keeping your word

Warning: bitch ahead

I spent hours last weekend trying to get things figured out to fax to Dayton, and the fax number he gave me didn't work. He said he'd try to find another fax that works, and he'd send it to me by Wednesday.

"Ok. But honey, you know that if you don't, I'll be upset."
"Yeah, I know."

Guess who didn't. And as time drew closer, whom I sent messages to reminding him how important it is that I hear from him.

He hates my ultimatums, and he absolutely cannot stand when I "pressure" him. But not nearly as much as I hate his unwillingness to always, without fail, do as he says. And that he KNOWS that it makes me upset and angry and hurt and STILL does it?

Inexcusable.

So after texting him to fuck off this morning, I told him he just broke up with me. Because yeah, there's more - after trying to call him yesterday, I realized that he turned off his phone at 10:30 pm his time. OK, I'm his girlfriend, and I get to call him in the middle of the fucking night if I want to. I don't, but I can. And he owes me a huge explanation - which he STILL has not tendered.

Because if this were the first time he'd ever done this, it wouldn't be a big deal. But 14 months ago, he did it for the first time, when we were supposed to get married. And then again 10 months ago, when he didn't actually get divorced in a ceremony (it's an implicit divorce). And then again so many times.

Is it a deal-breaker? Yeah. Because I'm not going to live a life where I wait for hours outside where he'd supposed to pick me up, because he doesn't show up when he's supposed to. Or when I call him that I'm in labor and to meet me at the hospital, but he shows up much later. Or he says he'll get a job and then doesn't.

People who know him say he would never do that to me, that he knows the difference between the important things and the not-as-important.

But if *I* say it's important, then it's important. He doesn't get to determine what's important and what isn't to me. I would have been disappointed if he hadn't gotten another fax number and had texted me that, but I would not have hit the roof like I have now.

Every time I try to call him, it takes hours to get through. It's a huge chunk of my time which I don't have to give now. But does he call me? Very rarely. He doesn't consider it necessary. He says soon enough we'll be together and can talk all the time. He was better for quite a while, but now this?

This doesn't work for me. He says I always want things 100% my way, but I *never* get things my way, and then he digs in his heels and gets stubborn. "When you love somebody," I explained, "it means that you do things JUST because they want you to. Whether you want to or not. Not always, and that's not what I'm asking of you. But how hard is it to take the 2 minutes to send me a text message and make me happy?"

I texted some pretty mean things to him when I couldn't talk to him, and I know he's stewing at me right now. I don't know if we'll work it out. I know that this is easily a distance thing that wouldn't even be a problem if we were together physically - but we're not. And he clearly needs a review of the [Insert My Name Here] Maintenance Manual.

Of course it feels like my entire world is falling apart, the thought of not being with him forever. But I won't be a fool. And he has more to lose than I do, so if he's going to be stupid, it's his problem. The thing is that we're NOT married, and he's already taking me for granted. What's that make the next 50 years look like? Bleak.