Me and my issues and what I need moving forward

This is a copy of the letter I had sent to Arianna AFTER we broke up. She’d been talking as if she wanted to get back together and I was not inclined to put up with more of her bullshit. If we were going to try it I needed to have her understand that I wasn’t going to put up with any more bullshit.

I spent a great deal of time distilling down what the issues are for me and what I need moving forward. This is an attempt to capture what’s in my head.
Side notes:
Reading:    

Love Languages by Gary Chapman   

Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward    I recommend reading these to get an idea of some of the topics I’ll bring up. They are short reads and generally beneficial for understanding how to think about relationships.       Read up on “Tie signs” as it relates to romantic relationships. 
Other people and what they think: There is a difference between caring what other people think and having basic self respect and dignity. I am sick of being disrespected. I’m sick of you being an accessory to said disrespect. I’m stick of you contributing to and perpetuating the disrespect.

Dino: 

1. I trusted you to honor our relationship and that trust was violated in two ways
2. you weren’t forthcoming about our relationship with him
3. you weren’t forthcoming about the conversations you had with him

This had the affect of making me feel like a fool because I’d supported Dino as your “friend” and he was trying to fuck you. I can’t tell you how fucked up that makes me feel.
Dylan:     Part of the problem is the disconnect on what the actual issue is with Dylan. I never had an issue with how much you speak to him. I do not care whether you talk to or see him more than you talk to or see me. You constantly saying “we’re just friends” is the exact WRONG way to address my concerns. 1) I wasn’t worried about that so you mentioning it makes it one more thing that I feel the need to question 2) My issues are:

1. I do not believe that he isn’t after more than friendship. You can say whatever you want but I know how I feel about it and there’s no changing that
2. your conduct and physical contact with him is offensive and off putting
3. you shouldn’t be drinking and he encourages you to drink
4. the innuendo, ass slapping, biting, licking, etc is disrespectful
5. He triggers my anxiety about Dino — To clarify the issue with Dino was never about whether you two were physical. It’s about you marginalizing me and others not understanding and respecting the role I play in your life.
6. The fact that you called him your “only boyfriend” on your live stream is disrespectful and plays even more on my insecurities
7. The fact that he doesn’t clarify that you two are just friends and that you’re in a relationship is disrespectful
8. You said he was your best friend as well. I’ve known you for a year and change.  I, as far as I know, am actually your best friend. I mean that quantitatively and qualitatively. I am a better friend to you than anyone else I know of in your life yet you call that fucker your best friend. The fucker who almost broke your Tommy doll and is generally obnoxious….ok

    The right answer on Dylan would have looked like “you’re right what we did was disrespectful and I care about you enough to tell him what’s wrong and ask for an apology. If he won’t apologize, I’ll do what needs to be done to make sure you understand that I love and respect you.”  instead I got “yeah I know he spat in your face but he really likes my dad so you’ll just have to deal with him continuing to spit in your face because….reasons”. 
    It’s not my fault that you abided disrespectful behavior and dishonored our relationship. YOU DID THAT. Your reluctance to confront it and take the appropriate action tells me that you probably don’t respect me enough to have an open and honest relationship. if you care more about your relationship with Dylan than doing the right thing for me, then you should focus on that and I’ll focus on getting over you.
I’m a different person now than when we started dating a year ago. I’m not willing to take the same shit now that I was willing to take then. Part of it is me just being in a different place given my experiences. Part of it is being fed up with bullshit.
If we’re going to be friends: 

• I need a public apology for the disrespectful conduct, comments, and lack of transparency about us being in a relationship.
• You need to make sure that I don’t cross paths with Dylan. There is zero BS in that statement
• You need to understand that I’m broken and I cannot watch your live streams without it adversely affecting my psyche.

If we’re going to be “together”, all of the above plus:

• I’m not interested in ‘dating’ only in ‘partnering’ for life. That means a whole different approach to  commitment and responsibility in the relationship — There is a difference between polygamy and not caring. I’m fully in support of an open relationship but open means open communication as much as it means open to exploring relationship with other people.
• I’m not taking a back seat on physical intimacy anymore. If you can’t be comfortable being physical (not sexual) with me then you don’t deserve my time and attention
• I’m not going to be a dirty little secret. If you can’t be proud and upfront about the fact that you’re in a relationship with me then I’m not willing to be in the relationship.
• If I’m not primary partner, then I’m not investing my time/money into the future of the relationship unit (couple, threeple, pod, whatever)
• You fully own everything you do whether drunk or sober
• No more disrespect; that includes not abiding others being disrespectful
• you don’t ask me for alcohol
• you never use my resources on/for another person — exceptions for Ms. Janz and Healing Power everyone else can go fuck themselves until I feel comfortable about us and where we are.

