The past few days have been . . . interesting. Not in the sense of anything in particular happening—there's just been a lot going on in the me+me layer of things. Lots of thinking and planning and strategizing.
In the outer world, I've had a cold, and, with Dustin gone, I've mostly just been chilling at the house with Rider, working on our parts for our album. I've gotten a total of seven songs done . . . well, done-ish. There are a couple spots where I might go in and rework some stuff. Aside from that, I've been re-reading
On the Road, playing with my cats, and going to bed relatively early.
Another thing is that I took the week off from drinking. It was something I'd decided to do a few weeks ago, and I was going to start last week but Dustin surprised me with some stuff he'd wanted to share with me before he left, so I pushed it to Monday. I might continue for most of next week, too, or I might not. I'm definitely going to drink next Saturday, though, because Rider and I have plans to visit a town famous for their cider. But for now, I'm dry as a bone, lol.
Now, back to the me+me stuff. And how it affects the me+others layers.
So, after the talks I had with Rider on Tuesday, during which we discussed in depth some areas of incompatibility, I started really thinking about what my contingency plan would be if we end up breaking up.
I cannot really afford my own apartment right now, not even a studio. If I had less debt I was paying every month, that'd be a different story, but it's not. My salary is plenty to cover rent on a studio apartment and "regular bills" (rent, utilities, phone, car payment and insurance, internet). My regular bills are currently only like 40% of what I take home, and if I lived alone, they'd jump to 50% but still be manageable without debt. However, 36% of what I take home goes to debt (student loans, credit cards, back taxes from when I was 1099).
That would leave only 14% for everything else, including pet food, groceries, and gas for the times I'd have what would likely still be our joint-custody car. I would pretty much literally be living just to work at that point, probably having less than $10/day to spend on food for myself. Forget Lyfting anywhere or dyeing my hair or taking trips to see my family. Forget ever being able to pay my own way on a date fancier than Starbucks. Forget camping fees or paying the meter to park in fun places. Forget even taking the subway to the central library and back. And my student loan payment is due to go up again in June.
I could try to get into a roommate situation; I'm a member of a group on Facebook that regularly posts sublets and roommate situations, and once in a while, there is one that is equal to or lower than my current rent. But like 90% of those don't accept pets. And I have four. Not to mention how fun it would be to have those four pets all living mostly in a bedroom with me.
I started to piece some things together. So, my job has let me work remotely before. They know I can and will do it diligently. My mom is going through a separation and moving back into the house that she owns by herself. She half-joked over the holiday that if I was going to miss my nephew so much, I could always just come live with her. My lease is up at the end of May. Coincidentally, my sister's baby is also due in May. I have a royalty check coming at the end of March.
What if, if Rider and I break up, I talk to my boss about taking a 6-month family-related work-remotely stint? I could use my royalty check for storage and a U-Haul van. I could live with my mom for six months, throwing all my "regular bills" money toward debt to give myself a little breathing room, and I could help my sister with her toddler and the new baby in the evenings. My sister has a spare car I know she'd let me use, especially if I'm mostly using it to shuttle back and forth from my mom's place to hers to help her out for free. I'd still have a job and still have my "stuff," but I wouldn't be paying Los Angeles rent prices to hang on to them while I got my feet back under me. I figure I could pay off at least my second-largest credit card doing that for six months, if I'm careful and otherwise frugal. That'd give me an extra $150 or so to work with each month, suddenly making life seem liveable again.
Where, you might wonder, does all of this leave Rider? Well, he makes more money than I do and has considerably less debt. He can easily swing a studio apartment by himself, probably even closer to work than he is now, no longer having to take my job into consideration. I'd still be willing to pay my half of our car payment and insurance. He's got a ton of friends and several budding partners/interests now, and he'd finally have a place of his own to have overnights in.
And where, you might also wonder, does this leave Dustin? And this brings us to the second thing I've been thinking deeply about.
So, I mentioned I plan to have a discussion with Dustin about the whole troublesome text exchange we had. I've been thinking long and hard about exactly what bugs me and why, and what I want to say and do about it. I realized that, at its crux, the thing that gets to me is the
disrespect. I want to only have the people in my life by choice that I know respect me, in addition to caring for me.
The kind of stuff he said to me in that recent exchange was quite disrespectful. I need to know that the person I'm with, especially, will continue to treat me with respect even if he disagrees with my opinion or choices, and even if he is altered or angry or jealous or tired. Since he has not consistently treated me with respect, I see only two possibilities: either he actually does not respect me (despite obviously loving me), or he does respect me, but there's something in him that allows him to treat with disrespect even those whom he respects, when the circumstances are just so.
I plan to do the following:
a) Ask him to look deeply inside himself to determine which it is—does he actually not respect me (for any reason, including my choices up to now)? If he looks within himself and finds that he does not respect me—for whatever reason he may have—I will leave. There's no point in my being in a relationship with someone who doesn't respect me, nor is there in him being in a relationship with someone he does not or cannot respect. If he finds that he does respect me, on to b.
b) If he finds that he does respect me, but has not been treating me respectfully, I will ask him whether he's willing to examine the fact that he is willing to treat people that he respects in a disrespectful manner sometimes. Why does he think he does it? What are the circumstances? Does he feel that it's justified? Does he think I (or anyone) should "take it"? And, lastly, is he willing to work on not doing that? (I'm not sure what the work would entail, but I assume it would be a work-in-progress kind of process and not an overnight decision to "be better" and an instant change.)
c) If he says that he's willing to do the work, then I'll explain to him that I plan to, if I see him starting to veer toward being disrespectful, tell him so. Something like this: "You are behaving disrespectfully right now. Please stop to consider that." This will be his warning, and my defending of my boundary. If, in that moment, he continues to be disrespectful, or if I find myself having to defend that boundary too many times (enough times that it doesn't seem like he's actually doing the work and improving), then I will leave.
d) If he successfully manages to improve himself in this way over the next while, and I see evidence of it over the coming months, then, if I do end up going back to my mom's for six months, I will suggest that we continue our relationship long-distance for that time period. I would be happy to visit with him if he wants to come visit, or wants to come see his family within driving distance, or if he wants to fly me out. I might even be able to swing one plane ticket myself, depending on how the numbers shake out. I am not a fan of long-distance and would not do it long-term, but this is intended to be temporary.
He may not be amenable to remaining in a relationship during this time, but since he, himself, experienced a similar ricochet home to be with family and get back on his feet during a rough period in 2015, I think he will at least empathize, which gives it a better shot, I think. Also, I would not expect him to be monogamous during this time, even if that is the shape we decide we want our relationship to take overall.
e) If our relationship survives both this establishing of boundaries and a period of long-distance during which I do what I have to do to regain my independence (and also bond with, connect with, and have a mutually helpful time with my family), then I will consider moving in with him (as he has expressed a desire for) upon my return to Los Angeles, if he still desires it. At that point, it'll probably have been closer to a year and a half we'll have been together, which seems reasonable to me.
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The bottom line of ALL OF THIS is that I no longer feel trapped by anything. I no longer view my entire situation as a hopeless corner I have painted myself into. I see options and choices and hope, and the knowledge that, even totally bereft of partners, I will still be OK. I have family that loves me, and a job where I've built up seniority and goodwill (even if I'm terribly bored of it and might want to leave in a few years), and my pets, and my ability to think my way out of tough situations and find viable, if not ideal, solutions.
And if people judge me? For staying with Rider or not? For staying with Dustin or not? For enforcing my own boundaries that I've found to be important to me? For temporarily "failing" at adulting in the big city and running home to mommy? For doing what I find I need to do for me?
Fuck 'em.