The first session with the new therapist went well, even if we did fall apart some at the mention of our former therapist. We’re hopeful, despite the overwhelming fear and unease within…well, everything. I knew we would be overwhelmed; it’s a first for us to grieve the loss of a healthy relationship. It’s gotten easier though. We’re not crying ourself to sleep over it as much. It hit us last night like a ten-ton brick: therapy was the one place where we felt taken care of.

I know in relationships there’s balance, and ebbs and flows to maintain. I know we have a tumultuous history. It is rife with emotional abuse and smatterings of physical and sexual abuse. I realize all of it can skew the lens we perceive life with. So when epiphanies smack me in the face, and I lie curled up in the tightest ball I can make, I know it’s a deeply felt hurt. Our whole life we’ve cared for others. Playing peace keeper, and mediator, and whatever damned role they needed in order for us to survive. Rarely was there anyone taking care of us. And no, the bare minimum of food and shelter is not “taking care” of someone.

All I could hear in my head for hours last night was the incessant sobbing and cries of, “Just once I want to be taken care of.” I know communication plays into telling a partner or a friend that you’re struggling. I know I’ve said it multiple times this week already. It feels like I’m hitting a boiling point. Truthfully like I want to implode, because we feel so unheard lately.

I’ve done enough hard work on ourself to know I need to just take a breath, drink some water, and not over analyze everything. Today was just a rough day in a long line of rough days. Even though my partner has taken the week off, every conversation this past week diverts back to their frustrations and snide remarks about their job and bosses. It’s driving one of us crazy, another to feel like we’re just around to absorb all their frustrations (which is borderline abusive and hard to face), and yet another to feel isolated and horribly neglected emotionally.

Meanwhile I’m just in the middle of all of it, trying to keep persecutor and protectors from making any rash decisions to just up and leave; soothing the Littles left and right because we’re dealing with the loss of a person who was more like a mother to us than our own actual mother; and I’m barely getting any decent sleep. The fact that I had to even tell my partner to work on boundaries with their job because so much of them is invested in their self-righteous crusade with it the past year that our relationship is absolutely suffering from it, blows my goddamned mind. It’s one thing to have a healthy relationship with your job, but it’s another when every damn conversation somehow goes back to it. And I’d be far more forgiving if it was their special interest. Like I’m at this point where I’d rather hear a thirty minute rant about stocks and finances than hear another goddamn spiel about how incompetent upper management is and corporations this and leadership that. I fucking hate it.

A whole year of this. A whole year of supporting them emotionally, helping them to figure out next steps, and everything in between. Ironically they say they need to see things through before they can move on, and I fear genuinely that the cost isn’t going to be worth it. I’ve shared with them advice I’ve picked up in therapy about issues like this: talk about it, give options, set a time frame. If change doesn’t happen within that time frame, you’ve got every right to leave. The only reason we haven’t walked out is because we understand some of the struggles and we do love our partner dearly. But goddamn if I don’t feel like I’m having to shout from the rooftops that I fucking exist. And that hurts.

-A pissed off protector, and a worn out Host