"getting pissy" (relationships, addictions, society, finances)
It happens every few days or few weeks or few months. I feel like I can’t stand my boyfriend another minute, and start plotting to move out of the apartment in the middle of the day when he is at work. This can’t be normal.
This time it started last week, when he told me about an incident at work where he screamed at one of his staff members in front of customers and other staff members. He works in high-end retail for bathrooms, anything from toilets to fancy tiling to jacuzzis. This screaming mirrors the same thing he does in our relationship, only it’s not usually screaming. I call it his growling, and recently I told him he had to keep it limited to once per day. He could easily do it all day, every day. He is constantly stressing himself out, getting himself irritated, losing his patience, usually over the most insignificant stuff you could imagine; and then he growls at me. I’m tired of it, and have been for a long time. Hence the new rule.
I encouraged him to mend his relationship with the staff member and asked him if he had addressed this behavior in the therapy that he started about a year ago (at my suggestion). He said that he had, but that he didn’t want to discuss it. At first I thought he was joking. He didn't want to discuss with his so-called partner a behavior of his that directly impacts our relationship on a daily basis? Then it became obvious that he was serious.
The next excuse, a few days later, was that he was tired. This too mirrors his typical pattern, which had improved somewhat since starting therapy: he says he’ll discuss something later when in reality he has no intention of discussing it because he avoids discussing anything of consequence all of the time. Call it conflict avoidance, call it avoidance of intimacy—I don’t care what you call it, really. What’s important to me is that it is what he does, and it is not what I want in what is supposed to be my primary relationship.
On Saturday I forgot to get something from the drugstore for him, a new hair care product he started using. When he got home from work and found out, he made his typical comment that I never to do anything for him and never remember his special requests. This is a man—perhaps “boy” would be more accurate, despite his age—who spends six days a week working, usually ten hours a day, goes to the gym four or five days a week, goes to therapy two times a week and has many social engagements as well, which he attends when he is not glued to the television. I take care of his dog, the apartment, and almost every single errand associated therewith. When I forget one thing from time to time, I “never do anything for him” and I "never remember" his special requests. Not only is it untrue but his comments leave me feeling completely insulted and unvalued.
That night he turned off the television and the living room light and stayed on the couch, where he fell asleep. I don’t know why he didn’t just go to the bedroom. When I went to bed shortly thereafter, I called him but he didn’t respond and I left him there and went to bed. I didn’t feel like having him in bed anyway, where he would want me to pretend that everything was alright. Sunday morning he was pissy because “I let him sleep on the couch” (another one of his modus operandi: he takes no responsibility for anything he does or thinks or feels). He seemed to get over his pissiness as the day wore on.
To top things off, on the way home from the day’s activities we ran into one of the street people with whom I engage from time to time while walking the dog. This one lives in a park at the end of the beach, and I have seen him and talked with him many times. He has gone into the favela to buy me some marijuana from time to time, which I share with him. I like him and trust him, as much as one might like and trust a street person. I don’t take unnecessary chances and I’m not out to save him. I’m just being social with someone I happen to see on a regular basis, because that’s the kind of person I am, and sharing a social smoke which we both enjoy. My boyfriend hates that I talk to street people, and insists it is dangerous. I think it’s really about his jealousy or possessiveness or internalized racism (they are almost invariably brown or black and so is he, all living in one of the most expensive districts in Rio, which is overwhelmingly white).
The street kid greeted me and I greeted him and we wanted to chat further but I gestured to him to indicate that I couldn't. I didn’t want to hear more of my boyfriend’s nasty comments. Too late—he saw my gesture, and off he went. “I don’t care who you relate to”, followed by “people who associate with delinquents get what they deserve”. I tried to brush it off, but his nasty comments always get to me anyway. I didn’t manage to avoid what I had been hoping to avoid so I decided to go back downstairs and speak to the boy anyway. He had asked me why I hadn't been around and I wanted to give him an explanation: I was “working” more, not smoking as much marijuana, and wasn't walking the dog as much due to her health problems. I couldn’t find him. Apparently he had already gone about his way.
My best friend in Brazil, a world class viola player who is now with one of the symphony orchestras here in Rio, had given me some marijuana a few days prior, and I decided to smoke some of it when I got back to the house to help me relax and sleep. “Did you get that from your delinquent friends?” “You mean (the musician, and his partner, an OB/GYN)?” I asked in reply, since they often give me marijuana after I’ve been to their house, and they are hardly delinquents—using them just to make a point, of course. “No, but they too contribute to your delinquency.”
I’m already fantasizing about my new apartment. I wonder if I could financially survive here without him. If not, that would leave me homeless in two countries. That's a claim not many can make.
