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I didn't anticipate needing to double down after yesterday's post, but after a fairly rough conversation with Shobhit, it kind of seems I have to.
He seems desperate to want to make this about Gabriel. This isn't about Gabriel, it's about us. Shobhit and me. It's about a history of unacceptable behavior.
This bears repeating.
A history of unacceptable behavior.
A clear mistake on my part is how much of his unacceptable behavior I have tolerated, which has only served to reinforce in his mind that it is acceptable. My post yesterday, just because I demonstrated I understood where he was coming from—while reiterating multiple times that I thought it was wrong—was something he just took as justification.
I sent the link to Laney, and her response was swift and strong. She had many thoughts, but this was key:
If he refused to take a Covid test if I asked him, prior to us getting together (say, in a situation in which he'd recently flown on a plane unmasked or something like that), well, if he refused I'd likely tell him to fuck off with his selfishness. It's common courtesy. And I live in a building full of old people so it's not just about me.
"It's not just about me" is also Gabriel's very reasonable point of view. And I am kind of throwing Laney under the bus here, and I'm sorry about that, but I needed to bring it up because it illustrates two very key things: First, Gabriel may be the only person
in Shobhit's life regularly asking people to take a covid test, but he's not the only one out there. Second, the impasse Shobhit and I have reached is not just about Gabriel.
It never has been. This is probably just going to make Shobhit mad at Laney—when he really should be reflecting on his own behavior—but, it illustrates a point. Several years ago, Danielle happened to be with us when we went into a Petco, and Shobhit truly few off the handle when he thought I had somehow mismanaged our membership points for potential discounts. In the end I had actually done it correctly, but that's beside the point; he shouldn't be berating me like that. Danielle texted me,
I don't like the way he talks to you. When Shobhit found out, he held a grudge against Danielle for weeks, if not months.
Shobhit even tried to bring up both Laney and Danielle last night, because he's good with them currently so that somehow proves this is just about Gabriel. Danielle would absolutely say this again, though. So would Laney, for that matter.
I really didn't want to bring up friends because they have their own clear biases, and this is why I feel we should get a marriage counselor. But Shobhit forced my hand here, trying to assert that there is some difference between Gabriel and the rest. But there isn't. My friends all want me to be happy. None of them are supporting Shobhit's behaviors. Where a marriage counselor comes in is what things I also have to work on, which I feel strongly should not be ignored. My friends don't see when I'm the one flying off the handle with Shobhit (which also happens), or when I am contributing to the toxicity of the relationship, and we need an unbiased third party to put these things into perspective for us.
Laney had much to say in that email, and it really overwhelmed me. It made me feel like my world was collapsing. It made me think:
Fuck. Maybe I actually do have to leave him. Everything she said was fair. I couldn't concentrate on my work and I left about half an hour early. I didn't listen to music as usual, but just walked the whole hour or so, thinking. Shobhit didn't even register that I was early when I walked in the door. "Should we have burgers for dinner?" he said.
I sat down on the couch, and finally the emotion overtook me. I started crying—just weeping into my hands. At first, Shobhit was rattled by this. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said. But I knew he didn't understand. Sorry for what? He's not sorry for anything. Later in the conversation he actually said, "I'm sorry you're crying," which is such a textbook tactic for avoiding responsibility, it's a cliché.
Once I had composed myself and tried to start the conversation about real things, Shobhit retreated into his anger with typical swiftness. All he could do was go back to justifying his behaviors. Or, at times, simply deflect: he tried to tell me he's "been sitting on this for months" when he brought up how angry he was that I left for every weekend he was in India last year, leaving the cats alone when Shanti was getting sick. Sitting on this for months? He brings this up every chance he gets.
Things got pretty tense for a while. Predictably, he resisted my suggestion that we get a marriage counselor. He only softened when I said, "You're the love of my life and probably always will be, no matter what happens. If I didn't love you I would just leave. But we can't just do nothing, something has to change. I want this because I love you." But I also said: "I've loved our life together. I don't love it anymore." And I cried some more.
Shobhit wants to characterize our problems as me "wanting to change him." "I get out of your way for whatever you want to do," he said, which is plainly untrue actually. He tried to insist that he's never tried to change me, which is also untrue: I have said many times over the years that he seems to be in love with who he wants me to be and not who I really am. How can anyone interpret that as anything but wanting me to change? As just one example, he has tried to insist over and over again that I should support him even if I think he's wrong, and I have never been that person. Maybe I can learn a better way to navigate such a thing so he feels more heard, and that's something a marriage counselor can help us with.
It's entirely possible that getting a marriage counselor will only delay the inevitable. So be it, I suppose. If that's going to be the reality, I'm naturally inclined to delay something so horrible. I'd also rather try to do
something about where we are, rather than nothing. I'm not ready to just give up.
I'm terrified of the prospect of having to lose him, and reconstruct my entire life. I honestly think that, deep down, he's terrified of it too, and that he retreats into anger as a means of masking it, trying to make it easier, even though ultimately it just makes things worse. If we have to separate, it's going to be incredibly difficult for both of us, but more difficult for him in a financial sense. I'm still not certain he really understands how precarious where we are right now really is.
