waxingcrescent

nooo i missed 11:11 on 11/11!!! :(

ok moving on i have an individual therapy appt next week and couples counseling next month and i want to have some.. direction.. on where i wanna take it

broad stroke stuff:

generally i feel quite good after the separation, stress levels are way lower despite the presence of stressful situations (like the potential kidney thing and losing my keys and cat peeing in my bed lol) and i've heard from a lot of people that i'm way happier/lighter
i do still find my hamster running on my wheel...... sometimes i let him run sometimes i try and sit on the wheel next to him and hold him.... ok this is very metaphorical but just acknowledging the part of me that runs through the same scenarios and questions over and over despite knowing i'm never going to find an answer like that
the big question of "what i want in a relationship"

not much to add abt 1

2 - ok so i've had this pervasive belief since almost the start of the relationship that i'm the bad partner and if i could just be good everything would be great and our relationship would be happy and this extended to things like avoiding vs. initiating/pushing through sex, finances, household duties etc. and stuff like that waxed and waned, and of course there were things where i really needed to step up (like the household duties) but i was never perfect or even really good..?? and also we weren't happy and i just felt like magikarp splashing around uselessly where all of the things i was failing at were constantly on my mind, but it never led to me getting better at those things.. but sex aside i keep wondering like, chores were so hard when jon and i were together but theyre so nothingburger now, and even when he was away for a weekend i'd be able to do so much more with comparatively much less effort and i just wanna know why it was so hard to do in the relationship and so easy outside of it..??? and in the IFS framework i guess i want to better understand the part of me that wants to shoulder all the blame for the relationship being bad

3 - this one is so hard for me bc when i tried to communicate this to the best of my ability it would always go south so i want to know how to have this conversation better

when i told him i wished he was more into going out for dinner and he felt that i was a) disrespecting the effort he put into going out with me just because of his level of enthusiasm and b) he felt that i was criticizing his income because dinner isn't fun for him bc of financial stress
he didn't really seem to understand when i tried to tell him that i want to be able to mutually enjoy things with my partner like we're both having fun together rather than one person doing smth for the others sake all the time
he would get frustrated when i'd talk about not feeling connected/wanting to feel connected/wanting someone who i feel comfortable around and can have fun with because he felt like he was doing his part so if something is missing it must be something i'm doing wrong? or that i'm keeping the true answer from him? and this is when he'd say stuff like 'why did you get with a gamer if you don't want a partner who plays video games' or talking about hair transplants
and i would get frustrated when i asked him about what he wants out of a partner and he says 'a best friend i have sex with' but we have never been best friends who have sex? or saying he wants a life partner who goes through life with him but wanting to keep me away from situations like his father's passing or even just not feeling comfortable saying things like 'i don't want to go out for dinner tonight' or 'can we delegate specific chores around the house' - i don't fit the criteria of what he wants so why would he choose me to be his partner..??

ok yay i guess i'll revisit this!