I was thinking about the seven-month mark. With Joni, by seven months what did we have? She had already moved in with me, I had already discovered that her older son was not what she had claimed, and we had uncovered that everything she had told me had been a lie. With Leah, by seven months we already had an "episode" (I'm not sure what to call it) where she was convinced she had been possessed by an ex-boyfriend. In both cases, their agenda was very clear by this point. Joni's agenda was to convince me to let her and her family move in, and she had succeeded. With Leah, her agenda was to convince me to let her move in, and while she hadn't moved in yet we were already making plans for that.
Jen has joked about me moving up to New York, but so far I'm not seeing any sign of an agenda from her.
Part of the reason things have gone so well with Jen is that there is very little pressure in our relationship: I'm not here to save her from anything. Most of the time, our relationship is on weekends, and that has been fine for us. This allowed us to maintain the fact that our lives are separate. The distance means that we don't go to the movies together all that often, and that also means that we don't need to be interested in the same sorts of movies. She doesn't like all of my friends and I don't like all of her friends, but we don't need to. This summer, she has spent a great deal of time with me, essentially "moving in", but this has just been for the summer. This has led to us ponder living together. That would intertwine our lives far more, and that introduces a ton of bridges that we would have to cross when the time comes.
Consider this past weekend. I headed up on Friday to New York City. Jen picked me up, and from that point on I didn't have to do anything but enjoy myself. Two of her friends had birthday parties that weekend. We went to one on Friday Night. On Saturday, we headed up to Woodstock, and then went to another of her friend's parties. I had to arrange to get myself up to New York City, and beyond that . . . nothing. After Leah, I find myself wondering if there was something important I was supposed to be doing. I found myself wondering why I wasn't feeling stressed. If I wasn't stressed . . . was I doing something wrong?
Jen initially didn't want anything to do with my kids, and seven months later she is actually quite nuts about them. She is especially close to Jay. For Joni, getting close to my kids was part of her agenda: she was trying to arrange things so that I felt like I needed her. Leah, on the other hand, pretended to love my kids just until she felt she could count on being able to move in with me. Once she had what she wanted, she didn't need to pretend to like them. The kids also love Jen. They loved Joni, but saw that Joni made tons of promises and never followed through with anything. They gave Leah a chance, but seriously did not like her. As for Jen? Jen welcomed them to stay at her apartment (Jay was going on about that for quite a while). Jen took them to Broadway. And they find that they really enjoy spending time with her.
We did have one issue early on. Jen does not share, and that led to some issues early on. Five years ago, this would have been a show-stopper, as I insisted on open relationships. Now, I'm at a place where that wasn't working for me and I didn't find myself wanting it. I decided to give "monogamy" a try, and with Jen I'm actually enjoying myself. This might be a sign that I'm getting old, but I don't mind that.
So, seven months and no red flags. We're happy and we're enjoying time with each other. And we can see eight and nine and ten months ahead of us! And we are pondering plans for next summer, thinking we will still be together. I'm not going to jinx things by saying "maybe my time has finally come", but maybe it has.
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