One forward, two back

That's what Ryan told me yesterday. He said everytime we take one step forward, we take two steps back. The comment totally pissed me off. I'll explain (and don't be surprised if this gets long - I have a lot to say today):

Sunday we were going to take the dogs to the dog park somewhere. I decided to be extremely nice and open and invite him down to my parent's house instead so we wouldn't be limited on time and so all the dogs could play together (most of the parks have size restrictions which means Max would be separated from the other 2). Was I nervous about him coming down and spending time there? Hell yeah I was. But I figured it would be fine.

And it really was fine. He was really weird at the beginning and when we went to pick up pizza later he said he just felt reall awkward. Which was completely understandable and all. But I did have to pry that out of him which I found pretty annoying. Anyhow, so the night went well. At times it felt like things were back to normal. But back to normal isn't necessarily a good thing. I found myself wondering what it was he would complain about later on the phone.

The good news is that he didn't complain later. In fact, we actually had a really good conversation. I realized that even though things may change between he and I, I'm not sure if things will ever be what I want them to be. Let me explain - when he and I got engaged and married, we were young. There is no denying that. I was 20 and he was 21 when we got engaged. And we were married 2 years later. I had just graduated college a month before and even though he graduated a year before me, he was still living with his parents and had only been working for 8 months. Neither of us had really experienced "real life" and had never really had to fend for ourselves in any way. I'm not saying we were too young necessarily because there are couples out there that make it work all the time. What I am saying, is maybe we were too immature to make such a life commitment. We both come from very different family lives and have found that interfering with our relationship. My family is very loud and outgoing and giving while his is much more introverted and considerate of other people talking (mine totally isn't! haha). We never went through anything super hard together. We never went through the stresses of life such as large purchases or anything like that. Our relationship was definitely built and maintained over the phone and email. I'm just afraid that we really did make a stupid choice.

Anyhow, back to the original post - the 2 steps back. So Sunday evening Ryan told me that I should bring one or both of the dogs up when I go to pick my contacts up from the eye doctor and we can have dinner together. I never commited to it and told him we would see. Well, I decided not to. My dad was running coax to the rooms in the house that don't have it and I was going to help him. I called Ryan and told him I wouldn't be coming over but we'll have dinner together Friday to celebrate his birthday (which is on Sunday but I have to work). He got weird and then got off the phone rather quickly. I knew he was upset I wasn't coming up, but I really do have other stuff to do.

So he called me later and I was putting together some shelves so I said I'd call him back. Well I really did forget to and remember about an hour and a half later. I called, and he was already sleeping. So I didn't keep him on the phone and just said we'd talk tomorrow. About 3 minutes later, he called me back and was angry with me. I apologized for forgetting to call, but that's all it was. If I really intended to purposely forget, I wouldn't have called at all. Then he proceeds to tell me how we took one step forward but two steps back. I'm sorry, what? We just spent an entire day together with my family and you are telling me that simply because I chose to pick my contacts up earlier in the day and not eat dinner with you our relationship took two steps back? Now, I know in my head I'm being a dramatic girl in some ways about this. But honestly, I think he's being stupid about the whole thing.

It's not like I ever fully commited to have dinner with him. It's not like he had to rearrange his entire day to have dinner with me and then I cancelled on him anyhow. And if it really was that big of a deal to him, why couldn't he tell me when I called to tell him I wasn't coming down for dinner? Instead, he waited until 11:30 that night to tell me how he really felt.

Honestly, I'm stuck on the whole two steps back thing. It makes me feel that what I do give him and what I am trying to work with isn't enough. And that frustrates me to no end.