Stop being sucked dry financially and temporally

B is finally getting back on his feet in a serious way, and he immediately started talking about buying all manner of nice but unnecessary things. I realized that the time had come to ask him to help fix some of the debt he created before he spends his next four paychecks on a Civil War belt buckle replica or something. One of the folks who gave me a loan has recently fallen on hard times anyway and I’ve been wishing for weeks that I could at least repay what I owe her.

I could tell a long non-story type story here about assumptions and worldviews and patience and tact and surprises, but suffice it to say it ended happily. Turns out that while he wasn’t saying anything, he was already thinking in terms of helping me set things right. He’s been faithful about paying his phone bills so I’m inclined to think this really is going to happen.

This morning I was getting ready to shower when a loud noise nearby nearly scared me straight out of my skin. The collection of belongings that I privately refer to as the B Memorial Junk Pile had, once again, tipped over, and caused a domino effect of other stuff crashing down.

I decided that enough is enough. I have been storing B’s stuff here for 7 months. If he wants it he needs to get it. If not it’s being tossed.

I texted him and cordially asked him, essentially, do you want this stuff sent to you at your expense or tossed? I am happy to do either, just tell me which it’s going to be. He says he’s going to send money for me to ship it.

What he doesn’t realize yet is that I’m also going to be asking before then for him to please pay back some of the debt I got into because of him. I’m tired of owing everyone I know money because of him.

Good start. Nowhere near the end.

Now I just gotta get him to take care of some of this other stuff.

The fact that he read my text message and did not respond to it, in combination with his past behavior when I have made perfectly reasonable requests of him, tells me that I am probably in for a fairly vicious tongue-lashing in the morning. How dare I pressure him when he has all these problems? He doesn’t understand the problems I’m going through as a direct result of having been engaged to him. I never complain to him but if he keeps this up I may have to just to give him a sense of perspective.

He moved out over 4 months ago and we broke off the engagement almost 7 months ago. He’s an adult, which means that I wasn’t supposed to be financially responsible for him in the first place. We had an agreement; I was going to be the primary wage-earner and he the primary housekeeper, but we were both going to work and contribute to the household. I know it is not his fault he was unable to do that; F promised him a job that did not exist and after that it was nearly impossible to make other work arrangements. But now he is working, if only part-time…so why am I still storing his stuff, unable to use one of my online accounts because they found out we were engaged and he had outstanding fees on his account, spending most of my work days doing massages that I already spent all the money from supporting him last summer, and paying for his cell phone? I care about the guy, but good grief, I need my life back. I can’t be supporting him for the rest of my life just because we were once engaged for a few weeks. I’m paying dearly enough emotionally – I don’t need to pay financially too.

So I’m still paying for my former fiance’s cell phone. I can’t cancel it without incurring a $500 early termination fee that I can’t afford. But I got an idea.

I called the cell phone company to ask if my cell phone could take over the contract from his cell phone. They said to do that we’d actually have to switch devices. Also it turns out the folks at my local friendly retailer put my phone on a 2-year contract without permission, which I did not know. So here is the plan, if everything falls neatly into place, which it might…

Phase I

-go to the retail store and demand they take me off this flippin’ contract

Phase II

-convince B to switch phones with me long-distance. Do this by:

• having my number transferred back to my basic flip phone so I at least have a telephone
• sending B my normal updated phone while I am on retreat and having him send his phone here; he can switch his number to my normal phone
• receiving his phone and transferring my number from my old phone to that one

Phase III

-confirm that since the contract is attached to the device rather than the number, I do in fact have the phone with the contract at this point

Phase IV

-tell B he needs to start paying for his own darn phone because I can’t afford it

Phase V

-remind B he needs to start paying for his own darn phone because I can’t afford it

Phase VI

-tell B he needs to find another cell phone company because his line is being cancelled and there’s not a thing I can do about it

Of course if I could do this at all it would probably take me until the end of next summer. And for all the work I’m putting in I might as well wait until the following spring when the darn contract runs out.

I’m tired of buttheads running my life so I’m looking to get rid of them. All they ever do is waste my time and money with their bad behavior.

