I have a wonderful, wonderful man in my life.
He was my first boyfriend ever, 32 years ago.
We looked different then. I was about 50lbs lighter and his hair was black as coal.
To be honest he set the bar high for those that came after and I wasn’t trusting thereafter of men who professed to love me but didn’t dote on me like my first boyfriend did.
Almost everyday he makes me realize how terrible a partner Stanley was.
I read this piece by Mark Radcliffe on The Good Men Project
16 Things Your Boyfriend Should be Telling You
and I swooned, because Al tells me all of those things, almost every day.
I was reading the list smiling and thinking, check, check, check… and thinking of Stanley and frowning and thinking, ya suck, ya suck and ya sucked there too.
Of course it is really important for me to tell Al all those things too, and I try to make him feel as loved and special as he makes me feel. During my marriage I tried to make Stanley feel loved and special but all he made me feel was dry and irritated, so you don’t always reap what you sow, just sayin.
But I will admit that really, gushy love, romance, goo goo eye stuff comes very naturally to Al.
He is the quintessential romantic man.
Yet still, the distance is a hard ass bitch.
The weekends that he is there kidless and I am here kidless are hard.
Plus we each had hard weeks. I was dealing with my anxiety issues, lack of sleep and the predicted ice apocalypse and he was dealing with a fuck up of global proportions (by someone else, thank you Jesus) that put millions of dollars at risk in his department. He has a huge mess to untangle. So, he was busy and quiet and I could feel that his lips were poked out and pouty from here.
I miss the carefree dating I did in my 20’s. The kind where nobody had exes or children that might have an opinion about our behavior and I could spend a few hours getting ready vs the 20 minutes that I spend now. I shaved my legs everyday just because. whereas now I shave them every week whether they need it or not. (They need it, okay?) Back then I was a young professional and most of my extra money went to clothes and shoes. Now my daughter has new boots and a party dress and I have hairy legs and a new crown.
This weekend was hard for us.
He was stressed and lonely and I felt far away. I worry sometimes that all of the urgency and excitement in our relationship will be gone before we conquer the distance.
Because I don’t have enough things to worry about.
He says no, that it is always urgent, yet still, he went to bed 915 miles away and I cried myself to sleep because I missed him and couldn’t ‘feel’ him with me like I ususally do.
We talked about it yesterday and I think both felt better.
But the distance is hard.
On the positive side, since he isn’t here I don’t have to shave my legs everyday, but I would gladly make that sacrifice to have him here. It’s hard to evaluate the soundness of a relationship from this far away. I’m doing my best but day-um.
I know these times all too well. All you want at that very moment is to smell his closeness. Your bed feels so entirely huge you can barely breathe, the quiet is toooooooo quiet. 450 miles for us, 7 hours almost to the minute if I only stop once. His old farm truck has seen much better days and broke down on its last trip home, so for now I only commute. Divorced life and constantly dealing with an ex asshole who wants only to take all he can from me is hard enough. Add financial problems THEN a long distance relationship and some days are just too dark to function. HUGS cuckoo, we are not alone and as long as we hang on to a tiny shred of our optimism and hope, we will eventually get to ok.