So much so fast

I met someone in November and we started dating more regularly in February. As lockdown kicked in, he was living with two older parents and suddenly we weren't seeing each other at all. After 3 weeks of that I let him know that lots of the rooms in my house in South London were empty, did he want to come and stay?

I went to go and collect him and was nervous as anything, awkwardly having a socially distanced tea with his mum and playing it cool as he packed an extraordinary amount into my car.

I gave him his own room to spread out in, and gave him a tour of the house that first night, on mushrooms to ease him in, so he would feel at home. He ended up giving me a tour of my own broom cupboard.

That first week he asked me to be his girlfriend. So much happened. He was polyamorous when we met and closed down another relationship to focus on ours. It felt complicated that we were coming from such different places in terms of the romantic ideologies we'd been living by. At first I said I was curious about the poly thing and up for trying it. That remains true, but it felt difficult and not particularly empowering that he already had a number of partners and I didn't - I felt like I wanted us to start our relationship together and open it up at a later stage when we'd built some foundations.

Things weren't always easy. We were learning each other - spending every night together. I asked for him to go home to spend a week there after about 5 weeks, because I wanted to see what our communication would be like when we were apart, and have a bit of a breather. It was terrible. I found him a bit absent and silent. I couldn't understand why he wasn't in touch more. He came back and we were both hurt. He said he'd been low and having a difficult time. I wish I'd never asked him to leave and just stuck with the intensity of what it was.

My house folded during lockdown, I've lived there for a number of years. It was hugely destabilising, my familiar community folding around me, as we all found new places to live. 

I've moved to a house in Peckham, and the room is too small for me, I've had to get some storage down the road. He moved too, to a house share in East London. We've been finding our groove fitting in my full time work schedule around his freelance, weekend based one.

We went on holiday to Kent, and he made a comment in that fragile time after sex, about how if we continued to have sex missionary style he would burn out. I took it badly, feeling as though I was receiving a complaint. It triggered some shit that I have left behind from a previous very destructive relationship. 

I felt so hurt there, and he did too. I think we're both emotional people who feel things deeply. It was hard to row back from. Our sex life suffered , these past few weeks. I felt disempowered, conscious in a way I hadn't been before, when I'd felt like i'd been lost in a squishy dream with him. I felt like I had to find new ways to please him or that he would leave. There felt like an unfair pressure there, and I felt isolated, when previously we'd been approaching our sex as a pair.

Over the last couple of weeks I felt that things had entered into a more positive groove. I felt more at ease with our communication and the regularity of seeing each other. I felt like I could trust him, and the fact that he would be in touch - I felt more assured. Our sex remained a bit of a tricky arena sometimes, but we discussed how we would work on this, doing a wheel of consent and buying sex toys. 

It was my birthday - we spent the day together and he was so generous - bought me a silver braceletI loved, we went on a picnic - just super generous. I had a birthday party, he told me he loved me, I told him I loved him too. He came camping for one of my best friends birthdays, meeting more friends, on Monday he came for dinner with my family.

On Wednesday evening we went out for dinner and got into a sticky conversation about his career - he's not completely sure what he's doing and I wanted to discuss it with him, I wanted to be there for him, and to help. It was difficult, touching something soft and things got a bit tense. 

I'm going to move house again, this time into a flat on my own - we'd touched on living together again before and I wanted to let him know that the offer was on the table if he wanted that - that I’d like him to live with me. I knew that he was enjoying being in East London and living in a house share but I wanted him to know that the offer was there for him before I made other plans. I even had a tinge of hope that he might say Fuck it le’ts do it, but he didn't - he wanted to stick, as I suspected.

Things got strained that evening, I suppose I felt rejected. He wanted to have sex when we got home, and I didn't. When he was stroking my back on the bed I didn't want him to touch me. I think I felt unsafe and rejected.

Yesterday morning he broke up with me, saying he's felt uncertain the past few weeks, and that he wasn't sure how much feeling bruised and sad was worth the great stuff. He said he'd felt terrified he hadn't done enough for my birthday. He said he felt like there were core things missing from our connection, and they weren't things he wanted to sacrifice. It didn't feel like the conversation was planned, but by the end of it he seemed pretty sure that he had to listen to what his internal voice was saying. So I said that that sounded clear, and I left.

I'm feeling pretty strange and sad - it was so sudden. I'm walking around with this chunky silver bracelet on my arm wondering what I should get it turned into. I wonder about contacting him to see if we can work things out, because it was all so sudden and seemed pretty out of the blue from where I'm standing. The trajectory of it doesn't quite make sense.

I'm a fairly astute person, I feel like I'd have been able to read if this was coming all along, and it disturbs me that I had no idea. I'm not sure he had any idea. I feel like things escalated and neither one of us stepped in to calm things down and just put the brakes on for a second. It occurred to me at the time to smile, try and keep things light, be objective and solutions focused and say 'hey just one minute , hold on there, its all ok' - but I've played that role before. The practical producer to someones uncertainty. I'm not playing it again - it's not a healthy dynamic to have between two people.

I think there's a huge amount between us. It wasn't plain sailing, but we both went through some destabilising stuff over lockdown - we did something tricky together, cohabiting after such a short amount of time, doing so much so fast. We did hurt each other. In my experience love is hard as it is joyful. He thought it was too hard. I thought with us, the hard outweighed the good.

I don't want to torture myself - he inspired me to go on a silent meditation course back in January. The message was acceptance, endurance, and that this too shall pass, just do nothing and observe. That’s what I'm sticking with, though my cravings tell me otherwise, though what I really want to do is get in touch and try to work things out. I'm simply accepting it being over and being here in this moment with that, rather than lost in hope or fantasy - that’s where the pain is.

I love love and am determined to keep my heart open for some more soon. The speed with which people can enter you heart and world and suddenly disappear without a trace leaves me feeling astounded and existential. It’s hard to know what to make of the world sometimes. I feel rather on my own with that currently.