u/okspraybottle

Hi all, I’m looking for a book similar to “Really Good, Actually” by Monica Heisey.

It’s about a woman in her late 20s dealing with the first year after her divorce. So I’m looking for books about:
- Realistic fiction or maybe a memoir/autobiography of an interesting woman (first person POV preferred)
- Relatable, adult women
- Punchy, cheeky attitude; a lot of personality, feels like someone who could be your friend, realistic and not over-the-top
- Has a story that includes heartbreak and romance, but ultimately it’s about her trying to be okay with being single again (some romance is okay, finding yourself is must-have)
- Sort-of coming-of-age in your adult years, understanding yourself (ultimately just “wow get therapy” but unironically)
- Ends up more hopeful vs. just dreary and depressing (but can be depressing somewhat)
- Easy read, isn’t too heavy, feels almost like getting tea from a friend

Not looking for:
- outright abusive relationships
- any kind of sci-fi or romantasy

Thanks in advance! Please give a little synopsis of what books you’re sharing too, it helps me make a decision!

edit: a few books I also recently enjoyed include:
- “Sociopath: A Memoir” by Patric Gagne (memoir detailing her life with sociopathy)
- “Essays in Love” by Alain de Botton (philosophical exploration of a modern romance from infatuation to heartbreak, told through the relationship between a narrator and his girlfriend)
- “Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion” by Tori Telfer (true-crime book profiling notorious female con artists throughout history)

31f, 36m

TLDR at the end.

Yesterday was his birthday. He traditionally feels down and crumby on his birthday but he told me he wanted to do something. It was a Wednesday, so I took Thursday and Friday off so we can have a couple of days for a sleepover at his place and then have the weekends for ourselves to rest before work again on Monday. He’s been off for the last week and a half and goes back to work on Monday as a therapist, which I think he clearly feels burnt out from but that’s another story.

Wednesday, I work all day finishing a report, which takes a lot of mental energy. I also volunteer at a cat shelter every other week and Wednesday was another shift. I’m also just running around to prepare for our sleepover - I buy pastries (in lieu of a bday cake), candles, prep a gift, pick up groceries, and cater to my cats since I’ll be gone for two days (they have automatic stuff). The thing is, one of my cats recently got surgery to get some teeth removed, so I’ve been watching how he eats and if he can handle dry food, which is in the automatic feeder (can’t put in wet food in the auto feeder). I was concerned and I told bf that, that there’s a chance I might forgo coming after work on Wednesday if cat isn’t eating well. He seemed to be doing okay so I decided to come over.

I tell bf I’m on my way. Notably, bf made a slight complaint about us going out to eat a lot (and wasting money) so I sent him cash for groceries since we’ll be at his place and he like to cook, I’m just offering to cover groceries to help out and I usually clean up afterwards. Turns out he didn’t even go grocery shopping and instead wanted to order in Thai food for dinner. It’s his bday, so I say whatever works.

I come over by 730pm but I’m also just tired. I wasn’t enthusiastic enough to see him apparently. Bf instantly picks up on this but interprets it as me not wanting to see him but doesn’t say anything. The thai food arrived, we eat dinner and eat pastries. I give him his gift and we blow out a candle. He tells me about how birthdays are weird for him and I agreed. I even emphasize that I understand most people want to be catered to or celebrated on their birthday, so I act in that way as default unless someone tells me otherwise, but personally, I’m not very big on birthdays myself. Then I told him story about my dad who is very self-involved every year on his own birthday, but my dad was acting outrageous in this one anecdote (I’m pretty sure my dad is a malignant narcissist) compared to anything bf has done, but he took it as me complaining about having to celebrate his birthday and that it must be a chore for me to be here, but doesn’t say anything.

Then post-dinner, bf admitted he didn’t have anything planned for us despite wanting to do something for his bday. I say it’s fine because I’m tired anyway and I ask what would he be doing if I wasn’t here. He said he’d be looking for a movie to watch, so I said sure he can put on a movie, but I asked if it was okay for me to just chill on my phone next to him to wind down because I had a long day. He seemed upset. Then he revealed all these things that he didn’t mention earlier, about how he’s been almost collecting evidence of me “not wanting to be here” at all. How I didn’t greet him enthusiastically. How we just sat down to eat and barely talk. How I don’t even want to do something together for the rest of the night. I told him that me not wanting to be here wasn’t true at all. I came with gifts, after a long day, after feeling anxious about my cat, after prepping to be here for a few days, after taking time off, and I still showed up for him. He said I wasn’t even excited for a second, barely want to hang out with him or even talk to him, and then complained about my dad who takes birthdays over the top. I told him he was nothing like my dad and I was just telling a story about weird birthdays and it was nothing reflecting of him. I wasn’t sure why he was looking for reasons to be upset with me but the minute I came over, he was already upset and looked for reasons to then also be upset with me or something. Then he starts getting upset, feeling extremely ashamed, and doesn’t speak.

This goes on for hours. Him sulking but not really saying anything. He says he’s sorry for acting out and accusing me of being uninterested especially after pointing out all the stuff I’ve been doing, but then feels angry that I point out all the stuff I’ve done to prove I want to be here. An example is this (very simplified):

him: (sad, distressed) it’s like you don’t even want to be around me…
me: (insistent) that’s not true! here’s all the stuff i’ve done, this and this and this, etc. of course i want to be here! i’m not even sure where you’re getting that from?
him: (almost angry) yeah, you did do so much for me, i’m such an asshole for not realizing it earlier, what’s wrong with me? why do you even put up with me? you must hate me.

