Stepping Back

Ariel and I have been having some problems kinda recently and we've decided to step back for a bit. Our engagement is off and I'm waiting on her to sort out her feelings. While I wait I'm trying to work on improving my ability to communicate more assertively. I realize that you all have been out of the loop, so I'll give a bit of backstory.

From when we got together almost 2 years ago through as recently as this past weekend, I have not communicated very well when I got upset about something and I would either act out, respond harshly, or turn the situation around on her during an arguement and make her feel like it was her fault. Other times, I have acted without thinking of her, like Christmas, she drove all the way out to spend time with me and my family and I run off to spend time with my cousin, who has repeatedly let me down in the past when he said he'd be coming over. Had I thought about it more that night before running off to a movie I would not have.

Ariel has just been laddened down with all the stress of having Linzy, a job, school, and my passive-aggressive behavior and is stressed to her limits. She sees how her life is going and when she looks to see her friends and others her age out and having fun without all her reponsibilities, I think she feels like life is just moving too fast for her. The thought of being 25, married, a house, 2 kids, and a full time job scares her. (no she's not pregnant, we planned to have a kid shortly after getting married and she would have been 23 when we got married.)

In Jan, Ariel couldn't take the added stress of our relationship anymore and asked me to give her some space, which I agreed to. Unfortunately, we didn't talk then, so nothing got resolved once again. A failure on both our parts. She was trying to sort things out and I was left wondering what was wrong and how to fix things. Because we didn't really talk to sort things out, I got a bit resentful about the situation and when Ariel tried to see me, I once again didn't think and let my frustration run the conversation, leaving Ariel once again upset with me and leaving me once again in the dark about so much that was going through her mind.

Finally, yesterday, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to talk to her. I went over to her place last night and we talked . I told her my concerns and what I've been thinking about lately and how much our relationship means to me. She finally started to open up more on what has been bothering her about these agruements and my behavior. As we talked I realised that she was right about so much of how I acted or reacted to some many situations. I was kind of surprised when she told me about a few of them because I never saw it from her point of view. I think I keep focusing on the next step in our lives and that I took our relationship for granted and didn't think to continue to build and strengthen our bonds, so that when we did disagree, she would feel comfortable talking it out with me. A big underlying theme to our problems is communication, both the wrong methods and the lack thereof.

I think we had a good discussion, though I know its not over yet, and we need to keep the communication line open. I regret that it took us this long to start addressing these problems. Just like I regret that it took her melting down to find out that the way I have acted has been making her miserable. As of now, we are going to try and talk more, Ariel is sorting out her feelings (this whole experience has left her drained and she's trying to find out what she wants), and me, well, I'll be going by a bookstore later to get a book on how to me a better communicator, I may even see a therapist sometime. I know now that I do need to adjust my behavior because I'm in a relationship.

February... Febrrrruarrrryy

Ya, cold. So cold that my previously $50-65 month electric bill was $140 last month... and my thermostat was set at 68, thank you very much. The coulprits: my sliding door to the balcony and the uninsulated pipes. The balcony door lets in a horrible draft in the winter and there's only a few things I can do about it. The water heater and the copper water pipes are uninsulated and so it wastes power trying to keep my water hot... i wondered why the hot water never lasted over 5 min in the shower.

Now that I've passed my RS exam and can keep my job, I can now study for my arborist exam so that I can put my degree to some use. Other than that, work is fine. Waiting for spring so that we can get back out into the septic installation inspections and such. I've been working out 3 times a week and increasing my reps monthly.... though its only been a little over a month since I started :P Not really looking too hard for a house right now. Just keeping my eyes peeled but not actively searching.

Ariel's been working a lot lately on the weekends, says her manager has it out for her because she keeps getting scheduled doubles. Other than that, I don't hear complain too much about classes, so I assume they're going alright.

Linzy has continued astounding us. She carries on conversations with us and amazes us at times with what she says, (as in the extent of her vocabulary, not in the depth of her observations.) She has taken to playing with her baby dolls a bit more now. Carrying them around with her, 'feeding' them, putting them to 'bed', etc. Much better than pushing them down the slide... or the stairs. She even takes them to the bathroom and sets them on her potty, so they can go too. She really enjoys us reading to her more and more now, sometimes she'll 'read' to us a book that we've read so many times it seems that she memorized the story. She's doing great.