I’ve done a bit of spouting off here lately about my goals and my future. I’ve been sort of blathering about my wanting kids and marriage and wanting Red Beard to conform to my wishes so that I can have the house, the husband and the ankle biters. But let me take a step back and put myself in his shoes for a minute.
Red Beard is on his way to getting his masters. He’s pretty maxed out between balancing a full-time job, schoolwork at night, and his nut job of a girlfriend who will Not Stop Compulsively Grabbing His Ass Every Five Seconds. He is very seriously considering a career change. He isn’t on the fast track to nailing his life down, and I don’t want to make any demands of him right now. He’s in transition and he has decisions to make, and I need to step back and let his life unfold a little bit, rather than being all, “My way or the highway, Bucko! These boots are made for walkin’! Marry me and get me preggers right now or kiss my butt!” For the time being, I need to hang out and be genuinely supportive of his goals rather than being in some big hurry to ram my goals down his throat.
Of course this doesn’t mean that I want to let my dreams lie fallow while I am the silent little woman, doing his bidding. However, at least for the rest of 2006 and perhaps a bit beyond, I want more quiet enjoyment and less screeching of my demands.
Again, the commenters had a lot of brilliance to share. When I read this from Stella, “How does he feel? You talk about what you want but I haven't heard yet what he wants,” I felt myself letting loose with a big Napoleon Dynamite type, “{Sigh} GOD. Ask him your-freakin’-self, SMARTY PANTS.” Then of course, as I sat at my desk today and thought about our relationship and how to best preserve it – as opposed to how to best force it to quickly implode – I had to start thinking a bit more empathetically about my partner and how I can accommodate him so that he will be happy and productive and set up in a way so that he can be successful both in life and in our relationship.
BC asked, “Do you want to marry Red Beard?” The answer to that question is, “F*ck yeah!" But are we ready? Nope. We only began the not-long-distance portion of our program a month and a half ago. As onlyconnect pointed out, we’ve had a bit of strain to deal with between my moving in with him and this stupid wedding invite, and it might not hurt to just sit and be together and learn about each other for a little while before making any more big moves.
From my perspective, I think this also means sitting back and enjoying each other without constantly checking the pulse of my goals for the relationship. I want to concentrate on what makes him happy, as well as what will make me happy, so that we will be able to meet in the middle. I really want nothing more than to make this work, and the best way to do that right now is to put on my thinking cap, be a good listener to Red Beard, and keep my trap shut. I want to enjoy this phase while it’s in front of us, rather than beating down the door of the future and dragging it out of bed before it’s ready.
Wow. That sounded like a Springer monologue.