And then he sits and shame spirals and goes mute and is convinced I hate him. I try to talk to him and tell him it’s okay, I know he’s been feeling off today, birthdays are weird and there’s a lot of pressure to enjoy them or perform and pretend to be happy but it’s okay if he’s feeling upset. I even played a song that goes “it’s my party, I can cry if I want to.” I told him about an anecdote from my childhood when I cried on my birthday and my cousin was really nice to me afterwards. I sit with him and try to reassure him but he’s insistent now that I must hate him and I don’t want to be around him. I keep trying to talk to him and hold his hand but he doesn’t say anything. I just let him process his emotions.

He tries to share about himself in trying to explain his behavior. I reply back and I’m not sure exactly what I said, but it, again, set him off and he stormed out of the room. I wasn’t even sure what happened but later on, he explained that he didn’t like that I interrupted him explaining himself or something (honestly I’m still not sure what happened there). At the time though, I figured he just needed space to sit by himself and process something. By this point it’s like 10-11pm and I’m falling asleep, watching a video on my phone. He comes over again and wakes me up and I’m cranky. He wanted me to come to the bedroom but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea because I want to actually go to sleep but it sounds like he wants to talk. I end up going to the bedroom and again we’re fighting about the same stuff we were fighting about earlier.

About how was already looking for reasons to get mad at me. How I’m not reassuring enough even though I was reassuring but he was so convinced that nothing I said really mattered because I “already hate him” and in the end, he’s the one that left the room. But it’s because I interrupted him or said the wrong thing and it wasn’t reassuring enough or patient enough so now he’s upset again. And I try to express that I’m also feeling frustrated now because all of this is happening when frankly, I DONT EVEN KNOW WHATS GOING ON. And then he’s upset that I’m upset at him now and he throws back in my face about times when I’m upset and he has to cater to my feelings but right now, I’m not even being reassuring or giving him a hug. I told him I wasn’t sure what he wants from me because I do reassure him and then he goes mute, refutes every nice thing I can say, or storms out of the room. Nothing I do is ever enough. It’s like he literally wants me to fawn over his bad, hurt feelings that are all my fault apparently when he was in a bad mood already. And it’s like the minute I came over, I was already getting criticized for something, I have to present a certain way or he’ll assume something is wrong, or nothing I can say is the right thing or at the right time. I wondered, how can you blame me for wanting to sleep in the other room when being around you is so difficult right now?

I knew he was feeling sour that day. I knew birthdays are hard for him. I kept wondering how could we have avoided this? If he was feeling sulky and moody, he could’ve told me maybe Wednesday night isn’t a good idea. Or he could’ve communicated what he wanted to do for the night, something like he needed a lot of calmness and reassurance that night because birthdays make him feel “worthless” (something he said, but didn’t want to go into. I asked but he didn’t want to talk about it) and he just wants to feel loved. Instead, I get accused of something I’m not even doing and then he explains that he’s just been in a “bad mood” all day and feeling “extra sensitive” and he is “just crazy about me and it makes him act crazy”. I told him that it doesn’t make his behavior okay, and then he goes on the shame spiral again. This goes on until 2am. I fall asleep on the couch in the living room because I just can’t do it anymore.

Frankly, I don’t know what his problem is. I think he has deep rooted issues about his birthday (or something?) and his expectations around them, or how he was parentified as a child (which he won’t admit to but it is what happened, another story for later) and how he has to listen to his mom every year tell the story about him being born and how it was so stressful and anxiety inducing for her (he was premature and it was a maternal pregnancy). Frankly, there’s so much to still unpack here that I’m not sure it’s even scratching the surface. It appeared that having to be emotionally available for his mom put him in a bad mood or doing this every year really upsets him. Then now he wants someone else to carry the burden of his sulky emotions and when I don’t (nor do think it’s fair to me especially after a long day, after him not communicating nicely at all, and after doing so much for him already, I’m pouring from an empty cup here) he then punishes me for it. He said he was feeling bad all day, then he thought seeing me would make him feel better. But, in my view, since I wasn’t perky enough and I didn’t make him feel better, he lashes out at me and throws a tantrum.

To top it off, he asked “what should I do?” in terms of how to do better than this and I told him he should talk to a professional and then he got offended because he felt like I was giving him a “treatment plan” instead of being “reassuring” and he’s upset that he needs to accept that “something is so wrong with him that he needs to talk to someone about it” - when it’s like, dude, you’re a therapist. There’s nothing wrong with talking to someone so it’s a bit backwards you feel so strongly about needing a therapist yourself. Like it’s perpetuating a stigma that just because you’re talking to a professional, there must be some massive, unsightly defect. Maybe people just need someone to process something with? The entire argument was bizarre. He says he will do better but frankly, this isn’t the first time he takes a very small suspicion he has and turns it into this big thing in his imagination and then it becomes an argument. So I don’t even know honestly.

TLDR: I did a lot to prep for bf’s birthday but he was already in a bad place and it spiraled into a whole thing. It feels like he’s manufacturing reasons to be mad at me, then gets ashamed for doing so, then gets mad at me for not reassuring him enough, then refutes all my reassurances, then acts kind of insane and doesn’t take much accountability for it it seems…? Like he will apologize and know that his behavior is wrong but doesn’t really have insight into why he even does his behavior in the first place. He also got mad at me for suggesting he see a therapist. What do I do?

Note: Before you say “this sounds exhausting, just dump him”, please know that I don’t intend on dumping him (at least not yet) but I’m wondering if anyone else had something like this happen, where a molehill became a mountain? Why do people act like this? How do I understand it and let it go? Frankly I’m still confused but I also don’t find him to be a good communicator.

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