Month: October 2023

August 31st, 2023

Dear Journal,

I’m really not sure what to make of our relationship. When I’m with him I feel happy and glad to be with him. But when I take a step away I begin to have doubts about our relationship.

These are the issues:

> He doesn’t speak French, which I find problematic because speaking French is really quite important to me, and if not him then with whom??

> He wants to live in Texas, maybe the in the Dallas outskirts. It’s a problem because I simply do not wish to live in the South.

> He’s in the military and I don’t want to travel around whenever he gets deployed or otherwise sent around by the DoD.

> I suspect he may have politically conservative leanings and I’m not sure I want that in my life.

But I hesitate to bring these concerns up because I’m worried I’ll rock the boat and he’ll break up with me. I don’t want to be single!! And I don’t want to be with the wrong person!! I wish I could bring these concerns up with other people in real life, and I feel frustrated by this.

This morning my mom came home early to have lunch with me (which I appreciated) but she began to dump all this relationship advice on me and I nearly began to cry. She talked about the motives behind men and women to marry and how sex was the reason men married and how women should give their dudes sex lest they seek it elsewhere (???). I disagree. To me sex is a fun bonding activity for grown folks. Don’t need to be married, just be aware that it binds people closer together, for the better or worse of the individuals involved. I wish I could tell her this. I’m worried she’ll judge me and it’ll alienate us (good lord knows we aren’t exactly besties) so I keep silent. But perhaps not, she already knows we’ve done the deed and I don’t feel alienated. Rather this is the most personal info I’ve given her in several months. So I guess my fears might be unfounded. So anyway she was giving me marriage advice. But I could barely focus on what she was saying; I had this voice saying, “no, no, no” inside me. This voice rang true and sustained within me. And this is why I nearly started to cry. Because even though Ken is a great guy, kindhearted and stable, I felt unease when my mom shared relationship info with me. I feel torn. The core of the matter is:

I love “us” but I don’t love “him”.

Wow. There it is.

The truth.

I love us. We cook dinner together, go to the Post Office together, exchange glances, watch movies together, and sneak kisses in the Arboretum. And we have so much compatibility in key areas: tastes in food, driving styles, humor, sex drives, texting, and PDA. I feel safe bringing up wants and needs in our “us”. I feel proud of him in these areas. When I’m with him the words “stable” and “largely confident” come to mind.

But I don’t really like the way we don’t have long conversations or can’t switch between English and French with ease, the way I do with myself. I certainly could with the previous dude, and a part of me longs for that. I don’t like the way he’s not into intellectual matters and dislikes Excel (??) I can’t imagine having a conversation with him on the topic of immigration from a research standpoint.

I wish I could fast-forward into the future and see if Amy Lee ends up with him for the long haul or not. Ease my doubts and whatnot. But for now I stay.

Dear Journal,

I’m still with Ken, and things are progressing nicely. I may even tell him I love him after the passage of a few weeks.

Oh, who am I kidding. The truth is I’m having doubts about our relationship. The original terms were to be bf/gf for a year, and then we break up once I graduate and presumably leave Davis/NorCal. But I think he (we?) is not holding up the bargain. I think I feel closer to him than expected and kinda want to marry him? My body says “yes”, but a small yet persistent voice says “no”. My body is relaxed and unwound when we lay together on his queen-sized bed with the navy sheets, and when I’m there and conscious of it it feels natural that we should stay together forever. But when I’m here at home, typing away at my desk with my own twin-sized bed with my crisp white sheets nearby I feel tense and unhappy, confident that he is simply not the guy for me. And so I believe the best course of action is to fully understand my feelings towards him, even if it takes several months. My body won’t allow me to suppress emotions, and I don’t wish to harm myself with inaccurate projections.

I know our relationship is healthy. Last Saturday when he came home and we settled into bed, I took a risk and said, “Actually, there’s something I need to tell you”. He stills and I take it as a good sign. I tell him that when he arrived unexpectedly early at the house that night I was on a call with my sister, where I came to realize that I was unhappy. I was unhappy because I wish he would open up to me more. We don’t talk enough and when you don’t it makes me feel like you don’t care about me. He responds instantly and reassures me that he does. It feels genuine, and I feel a pang in my chest. I tell him that he doesn’t need to change his personality, but I do wish he would open up more. He says that he will, and he does. He tells me more about the problems his family’s facing back home, with his younger siblings moving to homeschooling due to the issues with their current school, the troubles the family business is facing and that they might sell it, that his employer is facing budget difficulties, his current promotion from a couple months ago is more demanding than expected, and more details about his interpersonal relationships to his brothers. I do feel better. Not only has he accepted my complaint (which I was sure to do tactfully), he also followed through. And this is why I say I want to stay with him. He’s emotionally mature. We have our differences, but we have a way to resolve (or at least navigate) them. I end up feeling closer to him, despite the topic of my phone call with my sister. It’s a really nice feeling.

Overall I will keep thinking about us. About him. About me, and why I feel the way I feel. About why I feel disconnected when we don’t talk, or if this is all I genuinely want. Because I have some concerns:

He wishes to live in Texas and I do not.

He doesn’t speak French and doing so is really important to me.

I suspect he may be the religious type and I am not.

But I don’t know if these are deal-breakers. All I can do is my best, listening to my body and staying honest. But I do know (and with a high level of confidence) that he cares about me, and I care about him.

With love,

AMY LEE ❤