I should know better.
I've been having an e-mail conversation with Barb for the last three days.
In some ways, it's been good:
I've been able to articulate things that I've been looking at for several months, and been able to tell her the primary things that had been issues for me in no uncertain terms.
I've also discovered that the communication problems in the relationship were not solely mine, nor were they even really primarily mine.
I do need focus, and I need to be more agressive in making my needs known. But that's good. That's something relatively small that I can work on.
The bad: it's emotionally exhausting. It's re-hashing a lot of old, painful stuff. Like when she asks me for examples of times that I asked her to change things about her. She actually doesn't remember me ever asking for things.
But now she's suggesting couples counseling "with the focus of learning to let each other go".
I don't think I really need counseling for that. And if I did, I don't think couples counseling is the right approach.
I do think it's time to start dating again. "Practice" dating (thanks,
Comments
It's not a bad idea, anyway.
If you don't want to get back together, and you've decided that, then there is no point in taking ride after ride on the damage go round. There is no point in analyzing, together, every little facet of your past, seeing things in different lights, etc. If you were going to get together again, of course, then that sort of joyless thing would be important. But now? Don't you have gored, bleeding eyes to simulate? There are many other things to do with your time and energy.
I feel like I'm overstepping my bounds, but hell - that's what the internet is for. She wants kids - you don't - so the relationship can never work no matter how good you two become at negotiating whether the seat stays up or down. And, if the relationship is dead, and not coming back, there is no reason, in my opinion, to send any more emails that are not on the topic of "how do we resolve the practical, ownership issues that are currently forcing us to have continued contact?"
"But Doug," says a voice "by discussing the relationship then we learn!" I think the main lesson Barb should learn from this is that if you dump a guy, then that action has consequences, one logical one being that he is no longer your boyfriend. It sounds like I'm making a jolly joke, but I am not - it is a lesson many people don't learn, and it is an important one to future happiness.
Anyway, that's my unsolicited two cents.
You stole my lines. Seriously, I think that if Barb takes away nothing else from all this, it is that her actions have consequences and she needs to be prepared to deal with them... on her own.
Dude. Parodies of reality shows wish they could come up with material like that.