A Revelation

We were apparently a lot worse off than I thought we were. For about 7 months, he was miserable. He kept hoping it would just get better. During this time he proposed to me. I asked him what the fuck he was thinking proposing to someone who was making him miserable. This was his answer, "I knew there was something different about you. I didn't want to run away from you or our problems. I hoped they would just get better on their own, but they didn't and I wanted to work it out."

Stuff that he did during those 7 months is now catching up to him. Last night I saw a charge on his credit card bill from about 4 months ago for $70 worth of flowers. He asked me a question about his billing statement and went back a few months, showing me these finance charges. I saw the 1800flowers charge and asked who he sent flowers to. His initial reaction was to lie and say, "I didn't send flowers, I'll have to ask them about that too." He got up and went downstairs to his computer to call the company to enquire about it all. I followed him down and again asked who he sent flowers to. He was quiet for about a mintute. He looked like he was shaking. Turns out a girl he used to work with got sick and was in the hospital for 4 days, so he sent a get well basket to her. He knew I disliked this girl. She is young, has two kids and was going through a divorce. She constantly called my fiance, wanting him to help her move, help her fix things around her house...I know exactly what her intentions were. He kept saying I was being silly. Apparently she may have had legitimate reasons to be calling and constantly asking for his help. He wasn't exactly telling her he wasn't interested.

Last night I yelled. I cussed. I threw stuff at him (albeit soft stuff). For the last 4 months our relationship has been different. Better. At least until this last week when I found the emails, this flower charge, etc. I know that even if he CHOSE all these actions and is 95% to blame for everything, I am still at least 5% to blame.

I know now he wasn't getting the physical or emotional attention he needed. I wish I had known back then just how bad it was. Now I have to accept some of the blame, I have to accept what he did, he has accepted full responsibility, but there can never be a 100% guarantee that something like this won't happen again. My parents divorced for this very reason. My mother was not an overly affectionate wife. She and my father "waited" until they were married and she strongly advised me against that. She advised me to live with a person before marrying them. But still we ended up with these issues.

Relationships are hard work. And if you think that it is easy to be in the relationship you're in, there may be problems that you just don't know about or are trying to ignore. I never knew just how important open communication really was. And while there has been a LOT of hurting this past week, there has also been a lot of revelation and acknowledgement that neither one of us was working as hard as we should have been. And we have to accept that responsibility together and choose to work at it starting today, or give up. I don't want to give up.