Ready? Here we go.

There's a good chance that T and I are going to be over after today. I finally have hit the wall. Here's what happened.

Saturday night: he's at my house, exhausted. We go to bed early. His phone rings and wakes me up at about 2 in the morning and I immediately think that it's L and something has happened to her. Maybe she's thinking about suicide again, or actually has tried and this is someone else phoning to tell T. So I am the one who wakes T up, gets the phone, watches anxiously over his shoulder as he checks his call display and sees that it's her. I'm the one who makes him phone back when his first call goes straight to voicemail.

And it turns out that all she wanted to know was should she bring him home any McD's. Did I mention that it's 2 in the morning? And he's at my house? So my response, loud enough that she can hear it, is "Are you fucking kidding me? At 2 in the morning? That's nice, L, that's really fucking nice." T of course says nothing except that he'll see her tomorrow, and I hear her tell him, "Tell her to go fuck herself." I reply, "Go fuck yourself."

T hangs up the phone. I am so angry that I'm shaking with it. He tells me that I'm taking this as if she were being malicious and I respond that I am taking it that she is thoughtless. He says that he told her that he would probably be coming home so she didn't know that he would be here with me. I ask him sweetly if he is usually up at 2 in the morning and when he says no, I feel slightly vindicated in my anger.

It turns into a "conversation" (I use that term loosely because that usually refers to two people talking but this was more just me talking to him and him not responding) where I ask him if I matter to him. When he says yes, of course I do, I then ask if I matter more than her. He sounds shocked that I would ask such a thing, not because the answer is that I do matter more, but because I am forcing him to confront this situation that I do not matter more.

He says that this thing with L will cause tension. I almost start laughing as I inform him that there is already tension. He lives with his ex while he dates someone else and he thinks that there wouldn't be tension? I explain that while I would never tell him he couldn't live with her anymore, I hate the situation and what I do is keep the problems and the tension from him.

Clearly that has been my mistake.

Today I am meeting him after he gets off work and I will be telling him the following:

After Mike and I broke up after that terrible situation where he didn't come home and help me when I was hysterical and begging for him on the phone, I promised myself that I would never be with someone who did not put me first in their priorities. Mike ranked alcohol above me - he's an alcoholic and I have let go of most of my bitterness around that relationship but it did teach me a few things about myself.

I have clarified that over the past two days to realize that I put T's well-being, be it emotional, physical, or mental, at the top of my priority list. If I want to take an action that will affect his life, I think about whether it will be a positive or negative thing for him and then take action accordingly. I demand the same respect. It doesn't mean that he can't have other priorities. I have school and martial arts and work and my family and B and T. But if T is affected, he gets the highest consideration. I demand the same.

Right now I think that he doesn't think his actions through, beyond the immediate. I plan to use a work analogy and say that he wouldn't just sit and start at his drawings at work and expect for the work to get done. It takes forethought and planning and execution from him to achieve the proper end result and a relationship is just the same. It takes work to make it work.

I plan to tell him that I have made the following choice. My choice is that I will not be in a relationship with someone who is not willing to treat me with the same respect that I show for them. His choice then becomes very simple. If I am important to him and he wants to keep me in his life then he needs to make the commitment to treat me with respect. If he cannot or will not make that commitment then I would rather know now and walk after five months rather that try to build a future with someone that is doomed to failure.

I have the feeling that he will not be willing to make the commitment. In which case I am better off, but it's still going to hurt. We'll see.

As an end note, I was reading L's blog today to see if she wrote anything about that situation. She seems to have no concept of what is appropriate and what is not, so I wouldn't have been surprised if she had.

These two quotes come from her:

Oh ya, and T is on the rag right now. Beware all.

The only reason I got up this morning to answer my dad's call to my cell phone was to give him shit for calling me before noon. 11:30am is not noon, hello!

To the first quote, yes, this is the maturity level that I have to deal with.

To the second, hello pot? Yeah this is kettle. You're black.

I almost posted that to her blog but I reminded myself that if T does indeed choose to work at things with me, I will need to keep things between L and myself from deteriorating past repair.

Although I have been considering that I will no longer spend time with her. T may have her for his roommate; he may choose to do things like go for dinner with her like he did last week - that does not mean that I am stuck spending my time and energy on her. So. That will need to be a part of my negotiation with T tonight. That is what it feels like - a negotiation. What are we each willing to spend to get the result that we want?

On my wish list is a boyfriend who treats me with respect, who doesn't let his ex/roommate come between us, and maybe the possibility of a long term future together. But his wish list may very well be a simple life that requires no forethought and no personal responsibility, in which case we will be done.

So. T and I may be over after tonight. I feel nothing but resignation at the moment. I hope that my calm will carry me through the conversation. I hope that I don't cry.

I hope I can be strong enough to walk away if that is what is necessary. I have found levels to my strength in the past to do hard things but I am just so tired of being alone.