Dinner: Carnaroli rice risotto with bacon, pancetta, and guanciale. Going all out to celebrate (:

Going fancy and taking the time to make real risotto from scratch so I can type this up 😅

Trying to figure out how to deal with my boyfriend’s ex for the last few weeks have sucked. Previous posts explain it but basically she crossed the line expressing that she wasn’t happy for us and implied that I was in her place after I tried to be nice. 

He tries to be a good guy and help everyone. I didn’t want to feel, or make him feel, like I was trying to change who he is. We tried to talk it out to find solutions and compromises multiple times. I was still left not feeling okay and having it invade my peace. 

Finally, after a resounding amount of comments telling me to leave, I took time to clear my head and write this text because I didn’t feel like it was at the point of cold turkey pulling the plug:

I’m feeling pretty checked out of us because of \[your ex\] and how you’ve decided to handle it. Had to take a day to see if it felt better to just be disconnected from it to see how I feel. Honestly, disconnecting from you meant disconnecting from her and as much as I missed you it felt like a weight off my shoulders and clears up major fog in my head.

I went through our conversations and your actions and got some more perspective. Everything and everyone is just validating what I’ve been feeling and thinking. 

I don’t want a relationship where I’m feeling second to another relationship that isn’t family. That’s my cue to exit because the actions show I’m not priority. I shouldn’t have had to ask or reason for anything about \[your ex\] after what she did. I respect your decision to be friends with ex’s. I’m just not up for having three people in this relationship which is what keeping her around is doing. Asking me to basically wait to see if things get better sucks and if your friendship with her is so important to you then it’s important you keep that relationship for yourself and I get my peace of mind back by stepping out.

Talking on the phone never does us any good. You might already be sleeping. There wasn’t going to be a good time to talk about this but figured I’d give you the courtesy of time to think about things and not be blindsided by my state of mind or demeanour when I come over tomorrow. You’ve made it very clear she’s important to you. I can live with that and bow out.

I wouldn’t have been able to send that text before. Didn’t have it in me. Old me always being the people pleaser, scared of making someone else mad and taking the blame on myself. Grew up today and talked to him *in person* (another huge step and win for my avoidant behaviour) about what I wrote and how I was feeling. Was able to say exactly what I need and leave it to him to decide what he wanted to do. 

Bestie said it best: “**boundaries are not conversations.**” 

It didn’t do me any good trying to convince myself to be okay with something that I obviously wasn’t okay with. It wasn’t good for my relationship either. I ended up just wasting time with bandaids for a sinking boat. My trying to be the nice, compromising, “maybe this will work” girlfriend ended up making my boyfriend feel like he kept jumping through my “hoops” and no matter what he did I still wasn’t happy. That’s on me. Next time, just have to be more blunt.

Some things can be compromised on and some things can’t. Finally learned that my peace of mind is not something I can compromise. It’s not good for me and it’s not good for my relationship. And if the relationship is not giving me peace of mind, the relationship isn’t good for me and I need to be okay with letting it go instead of holding on for dear life. Learning to stop white-knuckling my way through life. Finally. 🥳

I grew up today! “Boundaries are not conversations”