Adjusting to a long-distance relationship while one person is lonely and one is flourishing.

I last wrote about my struggle adjusting to a long distance relationship, as well as getting myself off adderall. Oh, ya, and nicotine.

Homeboy and I had a talk yesterday, and I broke down. He was out of quarantine, loving his new life, and I was rapidly feeling deprioritized. A small thing, but I remember being super frustrated that our last few weeks together were so indoors, and so much of the time he was on his phone playing Words with Friends. He’s out of quarantine, and the game he was addicted to, he hasn’t touched in days. Meanwhile, I’m at home, waiting for a text, waiting to hear from him, feeling pathetic. I was getting angry at the comparison of him being with people adjusting to the new life, enjoying a new country, being happy and me being alone, isolated, and in the same walls I’ve come to hate since working from home.

I was getting snippy and sad and didn’t know how to ask for attention, and so turned to frame it as a seedling of resentment. I would tell him how I was feeling, and he would repeat it back like he understood….and then just move right along. Without addressing it, without really caring about me it felt like.

As I went to bed, I thought, “why am I responding this way? What’s really going on?” and realized that the root cause was, like it often is, from an early wound. My mother would not give my emotional needs the time of day. To get attention, things had to be a big issue or dramatic enough to catch her eye. I was trying to do the same with J. I was causing a scene because I wasn’t confident enough to ask for what I needed, and I had to remind myself that I deserve to be loved the way I wanted.

To his credit, he left our conversation frustrated, but I woke up to some understanding texts and keen insights on his part about how he handled the transition. I had to offer a similar apology, and say that I will work on being more direct with my needs. That was cool. Sometimes, you gotta do work on your own thoughts to evaluate what’s driving them, and trust that your partner will do the same.