Hi, never posted. Been lurking for half a year or so. I’m ravenn. I’m marking NSFW because some content. I’m recently out of my egg (this year) and am in my 30s. This is kinda a wild “intro” post, but its where I am at right now.

I recently broke up with my girlfriend. I got tired of being told something as a compromise, sometimes even begged for the thing only for my end of the compromise to never be met. I got tired of being lusted after, and never having romance prior, just “MMMMM bring me them sexy thighs”, or having my butt grabbed while doing dishes even though I had said I really don’t like that stuff in common areas of the house, especially when her teenage daughter lives with us.

The final tipping point was that she had her other daughter who doesn’t normally live with us come visit. This daughter I will call [S], who is also a teenager had her friend over too. That’s all good, she hardly comes over and last time her friend was over they were only a little messy, and it was a special day because we were going to the water park, so fun is to be expected, and chores much less so. Well 3 weeks ago [S] brings the same friend over again. And I’ve been fighting something worse than a cold, but not Covid or Flu for over a week, using up entire tissue boxes in a night. I physically feel like crap, and with an injured back and leg, sometimes have trouble walking without a cane, especially when I’m sick.

I spent the night doing dishes, had the kitchen spotless by 7PM around when the friend arrived. I wake up in the morning, go down stairs only to see a double sink overflowing with dishes above the raised faucet (the type that takes a detour to about neck height then points back down with the hose bit as the faucet). Some dishes were left on the counter because of how full, some half in the sink, half on the 1 inch counter gap looking like they would fall to the floor. I instinctively took a picture followed by a wide show pic just so no one could ever downplay it in the future.

My girlfriend had lived here 5 and a half months at this point, and had been visiting the house for almost a year. She knows I keep the kitchen clean at night so I don’t have to worry about stuff in the morning. I went upstairs and showed her the pics, and said “that is not my responsibility but I expect it to get cleaned up”. She goes down after an hour or so and cleans it for about 2 hours. She is super exhausted. We complain to each other about how much of a slob and how inconsiderate that was to treat a place that, while your mother and sister live there, you don’t live at.

Next morning, [S]'s friend had stayed another night, similar deal in the kitchen. I am both in shock and also not at all surprised. My girlfriend cleans it up again. We are both quite upset about this weekend. [S] goes back to her dad’s that evening, and I tell my girlfriend “I never want another weekend like that one again”. The next weekend approaches, 2 weeks from Halloween. I ask my girlfriend “do the girls have any plans for Halloween?”. “Oh yeah, I told them each they could have a friend over.” “Okay, so the two girls and two more friends.” “Well [S] wants 4 friends over” “Hold up, FOUR?! That’s like a birthday party with 2 weeks notice, and I only find out because I happened to ask? After last weekend I really want to say that she can have 0 friends over” “Well how is she supposed to learn responsibility if we don’t give her a chance?” I sigh and reply “Fine, that actually makes sense. The one friend is fine IF you have a conversation with her about her disrespect and overall slopiness and tell her she has to clean up after herself. Unless you want me to talk to her.” “No, I’ll talk to her, that’s fair. She isn’t good with rigidness and you can be rigid so I’ll talk to her. She is old enough to clean up after herself, even if she doesn’t like to.” “Okay. fine. 1 friend, and you talk to her and make sure she cleans up this time, and doesn’t create as much mess to begin with if you can.”

few days pass and I’m told: “Does that projector work for [S]'s laptop? I wanna take them to the park and let them watch a movie there if the 5 of them can’t be here.” “It depends on her video out options, but I could probably make it work. Does the park have power outlets? That projector doesn’t use a battery.” “[silence]” me again: “Okay, I’m not trying to throw a wrench in your plans, I was just trying to make sure if I needed to get the portable power bank thing hooked up and ready” “it really would be easier if they could just be on the back porch then” “Ugh, I told you I don’t want that many kids here, and why, and we came to an understanding, or I thought we did, and you are still trying.” “They’ll just be on the back porch, it’ll be fine” “Yeah, until one of them needs to pee, or gets sick, or even just gets cold. Gosh if one gets cold, they are all gonna wanna be inside together and not leave them alone, and we are back to what we agreed not to do.” “I just want to spend time with my kid! What is so wrong with that?!” “No one said you couldn’t spend time with your kid. We just don’t need to bring 4 other people’s kids too. Ugh now I feel like shit again and don’t want them on the property at all.” (It is my grandmother’s property that I manage for her as she is bed bound with mild dementia at the same house as us).

