Well, call me a fool for not taking the direct advice to leave her alone... but I kept going through the texts (which I've now removed) and became transfixed with two sentences among the 1,038 word rant...
In the fourth text she said:
You have no idea what I've been going through these last few weeks, let alone two months.
In the seventh text she said:
And EVEN NOW you refuse to see what I'm going through and you haven't asked.
I knew that there was something regarding what she was upset about because of how she said:
In the third-to-last text she said:
You didn't even read it or LISTEN again I'm sure.
And the thing is... I
hadn't asked how she was doing, really. I figured she was telling me everything in all of her texts the past few months. And I didn't want to make things worse by continuing to not ask, so I sent the following message to her:
I said:
How are you doing, [NAME]? You were right that I never asked what you're going through... and I should have from the beginning. What are you going through?
She wasn't happy, of course... and I didn't expect her to be. I downed a nice mixture of Kava Kava extract, Valerian, peppermint, Passionflower, Chamomile, more passionflower, theanine, and lavender so I could be calm enough to deal with the result.
But she actually made a decent list of what she was mad at me for besides not asking how she's doing... though I'm going to have a difficult time figuring out how to do all of them.
- Grow up and don't act like a child.
- Dress better.
- Stop being so selfish.
- Stop being lazy.
- Stop being a slob.
- Pay attention! How many car accidents do you intend to cause because you're not being responsible?
- Stop blaming others for your shit and be a man and take responsibility!
So, now I've actually got something tangible to go off of. Here's what I've got to say about the different things, and well, I'd like your opinions.
1. Grow up and don't act like a child.
I'm guessing this is in reference to the fact that I cried a lot when I was helping with the move -- she was
really critical the whole time and I had a difficult time handling it (and in the meantime I wasn't fixing the things she was critical of). This was particularly egregious because what she said she needed more than anything was someone who she could depend on for emotional support. Does anyone have any advice on how I can work on being less of a pansy during these times?
2. Dress better.
One of the (many) things that bothered her about her fiance was the fact that he never wore anything but crappy clothes. While helping with the move, I wore crappy clothes (for obvious reasons) and didn't really stop for a while afterward. The trouble is, besides my work clothes, I don't have much that's actually a decent, non-t-shirt-and-jeans outfit to wear on every-day occasions. And I blew a bunch of money on what was essentially three moves at the same time, so I don't have much in terms of expendable cash and probably won't for a while. Does anyone have any fashion advice for the budget-conscious?
3. Stop being so selfish.
This one is kind of a rough one, as those of you who saw her rather skewed view of selfishness in the previous texts. But there are some specifics that I can guess at -- Along with some overlap with the other things she's mentioning, I would argue with her about things that she said I was doing wrong, I would text her at times that weren't good for her, I would withdraw or refrain from talking to her when she was angry, and I would often go to sleep when she felt like we should talk. It's frustrating, though -- I have to get to work at 6:00 am every day, so it's difficult to stay up late and still be competent enough to get anything done in my new position. The Valentine's Day thing probably plays into this as well.
4. Stop being so lazy.
My best guess about this is that I didn't fix the things she was asking me to immediately, though maybe the sleeping thing played into this as well. Maybe there's more that goes into this than that, but it's all I can think of.
5. Stop being a slob.
I moved into a new apartment at the same time she moved out of her place, and I never took the time to clean up my apartment soon after the move. I also am extremely absent-minded and tend to leave stuff laying around after using it without putting it away or throwing it away. She did tell me many times during the past two months to "clean up as you go," but I never really picked up that good habit.
6. Pay attention! How many car accidents do you intend to cause because you're not being responsible?
Well, so far I've had one traffic accident and gotten two tickets in the past two months... I haven't exactly been in a good frame of mind, but I really do need to be more responsible. This all started during the move. I hadn't been this way before, so I can understand why it freaked her out.
7. Stop blaming others for your shit and be a man and take responsibility!
I... don't know what to say about this one... though if anyone's got any suggestions I'd love to hear them.
So, that's what I've got to work with now... which is a lot more than I had previously. And regardless of what you think of her or my decision to stick around, you can't deny that a lot of this is good advice. I could just use some help getting this done as well as possible.
And for those of you telling me to just leave her... well, I promised her I wouldn't when this all began, and I intend to keep that promise. Any other advice you can give me would be appreciated, though.