Wuthering Heights with less drama

That is so heartwarming. You must feel very relieved to get this emotion out in the open, and to have had him take it so well, at least initially. How are things going now, a couple weeks later?
 
That is so heartwarming. You must feel very relieved to get this emotion out in the open, and to have had him take it so well, at least initially. How are things going now, a couple weeks later?
Well things are in purgatory. Heath sent a lovely message acknowledging our conversation the following morning and then got absolutely drowned by work. He is abused by the system but he also doesn’t push back. This Stockholm syndrome got worse over the last 5 years. It’s probably a combination of guilt (question is, what is he atoning for?!) + defence mechanism (if he’s at work he doesn’t need to think about anything else).

The long and short of it, is that he got called back to work on a force majeure reason so had to cancel both a mid week dinner and then the weekend trip away he was supposed to have with us all. I am currently reunited with Edgar and the Beans. We will hang around together where I am until Edgar has to go back to work, so he’ll take the Beans back to our home country a few weeks before I return home.

The Beans are devastated, especially BeanStalk. The thing is, I would have understood if Heath said “look, I need more time” or “I know what you said re: Edgar but I’m still uncomfortable about the whole situation so I can’t spend the weekend with you guys” or “I’ve been really knackered and I need more sleep” - but not being able to say “no” to work? There were some, albeit awkward, workarounds to refuse call back but that would have required kicking up (some but appropriate!) fuss. Which he doesn’t want to do in the final promotion round. Which, in turn, is actually a lose - lose for him in reality, whether he gets promoted or not.

I know he is not lying nor being elusive. Certainly not consciously. We’ve never been like that / we enjoy directness with each other. There has not been any stone left unturned in our conversations over 20+ years. That bilateral honesty precedent was the most important reason why I had to tell him about the change. I couldn’t continue pretending it’s platonic on my side. Indirectness is not how we roll.

Now, subconsciously, it is possible that putting his hand up for extra work is a way of stalling. So I vacillate between the anger of “how could you pick up more work instead of just saying like it is, as per our normal” and the frustration of “look I get that you are extremely short staffed but you are being abused, can you not see it?”

I’ve written him a very frank message that as “his half” (it’s a term of endearment we’ve used for ages) I struggle to watch him letting himself be destroyed by people running a system that really doesn’t give a damn about him. His oldest friends who work in similar fields are equally worried - I have had a chance to talk with friends in common since being here. Family worries he dismissed long ago as none of them are familiar with what we all do. None of this is normal. Colleagues immediately around him keep normalising it but either they are in the same shoes as him or worse, it serves them to normalise it because they benefit if he carries the brunt. Ned goes on with his life in parallel - nominally they are together but Ned goes to see his family for days at a time regularly and of course, being from a very conservative family to whom he has not come out (!), serves him very well to have a boyfriend who is never really around.

Gah, that felt good getting it all off my chest. If you got this far, thank you!
 
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Looks like we’ve gone from purgatory-dark to purgatory-light. The exits either to poly-heaven or back to normal life appear to be within reach. I’m hoping it’s not a mirage.

Heath finally made it to dinner with all of us last night. The Beans were over him like a rash. BeanStalk is in absolute awe, especially after all the soccer talk (I felt so outnumbered 😂) - definitely no nascent teenager sulking that we’ve started to see lately (too soon!!!). LittleBean took all of five minutes to overcome the shyness and then it was an evening of uninterrupted silliness, intensified by far too much sugar.

Edgar and Heath didn’t get any time without the kids to talk, unfortunately, but both of them know exactly what the situation is and their conversation was absolutely normal.

Heath and I had about 10min for a private conversation. Still tactile, still direct communication ✅ . He does get why I’m worried and made a promise that he will quit if he does not get the promotion this time. For all his weaknesses, he does tend to take formal promises seriously. I did tell him that I will hold him to it and, even with that in mind, I don’t actually believe him. Apparently they are getting more staff later this year. Again, I will believe it when it happens.

We are seeing each other in July and then August. Sadly both times are after the kids leave, but at least we can spend a bit of time together uninterrupted, hopefully.

So baby steps in the direction of purgatory exit.
 
I'm sorry his workaholism trumps everything.
 
I'm sorry his workaholism trumps everything.
Yep! He feels he doesn’t have a choice. His workplace psychologist told him same - the conflict of interest of the psychologist and therefore the hypocrisy is very problematic.
 
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