it felt very much like another life of mine. I was caught while a very young child by a very well organized religious group. i thought I was free to go any time but then very early on I heard them talking about using force to contain someone there and I understood right away that I wasn’t really free to go. (I think this was inspired by watching that documentary about the LDS church offshoot with plural marriage where the leader went to prison for human trafficking and sex with minors.) all the local authorities were involved and even though there were no bars, it was very difficult to leave. mid dream a friend escaped by throwing a small explosive against the fence and simply running… it was implied he managed to escape and I was questioned in a really intimidating way about the circumstances of his escape. i befriended some locals who volunteered and we were slowly making a more involved escape plan cloaked in some kind of legitimate travel. when people in the group traveled, you would actually be locked into some kind of belt\/box thing that made it clear you were with the group and didn’t have much money.
it felt so possible, and I saw how a person could be easily “soft enslaved” this way. it wasn’t such a horrible life. they ate good simple meals and the work was not horrible, but they controlled all thoughts. I remember them training people who were preparing to work with the group closer to the public and they trained a very controlled kind of self-sufficiency.
I woke up feeling very trapped, and feeling certain I’m not in my own relationship by choice. ladycakes has made it clear that she wouldn’t be cool if I wanted to end the relationship and I know she could make it very difficult. she’s upset that I’m not committing but I’m increasingly unhappy with our life together. it has a lot of comforts but I’m increasingly feeling like somehow I’m going to be the one supporting her. she has the love of my family and she is pretty loving but the way she reacted at me going on my seattle vacation really alarmed me deeply. I always felt like it was ok for her to be disabled as long as she was content with me living a more expansive life. that made it feel like she doesn’t and I feel honestly controlled by her, the car, and all the trappings of life we have. I don’t feel like I can do what I want. I feel like she behaved for a moment there but managed to get back on oxycodone and valium and now I have kind of a checked-out girlfriend. I don’t know what, but I feel like there has to be a better and more freer life out there for me somewhere.
I don’t feel comfortable committing further to her and she can feel that and there’s an uneasy spirit. she’s accused me of “only staying with her because of her cancer”. there definitely were some times I wanted to leave but didn’t want to be the dude who left his girlfriend while she had cancer. I don’t know what I want for my life and can’t envision it, but I don’t feel like I’m being my fullest self. are we always kind of trapped in some situation or tied to someone? it just feels like I’m giving a lot more than I’m getting and she’s never really going to be able to evolve into a partner. it sucks because she has the excuse of covid but I had covid too and she just drugged herself into unconciousness and I had to take care of everything.
I have to outward appearances a very good life, and I know jamie loves me, but her love doesn’t exactly feel like a choice given completely of free will. it feels a bit like golden handcuffs. she seems like she knows on some level it’s not the best deal for me. it’s a time of peace in my life compared to much of the tumult I’ve been through so it seems like maybe it would be the best choice for me outwardly. she’s good to my family so they all basically accept her and none of them would counsel me to leave her. I appreciate her embrace of my family so deeply and don’t want to abandon her but I feel somewhat relentlessly trapped. I already feel so committed and I know the need to commit even more deeply and practically is coming soon. at this moment I feel like I don’t want it. it doesn’t feel like me. it doesn’t feel fulfilling. I could go read poetry and make friends but I know the 3rd degree would begin about any friendship and its potential sexuality. jamie is accepting of certain closenesses if she considers them safe.
I guess a lot of this is normal in a committed relationship but it honestly ultimately feels controlling. she feels like she’s sliding towards being more dependent on me and less capable as time goes by in some way. I feel like at some point I’m just going to end up saddled with all responsibility and I will be well and truly enslaved by her. we definitely have our moments of joy and contentment but I’ve always felt a restlessness to grow in life, and seeing her go back on oxy and valium feels like such a dark step. she fought so hard not to admit in treatment that there was a drug component to her mental health. I don’t want to be the sole responsible person with someone who feels entitled to act like a toddler. I feel caught in a web of her excuses and promises. when she surfaces to a sense of responsibility it feels like an attempt to pacify my. she’ll say “hey what can I take off your hands” but anything I hand her I have to train her and remind her. she said she took the laundry and the cat litter but I definitely still have to direct and participate in those processes, it’s not just “taken care of” the way I’m expected to take care of things.
I don’t want this expectation on me. I don’t want an obligation. I don’t want a dependent. I don’t see things changing. I’ve watched closely, I’ve stopped shouting at her in frustration. I know I’m an adult and I can simply end a relationship but now we have all this stuff together. at least I have all the bills in my name and have financial control in a lot of ways but I also have all the bills in my name and that keeps me without a lot of free cash flow. I’m always paying bills ahead of time and she’s kinda lax in paying. she’s sleeping 100% of the time and then she’s going to go back to work. I feel like i need to make up for her missed birthday but I just don’t want to feel obligated to her.
some of this has got to be lack of enforcing boundaries on my part but I’m tired of needing to so consciously enforce boundaries, I feel like it’s forever pressing against me and I’m slipping under the waves a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve actually really enjoyed this covid time in some way, just playing my favorite video game and not feeling pressured to spend time with her. it’s nice that she wants to spend time with me and enforces that but she doesn’t seem to feel a lot of pressure to help us have a good time or even stay awake, just wants my comforting presence so she doesn’t feel lonely. she can’t watch anything except what she wants to watch or she’ll just fall asleep. lots of times I just watch whatever she wants to watch and then she’ll lose consciousness quickly and I can do whatever I want. I guess this is like a lot of relationships? I literally don’t know what you should realistically be able to expect in terms of inspiration and psychic partnership. I know if I weren’t with her I would miss some aspects of our relationship deeply. she definitely keeps me out of trouble and in abundant sex and has trained me to be less trouble sexually in people’s lives. I’m grateful for that and grateful for the steadfastness of our life. I feel like I’d be humiliating her to break up with her and leaving her very alone in the world. she would in no way be excited by the possibility of her own life, I know this, but I definitely am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
it felt very much like another life of mine. I was caught while a very young child by a very well organized religious group. i thought I was free to go any time but then very early on I heard them talking about using force to contain someone there and I understood right away that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-log"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/log.danieltalsky.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}