One guy on Facebook who was introduced to me by a friend became a jerk almost instantly. I resisted but I thought about what happened the last time someone called my faith a “cult”...click. Unfriended. Not giving him the chance.

Another guy did something similar. Again I didn’t want to block him because he’s a friend of a friend. But I got to thinking, if that friend is too busy befriending a budding abuser of mine to let me make my own choices…then she’s not a friend. Click. Blocked.

I’m sick of my office roommate mowing me down and our landlord siding with her. I’m looking into a different office space – if I read the ad right I could get 20% more space, for 10% less money, with no crazy roommate. We’ll see.

It’s not bad enough that B left a small closet full of stuff here when he left, now he’s wanting me to dig something up and mail it to him (on my dime of course). I told him no. I don’t even have money for packaging supplies, much less postage. He spent what felt like an eternity here essentially living like a toddler, taking no responsibility and contributing practically nothing to the household while I supplied his every need; now he needs to take care of himself like the middle-aged man he is, or at least ask his parents for help instead of just me. He’s staying with them so he can get back on his feet – well, let them remind him where his feet are!

when we broke off the engagement he changed his status on social media to “it’s complicated.” I confirmed that on my own profile – it was plenty complicated living with and financially supporting someone who I very much loved but could not marry. Since then I’ve had thoughts of changing my own status to “single,” especially since he moved out, but I didn’t want to do it for fear of some kind of drama happening.

I still care about him very very much, of that there is no question, but neither is there any question that I am single at this point. No plans to marry…depressed from cleaning up the various messes left behind from our romance, not that it was very romantic…nobody to help me with a darn thing…afraid to form any new relationships or even friendships after what happened…that sounds extremely single to me.

I woke up this morning with more despair than usual. I didn’t totally mean it but I found myself lying in bed thinking, “I wish I could open my eyes and discover that the whole thing was just a dream. That really I’ve been single all along, that I was never stuck taking care of someone who couldn’t even reciprocate emotionally, that I don’t have to spend my day dealing with his messes and his depressed text messages and things…I wish it were all just a dream.” Strictly speaking, I don’t actually wish that; for all the damage our situation caused in my life, knowing him has brought about some good changes that were very much needed, and like I said I do care about him. Nevertheless, this showed me how much weight I’m dragging around from all this.

I know I cannot and should not try to pretend the relationship never happened. Everyone knows it did. My finances know it did. I still have a bunch of his stuff here. I still get his mail. And I’m afraid of people now for a reason. BUT…maybe, just for a little while at a time, I can just plain forget about it and live my life as it is now.

I decided that adjusting my social media profile back to “single” would be a good start.

...Now he’s mad at me and lashing out. Fine.

So I keep getting his mail.

I asked him to please file a change of address. He said he keeps forgetting because it’s not a very important thing in his life right now. Well how important a thing is it in my life to have to call him and ask “can I throw this away? Do I mail this on to you? Do I send it to your accountant?”

He keeps going on about how sick he is. I know he’s sick. The entire course of my life has been altered because he’s sick. I spent thousands of dollars supporting him because he’s sick. But the fact is…I have a diagnosis too!!! He doesn’t listen well enough to realize it but I have been struggling for months myself. And so I told him.

I told him how much I wanted to help him.

I told him how demoralized I was to find that I couldn’t.

I told him how shattered I am to find that for all I’ve done for him, not one bit of it has apparently done a @^(# bit of good, and he can’t bring himself to do anything but carry on.

And I told him he’s not the only one who worries about dying alone and unloved. I’ve lost more people than I can count because I’m not codependent enough to bow down at people’s feet to pay for a flimsy imitation of real human caring. Other people just need some mysterious something I apparently don’t possess; they don’t even know what it is but they stay just a little distant because they need to have their space and keep on the lookout for whatever it is that’s going to come along and save them.

He may be able to change the subject to his own woes by phone, but over personal messaging, I get to lay it all out and I have. He may very well be upset by it…fine. Maybe he’ll gain some insight on how badly I’VE been hurt.