So, this has been a big deal for me. My boyfriend (ex-boyfriend, I guess) have been together almost 8 years, but now it looks like we're splitting up. It hurts, but I think it needs to happen.
What happened? I need to just tell the story and get some of it off my chest. I feel like writing it down and knowing someone reads my story.... that helps me feel better. We got together back in 2011. He's trans but he was pre-everything then and I thought I was just dating a slightly butch girl. I was wrong. After a few years, he gained enough confidence to start on T and he felt so much better for it. However, his body issues..... those seemed to get worse. Then we moved into a really shabby apartment in Houston and I started getting beat up by depression and the affection we had for each other disappeared. Not entirely, but enough that we didn't cuddle or kiss and sex was all but gone.
Fast foward to 2016. I had an opportunity to move back to my hometown. Get myself here and I have the opportunity to fix my relationship with my family, my kids and put my old life back together. And Lee (my ex), well, he seemed to be on board and even a bit excited about it. So in July of 2016, we moved from Houston to Tulsa. We got janky jobs at a shabby call center, but, hey, we had income so you can't complain too much, right? We were taking care of ourselves.
Well, the next spring, Lee was let go from that job. His attendance wasn't great; he tended to get to work way too late and take too long on break/lunch. He found a good manufacturing job, though, so he actually came out kinda ahead. As for me, if Lee wasn't working at the call center, it was so far away for me to get without a car that I looked into the manufacturing job myself.
Unfortunately, that job was a temp job. At the end of the summe, they let everyone go. As soon as I got some issues with my state ID taken care of, we were able to find fast food jobs. Not the best jobs in the world, but we had paychecks until we found something better. While I was doing fast food, though, I put in applications for other jobs and one of them was just about a perfect job: predictible 9-5 hours, I can walk there from home in 20 minutes, the pay is better than any job I've ever had and the benefits are amazing (including extensive transgender surgical coverage) and my mom even worked for this company for several years, so I already have some amount of familiarity. I was in a good position with this job.
I knew I was doing great and I encouraged Lee to get a job better than fast food. He was reluctant but he put in and got hired with a new job. Well, he didn't get past the training with the new job. He was able to find another temp job after that but..... that was when he started struggling with work. He'd get a temp job, work it, but then lose it without having something new lined up. That happened several times and he always seemed to go at least a week between losing the old job and getting a new one. That's managable, but still frustrating.
As for me, with my new job and surgery becoming a real possibility, I knew the surgeon would want me to lose weight. So, I started dieting and eating healthy and working out at the gym. I went from 320 lbs to 235; not down to my goal, but it's still a lot of weight I lost there. And as I started losing that weight, I started feeling better. I was happier, more cheerful, more energetic and more affectionate. Unfortunately, when I got home from the gym, Lee was already in bed, asleep (I wasn't getting home late at night; he went to sleep around 5 or 6 in the evening and slept for like 13 hrs per day). When he was awake, I remember thinking how much I wish he would just go back to sleep because he was extremely irritable. I'd come home and make dinner; he'd yell at me for waking him up for dinner. Next day I'd come home and just make dinner for myself; then he'd yell at me for not making dinner for him. I couldn't win.
Well, while I was struggling with that, I still scheduled a consultation with Dr Ley in Scottsdale. I went to that consult and scheduled surgery for May 28. I figured with my awesome health benefits and the pay I'm making, I can handle that with no problem. Unfortunately, a couple of big monkey wrenches got thrown into my plans.
1) Lee had gotten a new car a while back. That by itself wasn't a problem, but he never insured it or got the tag. He didn't even think of those until 6 months later when a cop pulled him over for it. So he went out and took care of that right away, only to find out he would have to spend over $1000 to get the tag. Late fees add up.
2) The expensive tags also prevented him from being able to contribute to very much of the rent that month. I had to pay most of Decembers rent myself instead of just covering half.
3) His temp job ran out. I forget if it was late November or early December, but he lost the job. Unlike other times he lost his job, though, he didn't seem to have the same level of concern about it now. He would spend all night scrolling through facebook, sleep the next day until like 3 in the afternoon and spend all evenings chatting with friends. Over a month he didn't have work and for January's rent, well, I had to pay that all by myself.
By now I had to pay over $1000 to cover for him and he still had no job in sight. I was angry and frustrated and he wouldn't listen to why I was angry or frustrated. I wasn't going to be able to save enough to have surgery in May and, extremely reluctantly, I called Dr Ley and rescheduled things for next November. That literally had me crying.
But Lee would continue to pick fights, he would continue to scream at me, he would continue to show absolutely no gratitude for the fact that I've been picking up his slack for over a month. Not only that, but to get him to put ANY effort into his job search, I had to change some of my habits. Remember how I was dieting and hitting the gym? I couldn't do that anymore. I had to get home and stand directly over Lee's shoulder to get him to do a job application. If I went to the gym, he would INSIST on going with.... and then tell me it's too late for an application when he got home. If I wanted something healthy for dinner, well, I'd go into the kitchen to put it together and I'd find him goofing off instead of looking for work when I came back into the bedroom. I felt more like I was his mother than his partner.
We have a two bedroom apartment. He finally took notice when I told him to move into the other room. He finally found a couple of jobs, but they're both part time. Still, I feel like that's too little too late. He's hurt me. Having to reschedule my surgery is just awful. His lack of affection is painful. His lack of maturity is frustrating.
I dont' think he knows it, but I put in an application with a new apartment. I'm probably moving out soon; it's just a question of when. I hope he gets his ->-bleeped-<- together, but I can't give him the opportunity to drag me down with him anymore.