Even when it comes to what happened on Sunday: I handled it poorly, but I was still poorly handling what any reasonable person would regard as unacceptable behavior. In order for us to stay together, we may have to draw new, hard boundaries. I don't really know. I honestly don't know where we'll go from here, because right now I'm stringing my hopes on an objective third party like a marriage counselor. I'd still like to find a way to make this work. Maybe we can't. But we've lasted this long, and while I'm not ready to throw it away, I'm also not willing to accept the status quo going forward. I truly cannot do it anymore. I want to exhaust the options before calling it quits. I want to hold onto hope that we won't have to.
I suppose I should be prepared for anything, though. Yesterday I looked up a calculator for what amount of rent I could afford on my own salary, and it said $1,900 a month. By and large, if I want to stay on Capitol Hill, that'll get me a studio. There seem to be some exceptions with a one-bedroom. My biggest concern is finding a place only to get my rent jacked up out of the range of affordability, something neither Shobhit nor I have to worry about in our current condo. In an ideal world, I could just stay in this building, which I love.
But, in an effort to stave off getting to that point, I'm looking at marriage counselors. Or couples therapists. They are largely interchangeable, so far as I can tell. I may get some referrals from queer people who have used counselors or therapists they have liked, which could be the best way to go about it, depending on a host of factors—if Aetna covers them, where they are located, etc. I already found one woman through the Aetna website who looks appealing to me because LGBTQ people are listed as one of her specialties, and she's located only two blocks from our condo. I'd love to find someone who can come recommeded from experience, though.
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A strange juxtaposition of activities last night: after Shobhit helped make my veggie burger (which was unusually delicious) because he wanted to wait until later to have his own, and then we watched two episodes of season two of
Silo on Apple TV+, we went out. And not to anything I would normally be at either: it was an art exhibit opening hosted by Seattle Men in Leather, which Shobhit just joined.
I'm not into leather, but I went to this anyway, mostly because it sounded like a relatively vanilla affair, nothing too explicit. It was less a "leather event" than an art exhibit, although it was attended by people in mostly leather fetish attire. This meant, actually, in most cases men were mostly covered from head to toe in leather, including boots and hats. A few cases were a little more risque, such as the one artist wearing pants partly down his butt far enough for you to see his jockstrap, or one artist hanging out in nothing but shoes and a pair of forest green underwear. He may have also had a hat or a harness on, I can't remember.
There were several different types of art on display: photography (jockstrap guy was the artist; the photos of a nude Black man had been taken in Brazil), paintings, even some ceramics. In one case there was handmade leather gear on display. There was one getup, a leather harness vest with a jockstrap and leather cuffs (and maybe a cap? again I can't remember), all for $60 that Shobhit was very tempted to buy. Just inside the entrance was a display of leather harnesses with metal panels as the center clasp that goes on the chest, each with different metalwork designs. Shobhit tried one on, over his shirt (he was one of the few who attended without any leather on), and he asked me what I thought. I have a bit of a shrug, both noncommittal and nonjudgmental. Shobhit turned to the guy and said, "He's not into leather." The guy said something to the effect of, "We all have our own things." Indeed.
The venue was called
Vermillion Art Gallery & Bar, located on 11th at Pike, and I couldn't believe I had never heard of it. It's a long, narrow space and the bar is in the back. We met the lady bartending, Diana, turned out to be the owner. I asked how long they had been open and she said "17 years." Holy shit! That's how long we've been in our condo, all of five blocks away!
I just found
this Capitol Hill Blog article from 2018, about them celebrating 10 years. It was really fun talking to Diana, and I texted Laney about the place before we even left; we're going to go as an extra Happy Hour within the next month I think.
We did ask if they have a Happy Hour, and Diana said no; they are still waiting for things to pick up better, post-pandemic. They also still have very little in the way of food, but I'm still good with just going for a drink—and when we left, I told Diana I'd be back. Also, the regular drink prices are so reasonable they might as well be Happy Hour anyway: I had a well drink and it was just eight bucks. Her well vodka was called Redmond, I think, or was it Redmont? She said it was "semi-local." Anyway it was very smooth for a well vodka. She even poured a bit in a shot glass for me to taste first.
In the hallway between the art gallery space in the front and the bar in the back, there's a double-pane painting of a cityscape, which must not have been part of the leather exhibit. I really loved it. There was no information or price or anything on it.
While we had our drinks, which Shobhit bought for us, we sat for a few minutes in chairs set up to watch a bondage demo. Again: fully clothed, but one guy had another kind of hog-tied to intricately tied ropes hanging him from a frame of metal bars. I found myself impressed by the guy's rope work and knotting, especially when he was able to tile the tied-man upright in a way that still kept him in that position. This was a guy who knows his ropes. I wonder if he was a Boy Scout.
Shobhit seemed to appreciate that I went with him, especially given the leather scene is not my scene. He thought maybe I was bored, but I wasn't really. I was compelled by a good amount of the art, actually. Broadly speaking though, I just want to go back to Vermillion just to support that local business.
We walked back home and watched one more episode of
Silo before I went to bed.
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[posted 12:35pm]
