Moving on...?

"Confusion and Frustration" would also be a good title for this article.

So S and I have broken up.  But we're still staying at his parents' house and we've found that being around each other all the time, sharing a bed, etc is a little too much for us to handle.  So we called a sort of truce. 

We're still allowing ourselves to give into some of the relationship urges that haven't been able to dissipate.  We still talk (sort of--we never did much anyway) and make out etc. 

Ever since we called this truce, we've both been pretty happy.  A lot of tension disappeared and we've both just been really enjoying each others' company.  But today I've noticed a problem--the weird not-honeymoon is over.

We've fallen into snapping at each other and having dumb communication breakdowns.  I don't want to care and I want to let things go, but again, things are tough while we're still so crammed together.  It's hard to avoid crossing into the conversational territory of relationships--it's no longer mine to deal with so I should let it go, but I'm still annoyed by the same things and I'm still dealing with them all the time.

I think we did our best when I was content with not talking to him at all.  With not relying on him for things.  With not hoping he would grow out of his 16 year old self.  I need to stop caring.  I need to enforce distance.

If specifics are needed, here's something that happened today:  after noticing that he coated the bathroom mirror with soap, I asked him why.  Faced with my questioning, he grew defensive and eventually called me dumb.  It's a little thing, but I'm sensitive about it, so that didn't go over well.  He left the room right after he said that and we did a pretty good job of avoiding each other for the better part of the day.  Every once in a while we'd try to be around each other, but something would set it off again.

When we went out so I could go to the bank/so he could have a smoke, I told him that the way he handed me my keys made it hard for me to grab them.  Again, a little thing, but apparently something he's sensitive about.  Instead of doing nearly anything else, he got defensive about how he handed me my keys.  The way he put it is that he was just trying to explain his action--his thought process behind why he did it the way he did.  But that's pointless, because no matter what he thought about it, it still made the keys hard to grab. 

I questioned him more (since for whatever reason I was unable to let go of it) and he would tell me no real reason why he felt the need to explain himself.   The way I see it, he felt hurt that I said he handed me my keys wrong, and wanted to seem a little more in the right.  That's called being defensive.  It's something he does all the time and it blinds him.

And bam!--a reason we shouldn't be together.   He's consistently defensive when I mention things like that, no matter how little, because he's incredibly sensitive to "being wrong."  Either I have to deal with him shoving his head up his ass all the time through either some sort of weird complaisance ("ok honey, you're right") or I have to not care.  And if I don't care, then I shouldn't be in a relationship with him.

I guess the conclusion should be that I have decided to move on and I need to act like it.  The situation and my own decisions have been making this difficult and I'm getting sucked back into some of the bad parts of being in a relationship.  But as long as I keep my wits about me and keep it in my pants better, I should be able to change the situation.  Yes, it can be tough, but there are ways around it.  I need to learn to stop wanting things from him, because he is not the person to give them.  I also need to remind myself that it is no longer my obligation to keep an eye on him.  When he annoys me or could be doing something better, it is not up to me to do something about him, it's up to me to remove myself from the situation.  I am not tied down any more, and I need to act like it.