Erik,

I don’t want us to become like Humpty Dumpty—broken, with no way to put the pieces back together.

I don’t want us to become so angry that everything we have now, everything sacred to us, everything worth saving, suddenly becomes meaningless. Everything important to us, everything we’ve worked toward, everything we’ve put our time, sweat, and tears into. Disrespecting each other is not an option. If there is none, then staying together is not an option. I don’t want the very core of what keeps you and I together to slowly disappear. Relationships require effort on both sides. 

If the roles were reversed, I would want you to talk to me, I would want to tell me you wanted closeness. I would never yell at you for telling me what you needed, I would never make you uncomfortable, or ashamed about it. 

I do not talk to anyone else about us, & I do not seek out what I need from you- 

from anyone else. 

I hope that you aren’t getting your needs met from anyone else. There have been times when I’ve initiated, and you’ve slapped my hand away. It hurt me so much- the first time it happened.. and every day since then. 

You become angry, you become mean. You yell. You throw things. You break things. You call me names. All of those things you say to me pile up, and little by little, are breaking me.

Each day I wait for you right here, I vacuum, I make our bed, I make your lunch. I go grocery shopping, I buy things we need. It takes me 2 days, but I get the laundry done… It puts some purpose in my life.. and thats my day. 

Every day I wait for you to come home because I want to be close to you after we’ve spent the day apart. I want your warmth. You’re my boyfriend…

The painful part is that I confide in you about what I need, and instead of feeling heard, I feel guilty for even bringing it up. You make it seem like showing me love or affection is the last thing you’d ever want to do. So eventually I stop talking. I leave it alone and another day goes by, then another. You already know what needs your attention because I’ve told you. 

Yet I still feel you withholding love from me.

Then you start accusing me of having my needs met somewhere else, with someone else. Maybe that is your own guilt. Maybe you hear my needs and choose to ignore them altogether. Maybe it’s easier to yell at me than it is to put your arms around me.

You’re my boyfriend.. you are it. You are home to me. You’re the only person who can give me certain things that I need.

I know you can’t read my mind. And I’m not blind to the truth that you’re tired. Maybe you’re too tired to notice what’s missing between us. Maybe we’re just not always on the same page.

But I hate having to tell you, “Hey, you’ve been neglecting me in this area.” It’s embarrassing enough that I have to say it out loud. Who would think they’d have to ask their own boyfriend for affection or intimacy? Instead of hearing me, you make me feel like it’s something shameful. Like how dare I ask you for emotional availability when you never used to be opposed it before. 

I start to feel like a pervert because you get so unreasonably angry when I vocalize my needs. You tell me, “That’s all you want is sex!” But that isn’t true. It has never been just sex. It’s everything else that’s been missing too, where’s the glue that keeps us together.

…And to know that here, there are people in our ear-shot, probably listening to us argue about something that should never have become this ugly, is just humiliating.

Something needs to be addressed, it’s the anger, it’s the destructive stuff. The behaviors you say that you have been doing since you were a little kid…

You say some of the meanest, most hurtful things I’ve ever heard. Things I never imagined could come from the mouth of someone who says they loves me. Someone who tells me they would never hurt me, but has. Someone who promises it won’t happen again, but then it does.

It keeps happening because there are no healthy coping skills replacing those old ones. There isn’t empathy for the person on the receiving end. Without change, there can’t be growth. Nothing good comes from it, and it doesn’t build trust between us.

I wonder if this is how you really feel about me? 

You know, I get to sit with the negative words you’ve said to me, and it sits on my mind, while you’re out there winning. Working. 

You say, it’s just a fight, we’ll get over it. 

But you don’t give it any thought or care that you could’ve damaged something between us.

There are things that you need to care about if you want this relationship to work. It’s up to us to put in that effort to stay together.

Being tired is okay, i understand. I see you are sunburned and I see the dirty clothes after work. You’re tired- but you aren’t tired enough to scream at me for a few hours, break things throw things, slam the door as hard as you can, calling me a bunch of things and tell me that I am a slut, and that I’m selfish, you call me all kinds of bad names, not tired enough to hit me, not tired enough to break your phone, not tired enough to put your clothing on and shoes on and walk out, and tell your sister what a mistake living with me is, and that your miserable.

One time you told me, sometimes it’s not tiredness that you’re feeling, but laziness. 

You give your energy to fighting and arguing about putting your arms around me.

& YOU are avoiding it entirely. 

I’m going to seek out “comfort” from YOU. 

Not other people. 

And I swear to GOD I will not tolerate you going behind my back with another woman. 

Yes, I am worried about the possibility of you cheating on me. 

Yes, your behavior is breaking down my trust. 

According to you, Every single one of your past relationships ended because you walked out, relapsed, and cheated. You cheated on your last girlfriend when you started with me. 

I’m not giving you an ultimatum.

But the reality is that you have no business being in a relationship if you aren’t willing to put emotional energy into it. Relationships are not one-way streets. 

You have the energy to fight with me over something that literally requires you to put your arms around me. 

If you don’t want to help with my infusions…

If you don’t want to participate in my medical appointments…

If you’re okay relying on my injured brain to remember information that you could have known by simply being present…

Then please tell me.

I’ll call a nurse. I’ll call a caregiver. Someone else will help me. 

I thought that this would help you, financially.. this was before you got your real job. 

Your questions are intimidating, I can hear the anger hides behind each thing that you ask me. I don’t know the answers sometimes.

I hoped that I could I get back what the stroke took from me. Some things I will never get back.  You knew this, but I wished you understood how much this scares me. 

I know you made a huge sacrifice coming to live with me, and maybe it happened too soon.

Do you remember hearing Dusty and his girlfriend fighting, and I would say to you, “Me and you never fight. Ever. Isn’t that strange?”

I remember every time I walked into the house, Dusty would say, “Becca, you’re glowing. This is the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”

He noticed my smile.

Being with you made me happy.

Dusty said that he hoped my health would improve, because I wasn’t under so much stress, stress can make the immune system crash.

I remember how romantic you were.

I remember the affection you showered me with. I remember you giving a sense of belonging, you made me feel important. 

I remember the love notes.

I remember talking to you for hours on the phone and never getting bored. I never cared about the sweat collecting between the phone and the side of my face because we’d been talking for so long.

I never got tired of you.

I don’t want to be someone who holds you back, I would never allow you to put your goals last. I think you know that by now. 

I support you every day. 

I give more than I can afford to give.

&I don’t want to make you unhappy.

&I don’t want you to dread coming home to me

& I don’t know what will happen to us.. But if we fail, I need you to cope with it in a healthy way. 

You deserve a good life.

You are worthy of love.

And you have the ability to give love.

I know that loving someone is one of the most vulnerable, dangerous things that we can do.

Yet, love is also where safety is supposed to live.

You are capable of change.

You don’t have to keep the parts of yourself that you don’t like & we don’t have to end, not the way your past relationships ended. 

You can control yourself, have more control than you realize.