I go downstairs to do some dishes and unwind with something productive. and it occurs to me. 1 Girlfriend + 1 [S] + 4 friends = 6 people. She drives a 5 seat car. I stop dishes and go upstairs.

“How do you plan to fit 6 people in your 5 seat car? Cause if I have to use my grandmother’s SUV like we did for the water park, I’m roped right back into something I really don’t have energy for. I am sick, I am tired, and [S] has not shown responsibility? Why would I reward that with 4 times the effort?”

“[blank stare]”

“So is any of this planned, or are you just coming to me with it hoping I perform a miracle and save the day? Someone must always be at the house for my grandmother. I can’t help. And I’m sick.”

“Fine let me message her and tell her we need at least 1 less person”

another week goes by, 2 days before Halloween:

Me, watching my tv, having good morning, very happy, starting to feel not sick for the first time in almost a month gets a nice back rub from my girlfriend and asked: “so i was thinking, since she and her 4 friends want to do pumpkin carving, maybe we could use the back porch”

I turn around: “what the fuck, I thought we agreed, and how did you solve the car problem if not?”

“oh well I rented a hotel room so we could all be there that night since I can’t have my kids here”

“I NEVER SAID YOUR KIDS COULDN’T BE HERE. One of them is literally in the room on the opposite of our wall. I said 6 kids couldn’t be here, but 4 is fine, if [S] is talked to about responsibility, but, correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think you talked to [S] about responsibility, and that was your responsibility”

[silent stare] followed by “You treat my kid like some sort of monster!”

“No, I do not. She has never felt comfortable here even once and you said so yourself that it is because I like to keep things clean. I have a dying grandmother, I am sick, I am injured, I have never had children before in any relationship, let alone living in the house I’m responsible for. You have failed time and again to address the concerns you told me you would address and I shouldn’t. Then you keep coming back trying to make your desires happen, after we had a compromise. Maybe she avoids responsibility because she doesn’t have someone to show her how, and since I’m responsible for so much, maybe that’s why she doesn’t like it here. But I really don’t want to have this argument so I’m going. The caregiver will be here in a couple hours. I’ll leave her money out, Please greet her and help her with anything like I do, every time.”

So i went out. Took recycling to the recycling center, went to a beauty shop, got Nair, checked out Gamestop and found a game I had been looking for for a year now preowned at a price in the range I told myself I’d accept in advance. Took it to the counter “Wow, I literally put that out on the shelf like 5 minutes before you walked in. Put out a steelbook too but I snatched that for myself since 2 copies of the game came in and I’m a huge fan of the series” I felt super lucky, was about to feel super smooth, and I got a chore I couldn’t get done while I was sick out of the way. I cheered up. Decided when I go in to just be happy, not bring up the subject, hopefully she had time to think about what I said.

She tells me shortly after I get back, without my prompting, just my joy from my luck showing: “I’m sorry, I know I definitely provoked that one and should have known better how you’d feel with what we had discussed”

We kiss, we make up, it was nice.

Night before: 1 friend comes over as the test, all goes well that night. Sweet

Next morning:

“Hey, what time do you and the girls plan on leaving?”

“Oh about 30 minutes when the others get here”

“Oh okay nice. I went downstairs to help my grandmother get up, and saw you already took care of her. Thank you. But I also saw the kitchen was still messy from breakfast. Did you talk to [S] about the responsibility thing?”

“UGH, You can’t just ask me that 30 minutes before I leave, It’ll ruin her day”

“I asked you this 2 weeks ago, with this day as the agreed target date. I only just found out you had 30 minutes left so I actually asked asap today”

“Why do you insist on putting this burden on me!? I can’t be expected to get ready and do dishes in 30 minutes. You knew I woke up at 10:30, that should tell you how long I have left”

“Okay, I’m not putting burden on you, we agreed this was [S]'s burden. Also, When you wake up tells me nothing about the departure time. If it did you should have gotten frustrated when I asked about when you leave as it should’ve been obvious, but you are just deflecting and hiding behind paper thin arguments that don’t even logically make sense about something we agreed upon before hand. I put no burden on you, you just piled your burden you took yourself, that I offered to handle, into a corner until the day of cleaning came and got upset I asked you to handle the burden. That doesn’t magically not make it your responsibility.”

