and now would have no hot water. BTW! When I DON'T take a shower and wait for her (so that she gets some freaking hot water), she finds every excuse not to take a shower... Like getting absorbed in some Facebook game or a TV show that's the 3rd time that day she saw the same rerun.
But, I'm a horrible person. I do nothing for her, I'm always wrong, I show her no respect or affection... Honestly she seems to care more about the fact that we haven't had sex for two months (two months, a week and four days, six hours, twelve minutes and twenty two - twenty three - twenty four seconds... Yea... She keeps that kind of track), and not the fact that I'm physically and mentally drained not only from work but also her constant verbal abuse (and the occasional flung object), and even if I WAS capable of being intimate, constantly reminding me of my deficiencies, emasculating me at every opportunity (I got a red plaid hat and scarf set before Christmas, because I happen to like plaid very much, I'm of Scottish descent after all... And it's warm... She says it makes me look like a "Gay Lumberjack"), ridiculing me in front of her family (who have told her that it makes them uncomfortable when she does it, and usually side with me, which pissed her off so much she didn't see them for an entire month), etc, is really no way to set the mood for lovemaking...
I'm tired... Just tired... But there's still, because of everything that's been said by her... That small doubt that maybe it is all me. Maybe I shouldn't be upset that she overspends at the store on junk food, or opens a new store credit card (she has no job, mind you, and I make just enough to keep the roof over our heads, with my dad), or tells me periodically that the only reason she puts up with my sh*t is because her parent's can't afford to pay her bills until she get's a job.
I go out of my way to do things for her AND her family... And to be honest... There's been a few times where her family have asked her why she treats me so poorly... But still I'm not sure if its maybe just me. Like I said, I'm losing it.
I'll never do something stupid like suicide or anything like that, believe me. But I feel like I'm close to a mental breakdown... And I see it starting to affect my father as well. He seems more depressed lately, and I think it's related.
Is it me after all?
If you made it this far, thank you so much for bothering to read a little about my life. If you feel like responding, please do, if not, thanks for reading it anyway.