Hey everybody, I hope everyone is doing good! I've been lurking around a little bit since I left, simply because I miss posting, and after kp said she missed me in the WUW thread I got a lil teary-eyed and thought I'd stop in and give an update/better explanation.
I've wanted to come post a little bit more about the whole story since I left, but I've been avoiding putting the entire story down because it made me sad to have to re-live it while writing it. But I just have so much to process in my head and in my heart that I figured at this point, it can't hurt. Besides, my emotion switch is officially in the OFF position until noon on Friday, when my last exam for the semester ends. After that, I'm sure the cry-fest will commence.
Anyway, the problems kind of began when we got engaged. He wouldn't set a date with me, kept saying "We'll see. We'll see how things go." He wouldn't tell his mom that we were engaged, his reasons being 1. she was very adamant about him being completely done with school before ever even thinking about getting married and 2. his parents were getting divorced and since she's actually his step-mom, he wasn't sure if she would even be at the wedding/invited due to the divorce. To that I say:
1. You're an adult, making an adult decision to get married. My father once told me if I ever dated a black guy he would break their legs off, and I made my ADULT decision to marry a black guy and I stood by that decision to my father regardless of what he had to say about it, and guess what? He is supportive and happy for me and he likes Lucas. So Lucas should have told his mother and stood up for his decision in the face of her demand about his life schedule.
2. How absolutely freaking terrible to not invite the woman who raised you, when you were another woman's child that your father had an affair with, woman you haven't even seen in 15 years. That's just AWFUL.
I also may have mentioned... I never got a proposal. I I KNOW that I have misrepresented our "moment of engagement" to everyone because it made me feel silly to not have a story when people asked "How did he do it?!" Truth is, he didn't. We went into Zales at the Waterloo Outlet to look at watches for him, and when I was browsing rings, the sales lady said she had a size 4 ring that a woman returned so I should try it on because my fingers are so tiny. It fit like a glove, I liked it just fine but didn't LOVE it, but Lucas figured we were in the right place at the right time, and the ring fit already and it was affordable because we were at the outlet so hey let's get it. When we got home that night I asked him, are you sure this is what you want and he replied "Yes, the life I live with you is the life I always pictured myself having"...... as he was looking at the tv. It just started off... not right.
Since July, August-ish, I've been telling him that I feel like he doesn't want me anymore, that he's not in love with me. Everytime I've expressed these concerns, he has always responded with "You're right, I need to work on expressing it more, because I do love you." That always struck me as odd... why should the man that's marrying me have to WORK ON expressing his love? Shouldn't love for the person you want to marry be effortless?
Another point of contention was my physical insecurities. Now, just a tiny bit of back story, I've always been very insecure about the way I look. Because I have such a racially ambiguous look, I used to get called names like "chinky" (not a spec of Asian in my blood) and other things associated with the Middle East/India (again, not anywhere in my heritage). I have horrible under-eye circles, and then there's the nose.... the big, honkin', severely-deviated Italian nose. This one earned me a TON of teasing and bullying in middle school/junior high and even into high school (my 10th grade boyfriend told me that I looked like Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter..... *headdesk x2*). Lucas would always assure me that I looked fine, nothing was wrong with the way I looked, etc... but that was where it stopped. The man has not told me that I am beautiful since March 2010. I remember specifically because I was in the bathroom in just a tank top and my underwear, and he was just exiting the shower when he said "Wow, you're so tiny and beautiful." Of course, because I was in training for Miss Greater Rochester at the time, all I heard was "you're so tiny" and it made me feel so good to hear that, and certainly the beautiful part added to that. Since then, nada.
I've also recently lost a ton of weight, I think from the stress of law school + working out like a beast + what I'm self-diagnosing as a mild onset of depression that left me with a completely lack of appetite. Right before Thanksgiving, I actually went three full days without eating and didn't even think anything of it. I joke all the time, "it's the law school diet; you're so busy you just forget to eat!" Truth is, I'm just not hungry. I'm stressed when I'm at school all day, and come home to "so when are you going to make dinner?" Remember when I said I only had a few more pounds to go until I reached my competition weight? My ideal competition weight is 110 (I'm 5'2", 5'3"). I most recently weighed in at 103. Truth is, I've never felt happier about my body (well, I DO miss my boobs. They've gone down a cup size) but to him, it's "I liked you better when you had a little more to grab onto." When I got super-dressed up for a party one day and I asked him how I looked, he said "You're a little overdressed, it's just the frat house." I just can't win

And I won't go in-depth about the sex, because I know that can get into TMI territory, but let's just say I don't feel very valued in that area of our life either. I try to tell him, "you should listen to this Trey Songz song, it totally gets me in the mood," and he tells me "I can't take him seriously. Because music doesn't do it for me." Um, do I need to write it down on a sign for you? I am TRYING to tell you how to please me and turn me on, but you're making it all about you. No foreplay, ever. When I try to suggest a position, or even if I go put music on, he *LITERALLY* rolls his eyes and siiiiiiiighs. Oh, but when he has a request, sex will not proceed until I do it or he'll just keep asking and annoying me until I do it.
I would love to have this man in my life forever. I would love to raise a family with him. He is my best friend, he's an incredible companion and living with him is considerably easier than it could be. But I don't need a good roommate. I don't need a sperm donor. I need a SPOUSE. I need a man who is attracted to me, who wants me sexually, who makes me feel good about myself. My friends think that it's because I'm the only girl he's ever been with. He had a high school girlfriend for 6 months, and then he met me in college. I was also his first. They say he has nothing crappy to compare his experience with me to, and that's why he doesn't appreciate what he has with me. When I told him this last week, he said "Soooo what I'm hearing is 'hall pass'"..... I could have slapped him. He was obviously joking but what a gross thing to say. I told him no, we're broken up. YOU told me it was time to move on and that's that.
Since Friday, he has been telling me that he is going to fight for me and do whatever he has to do to show me that I'm the one he wants and that he loves me, but I'm just afraid that it's not going to happen. We've been together for 3 years, I'm not changing at this point so what is going to happen now that was supposed to already be? I want the feeling of being in love mutually. I need that in order to walk down the aisle. The more time went on, the more anxious I felt about getting married to him. I'm ready to settle down, but I'm not ready to settle. I will give up my dream wedding date and my dream of getting married & having a family by a certain age if it means marrying the right person.
I'm sorry this was so long, and I'm sorry this was kind of a Lucas bash-fest. I don't mean to speak so badly of him behind his back (not that I haven't already said every single thing in this post to him over the past couple weeks), because I KNOW that he is an incredible person. I just... needed to get it all out. I just don't think I can do it anymore. Horrible as it sounds, I think I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to find happiness with someone, because I've been ready for it since he stopped expressing his love for me. When I met Lucas, I was in a relationship of nearly a year that was more like a relationSHIT. I fell for Lucas, hard and fast, and I told him it was because my heart had always been open and ready for love but my current bf wasn't giving me that.... and I'm afraid that I'm back in that place. Lucas and I really were perfect together, and as a couple of people together in a union, we still are. I just don't feel like he's in love and I need that.
Thanks for listening, everyone