“Omg I am so done with you, Fine I’ll go tell her to clean the kitchen as you command”

“I didn’t command fuck all, we had a discussion over something we were BOTH upset by, and had an agreement, and found a pretty solid compromise, or so I thought, and then when asked for a status update you accuse me of being some sort of dictator. Well let me dictate the order of events from the last 2 weeks. but if you don’t want to take responsibility, fine, but rent the room for longer, because you and your girls don’t live here. I want you all and all your stuff out by Thanksgiving. If it isn’t gone when you are, it isn’t yours.” (We have had several fights over how much stuff she brought in when I helped her get a storage unit and move out of her last place when she was suddenly evicted – that’s another migraine and also the leg injury kinda largely came from that too)

a solid 30 minutes to hour passes of full on yelling, she tries to cut me off as I recount the story, I repeat NO I WILL PAINT THIS PICTURE FOR YOU TO GRASP IN ITS ENTIRETY, UGLY AND ALL SO YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS COGNITIVE DISSONANCE OR WHATEVER IT IS THAT KEEPS UNDERMINING MY VERY HOUSEHOLD AND MENTAL HEALTH AND OUR RELATIONSHIP.

It felt like I was erupting, like every thing piled on top of me suddenly became too much and I threw it right back with full force. I felt sick after. I felt like my father. Her kids and friends heard everything from the room over. I felt, naked, and I wanted nothing more than to make her feel naked with me for treating me the way she had. I told her how much I hate the lack of romance and just blatant sexualization of my body. How when I came upstairs to bed 4 nights before after our date, sobbing into the mattress, I couldn’t bring myself to trust her to properly empathize with the truth, so I held it back. (It occurred to me that night, that not even can I not have a life outside the house because of taking care of my grandmother, I can’t have a life inside my house – and I told her that much – but I didn’t tell her the part that I had finally internalized that I can’t even make life inside of me like most women can. And I told her I just feel like I am denied life as a whole. That all I can have is death, and my dying grandmother, and a dying house that I can’t afford to take care of without someone with me. And held this back too – I realized I had stayed with her as long as I did because she helped with my grandmother where I couldn’t, and she provided, albeit minimal, time for me to get out maybe twice a month to do some errands, and that I was having a hard time thinking there was even life in our relationship.

I wrote her a few notes, pretty hands off where I can be, just tried to let her know I don’t want her homeless but I don’t think it will work out here with us in any way long term, but I am willing to try to extend the date or hear out what she needs so I might be able to make it easier as she leaves. And that I believe in mercy and forgiveness for people who make efforts to repair things, but she just responded not to talk to her or her children. She walks by me in the house as though I’m not even there. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t talk to me. Her daughter (not [S] but the one who lives here) is doing the same. I still told her daughter today that how I treated her mother was in no way right, but I am trying to offer her an easier way out of here that a hard deadline, and how I know she (the daughter) prides herself on hearing both sides, and I won’t harass her, but if she wants to hear my side, I am willing to tell it to her should she come to me.

I feel hungover every morning and during the day since then. My appetite is shot. My eyes are sore as I try to distract myself with my phone or laptop. I met with an HVAC tech quoter guy today about repairing or replacing a unit in the house, and before he was out the door, I was rushing the opposite way and bawled my eyes out for a solid few minutes before gaining a grasp again, because I have no way to afford a new heating unit, hardly a new drain pan, if I can, to keep my grandmother warm in winter. I just feel like failure incarnate. I feel gross, and yet when I look in the mirror, I have never found myself looking more feminine, and I hate that this is how I’m birthing my new identity. Everything feels like death. I’m not suicidal, that would leave my grandmother stranded, and for the first time in my adulthood i’ve been learning to love myself. I just feel like I’m denied a chance at life from the get go.