The Break-Up: Continued

We are still working on what our relationship's going to look like when we're--technically--not boyfriend/girlfriend any more...

Tonight, I had to remind Steady Eddy that it's not that I don't love him, nor that he doesn't love me--it's that we don't have enough in common to build a life together. We stay together mostly because we don't want to be alone--but it's like there's no way we can see how we're going to work out a future together..

Sure, if I change who I am. If I, again, give up things I want in my life, things I like about me, in order to fit in with him and his life...

Yes, I know women do this when they're younger--they move for their husband's careers, give up their own careers to raise children. Women often sacrifice for the security of their marriages....

But the thing is, if I sacrifice all of me, again, to another relationship, to be the perfect woman again, what do I get? What will my life be like?

It won't be my life actually. It will be his life. The life he wants for us.

In past relationships, I gave up too much of myself for other people. Everything from dyeing my hair red to just giving up certain interests like art and architecture, and taking up the guy's interests, like baseball...

I never really liked baseball all that much. I just ended up with guys who liked baseball....and figured if I wanted to be with them, I'd have to like baseball too.

When I stood up for myself in my marriage, and went to college instead of staying with him, I lost all of it--him, family, everything. And I had lost "me" too...

Every time a long-term relationship ended, I found my identity had been compromised--I wasn't me anymore, and I had to find the road back to me. And as I got older, I found I had to "pretend" too much because I felt guys were far too critical and wouldn't want me "as is."

I still have problems with that one.

But when it comes to giving up my life and doing the old "whither thou goest, I go" thing, well, I just can't do it anymore.

There's a core, part of me that won't let it happen. I worry about being too different, too weird, too unique, to meet anyone. And men being too demanding of perfection.

I don't know...

But I don't want to give up the things I love anymore in order to be the perfect woman for anyone.

So, I think about how Steady Eddy and I will be friends. I think about getting on with my life, moving forward into a future--because I want have to have a future, and he doesn't seem to want to talk about it. I know why--because if we talk about it, we'll have to admit that we don't have enough in common to build a future.

And that's what hurts the most.