An analogy I wrote
Imagine I bought you Taylor Swift tickets.
You’re very excited. The day of the concert, I just sell the concert tickets and tell you after. I just didn’t feel like going.
“I’ll make it up to you I’ll get tickets for the next show”. And I do. Get tickets anyway. And promise we will go this time.
Next show rolls around, and we pull up to the concert. I see the long line and the loud noises and our child (let’s call her Jacee) had been stressing me out the whole week before that and I’m exhausted. I say I just can’t do it today; I find someone to buy the tickets, again, because I don’t feel good so I just decide we can’t go, and you’re upset, but you get over it. And I just keep doing that again, and again, and again, and again, buying every single ticket for every single Taylor Swift concert, promising you the tickets. Handing you the ticket and promising. And backing out every. single. Time. until you get so fed up, and don’t even want to believe me anymore. You don’t want to believe any promise I make. This is a cycle that goes on for months, maybe even years.
But I buy the tickets one more time for the next show and I double pinky swear we’re gonna go this time. I even lock it in with a kiss. I look you in the eyes with the most sincere look, and tell you I really mean it this time. “We’re gonna go, and it’s gonna be the best day of our life”
The day of the show, I shower, get dressed for the concert. You’re finally excited. I’m showing some enthusiasm. You get your hopes up for what feels like the final time. We even drive to the stadium. We’re waiting in line. I grab something to eat at the concession stand.
My stomach begins to hurt, and even know you told me it would make that would happen, I got it anyway because I thought it would be fine. I say I need a minute if we can wait in the car, but I say we’ll still go, I just need a bit. We wait and we wait. You’re eager to go. Concert showtime starts. My stomach is still hurting. Concert hits the halfway done mark, and we’re still in the car.
My stomach isn’t hurting enough to ruin my day by itself, but enough for me to decide to stay in the car, because the thought of that long walk doesn’t feel worth it. You look at me hurt. We go home and you don’t even say anything on the ride home. It’s happened so many times you feel like a fool for even believing it. But you remember the look I had in my eyes, and how sincere I was, the double pinky promise, locking it in. Sure it sounds childish replaying it in your head now, but in the moment, I really meant that; or so you thought. You go about your life. Replaying that in your head for a few more days, but after a few it just starts to blend with all the other times I lied. I tell you “I’m just really not interested in Taylor Swift anymore. I used to be, but I just don’t anymore. And you can’t make me.”
You feel depressed, like you did something to make this happen, but you’re doing your best; you feel like I can’t love you even at your best. “If I wasn’t enough then with all the effort I was putting in, then why keep trying”. You’ve given up.
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And then, without telling you, I go to the next concert anyway. Without you. I get good seats, I enjoy myself, and I don’t tell you about any of it, and you wouldn’t have known, but you found the ticket, it had fallen out of my pants on the bed, with the tab already torn off, used. I had gone to the concert. You only wonder how much more fun it would have been if I was with you, and it hurts.
Not like a, “you’re a douchebag get out of my house” kind of hurt; but more like a “do you even love me” kind of hurt. You don’t want to get mad about it just because you didn’t get to go. All of the other promises were for different concerts. I didn’t even tell you about this one, and you told me not to even invite you anymore because you were sick of being lied to.
It’s a twisting feeling. You’re obviously hurt, but you’re at a point you don’t even know how to verbalize your pain. As soon as you say anything, you sound entitled. “It is a concert he wanted to go to by himself, he didn’t have to invite” you think to yourself. Knowing damn well why you’re hurting. You just can’t find a way to say the words without sounding like you just want me for the concerts. So you stay hurting, thinking about all of the promises.
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END- (do not read this until you’re done with the rest)
Flip the script now and make it sex instead of converts. That’s what I’m going through.
The part where she finds the used ticket was me finding her vibrator hidden under her pillow. Obviously I don’t give a damn about her masturbating, but when she has told me she just doesn’t have interest in being sexual or orgasming anymore, it feels like a blatant lie.
And I obviously could have made the story longer mentioning “all the concerts we went to before we had our child” but I think you get the point.