Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 28 degrees, hot, sunny and slightly overcast.
It is Friday again, one more day in my life. It is good because it shows that I’m still alive and still fighting for what I want.
Yesterday I had an online meeting with Alex, the web designer and programmer, so from now on he should be putting the site in order, structuring it, and eventually monetising it. It is so good to feel that things are going in the right direction, even though sometimes they’re not.
I haven’t spoken to Julie for more than two weeks now. I miss her, but at the same time, I do not know whether, deep down, I really want to have contact with her at this moment.
Sometimes I feel it is not the relationship I would like to have in the future, and at the same time, I am repeating myself in this relationship.
I seem to attract the same kind of woman, or I am repeating the same mistakes, patterns, and behaviours over and over again. It is normal to have self-doubt, and it is normal to self-analyse to understand what is happening, whether it is normal or not, and what can be done to understand oneself better and eliminate self-doubt.
Looking back on my relationship with Julie in England, which lasted only three months, I think it was very good. I believe there was a friendship between us, and we had a good understanding on a day-to-day basis. However, my intuition told me not to get involved because it was too early for her. She was going through a divorce, and besides everything else, she had a person who was not ready.
Sometimes I thought we were beginning to have a deep connection, but then something would happen that either rocked the boat or shattered that impression.
We never had a real, intimate relationship. We almost did once or twice, but it didn’t happen. As a man, I felt it was vital to me, because besides the sex, the intimacy would have allowed us to reach another level as a couple, which unfortunately never happened.
This was frustrating for me, but it also showed me another side of Julie that became increasingly apparent. Usually, when a woman really likes a man, she voluntarily wants to please him to initiate intimacy. Sometimes the woman initiates the intimacy because she has already decided to take it a step further. The man may not initiate because of respect.
This was clear to me, and I felt both frustrated and disappointed because, in a way, it indirectly showed me that maybe she did not see me in the way I saw her.
It became clear to me that pleasing me, or doing something to please me, was not one of her priorities, not just at 6:00 but in other situations too. This feeling that our relationship was entirely one-sided became clearer to me, to the point that it was beginning to pollute my thoughts and suffocate me.
I began to anticipate her reactions, comments, etc., before she said or did them, especially if I said or presented something more significant to the relationship. I felt used, manipulated and not valued. In some ways, it sounds stupid for a man to say such things, but it is true, and I’m sure other men have felt the same.
On the one hand, my toxic mother, who is only really worried about herself, has become even clearer to me since my stay and last visit to England. And yet, on the other hand, my supposed girlfriends, whom I like so much, made me feel that I was in some superficial relationship that was only good for her.
Am I the selfish one, and am I thinking selfishly in my thoughts? Is everything for a reason, and not necessarily at that moment do we know why? Only later, or maybe never?
One of the reasons for coming back to Brazil was to break this hold our relationship had on me. For me, it was not working; I felt I was living a lie, and if I stayed in it, I would become sick. I could also say the same about living with my extremely toxic mother.
I had to get out, and now I am back in Brazil, staying in my ex-wife’s flat as a favour, sleeping on the sofa and feeling awkward. I know that Nalva means well, but the situation is not good and a little toxic.
Or, I live alone in Rio, Brazil, or I go back to England and live alone, but to do that, I need to earn either in English pounds or much more in Brazilian Reais because of the exchange rate and its low value. This is the choice, and it has consequences, and those consequences need to be met carefully.
A bottle of wine in the early evening and in bed by midnight.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
