Bhello Esther,
I am writing to you perhaps at the wrong time because I am immersed in sadness to the core and therefore not very clear. I am/have been in an on and off relationship for almost 2 1/2 years. I say this because this is the umpteenth time he has left and experience now says that my “never again” statements are not reliable.
He’s not a narcissist or evil thing or psychopath or anything like that. We are both bizarre people, but nothing that veers towards sadism or cruelty.
Why is he leaving? Because he can’t handle certain comments or criticisms or reactions. He mulls it over, exaggerates every detail, freaks out and walks away. Then come back. After weeks. The latest affront is linked, for a change, to politics. I’m on the left, he’s on the right. At dinner with my mother, he exclaims while listening to the news that the law reforming the judiciary (separation of careers etc.) is a good and right thing and that he will vote in the referendum. I also try to contain myself, then, still in front of my mother, I reply that in my opinion the majority of Italians don’t understand this very well, they reserve the right to clarify their ideas over time and that I’m surprised that he has such clear ideas. Another time the argument started from the fact that he had defined the Germans as “Nazis in the soul” and I tried, first kindly and then with colorful words, to explain to him that they were just prejudices and you can’t judge an entire population on the basis of these stereotypes, that they had never lived outside Italy and couldn’t say similar things, etc. In short, my problem is that I think he talks bullshit, and even if I don’t tell him directly, I let it be known that I think so. But I love him.
He likes Trump and Putin, however he is much less chauvinist than many on the left. The sex is/was good, but every time I ask him for advice I think he says banality.
I’m split.
He says I don’t respect him, but how can I respect such bullshit? He says that I should respect them just because they are his opinions, I think that they cannot even be defined as opinions but merely repetition of slogans. He is a computer scientist. I told him “if my opinion was that the hard disk is harmful to a PC and should be eradicated, and you kindly try to explain to me that I am wrong and I reiterate that since it is my opinion you have to respect it, what would you think?”.
I’m at a crossroads. I don’t know whether to consider myself an asshole or if it’s perfectly normal for my blood to boil over bullshit flaunted as a right to opinion.
We seem like 2 losers to me. We love each other a lot, in good times we also have long-term plans, but then every time the usual mess.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to answer me. Now I’m in the phase where I oscillate between fear and the desire to start again, even if all these emotions already have the tired dust of 2 and a half years of back and forth on them.
Maybe I could say more, describe ourselves better but I don’t really want to dig.
Maybe you can understand anyway.
Thank you
M.
Ester Viola’s response
Dear M.,
What a great point you bring up. Desire moves towards what is most contrary to it, and this is a great midnight trouble.
Luckily there is a logical error: you ask me only one question when there would be two questions.
The first, very serious: Is it possible and/or normal to feel sexual attachment and closeness if the two are two who would have very little to say to each other if they were just friends? Certainly. They are usually the strongest attractions.
The second question, which prevails over the first and thank God disintegrates it: do these attractions have a chance of survival in the long term? None. It’s a hot jelly: it’s hot and it’s fine, but if you put something on it it won’t stand up.
In reality there is no need to worry. This dry breeze from the steppe that brought you here to write an email is the air that blows in the fields of reasonableness. You are recovering those five or six things that cloud life a little but make us human beings more lucid and therefore worthy of consideration.
One, in particular. The only weapon we really have in life, tiredness. The only hammer I’ve seen make private revolutions is that, tiredness. Take care of her, don’t ask her questions, give her space. She is an ambassador of character that strengthens. AND when you are perfectly able to choose with your head, that is, to take x-rays of people because you are, in fact, tired, remember not to call it cynicism. It’s a nice quality of disillusionment, that. It means settling higher, knowing how to choose who to be with regardless of how it makes us feel sometimes.
Bad Relationships (Getty Images)
The point is that you can’t fall out of love on commandthat’s what you worry about. And yes, I confirm, it is not possible. It happens. But there’s no point in getting excited, just waiting.
Now you’re in that horrible quarter of an hour, M. When there’s nothing to do. You expect a clear internal stance that doesn’t arrive, so it becomes even more depressing.
The quarter of an hour can last six months or a couple of seasons. I know people who have the quarter hour for twenty years. You just have to try not to become one of them.
The advice is all good. Of course, they are not enough, but if there was a real remedy against imbecile love we wouldn’t be here talking about remedies every Monday. And then there’s the fact that everyone hates: you need the third. You won’t be enough, we need others, another time.