    I understand that you want to find a lesbian wife and I want you to find someone that makes you happy. I get that you feel that you’ll be judged and never get an opportunity with the women you MIGHT be able to be happy with if they know upfront that you have a BF. I’m not willing to deal with the BS anymore. If chasing a potential relationship is more important than honoring your existing relationship, I’ll wish you luck and remove myself from the situation. I spent quite a bit of time on this one, I’m not willing to be marginalized and disrespected anymore.
I get the disparity in our situations with me having a wife and you wanting a wife. I’m onboard with with non-monagomy, and getting out of the way of your pursuit of relationships as long as you keep me informed. 
Why the change?
I thought I could trust you. it’s been shown that I can’t trust you to show me the respect that I deserve. I can’t trust you to stand up for me and our relationship the way you should. I’m fine being fast and loose with rules as long as I can trust my partner. I don’t care about the outside world when I know what’s going on internally with us. After VidCon I realized that I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t need sex as long as I have physical affection. If I can’t feel that everything is ok, why would I be in the relationship?

Some fucked up disparities and disrespectful shit
You have been talking about coming out to see me since March. you never care enough to make it happen even though I kept bringing it up. Suddenly you’re spending money to jump on a plane to Italy to seem someone you’ve never met instead of coming to see me. I get to see you if I’m willing to pay for it. She get’s to see you because you WANT to see her. Why are you willing to spend your money to see

I’ve seen you mention your trip to Italy in almost every live I’ve been in since we talked about your passport. I’ve not seen/heard you mention coming to Chicago. I’m sure you have but it’s a stark contract for me.
Maribel said/did things that were disrespectful to our relationship. I immediately stopped talking to her. You built the issue of distrust (with Dino). You created the fucked up dynamic with Dylan. I just have to deal with it.
How would you feel if you were in a relationship with a women who said “I can’t tell people that we’re dating because you’re Jewish and I want to find a Muslim to marry. Muslims would judge me for dating a Jewish chick so let me explain it to them when I get a chance and you just pretend that we’re friends until…” ? It’s not a question of how willing you are to accommodate your partner. It’s a question of how much you respect yourself and whether you’re willing to put your self respect aside. I was when I felt that I could trust you. I’m not willing to anymore, even if we rebuild trust. I’m just not.
When I mentioned the issue of physical affection you:

1. Attacked me saying that I didn’t understand that you’re a lesbian
2. asserted that your lack of comfort with physical affection with me was because you’re a lesbian and I have “big man energy”
3. Told me that your comfort with Jelly was because you two had history and you and I didn’t

Your behavior with Dylan puts the lie to all of that. I don’t care that you’re affectionate with Dylan. I care that you have a limit with me that doesn’t exist for other people. The fact that you put that you put that disparity on display is offensive. The fact that it exists is disrespectful.

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Everything below this line is my notes (for myself) about our upcoming talk. You can feel free to read them if you wish. I’m putting them here for reference and to be open and transparent. I’m not interested in winning a fight, if I were I’d hide my thoughts from you. What I’m interested in is getting past the BS and having and honest productive conversation

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Points of curiosity

1. When did you send the, now infamous, TXT message to TheAnthony (before or after we started dating) ?
2. Did anything ever happen with the two of you?
3. Did you ever have sexual contact with a male during the time we were together or after we broke up?
4. You constantly say things to reassure me that you’re not doing anything with other men. At the same time you’ve done things when you’re drunk that you don’t remember. It’s entirely plausible that you did SOMEthing with another guy while you were drunk. Maybe sex, maybe not. I could see a scenario where something happened (say with Dylan) and you felt that you had to hide it from me because you still think I care about who you have sex with when I do not. The Dino thing was never about sex. The Dylan thing isn’t about sex. It’s about the double standard you have for “access” to you. I don’t get the same access to you as Dino did. I don’t get the same access to you that Dylan has. I mentioned this after VidCon and you trivialized it talking about how you talk to me more than other people. That missed the entire point.

• I’d like to know what (exactly) is wrong with what I wrote to you at VidCon. You attacked and dismissed my concerns and when I claimed that there was a misunderstanding you said you understood perfectly what I was saying and proceeded to mischaracterize what I was saying.
• When did this girl you’re going to see in Italy know about me and what did you tell her about our relationship?

After the posts I made on SnapChat, a few people (that you know…like either in real life or frequently talk to or battle or met at a party) hit me up to say basically the same thing: When they saw the way you act with Dylan, it looks like you two love each other. When they saw us together it looked like I worked for you. That’s based on YOUR behavior. The way you are physically with each of us. The point is that you don’t act like I’m a loved one (with physical affection) and I was your fucking boyfriend. You act like you love Dylan and he’s “just a friend”. That is fucked…period.
Put another way, you treat me like a serf or a servant when I’m supposed to be your boyfriend (your life partner). You treat other people (Jelly, C***, Dylan, etc) the way other people would expect you to behave with a lover or a loved one. I get your disdain for unsolicited input from others but this isn’t about them jumping to conclusions. This is about a pattern of YOUR behavior that signals to others how you feel about me relative to the people who don’t care for you as much as I do and don’t do as much for you as I have.
Put one more way, you treat me like shit and take me for granted. You are willing to take my money, gifts, etc but can’t be upfront about us being in a relationship, you don’t show me physical affection but you’ll show it to everyone else (women, and males who aren’t me). You’ll talk publicly about what I do for you (as if I’m a fan/sycophant) but have never about what I mean to you. Think about that… you have never said publicly what i mean to you. 
If we look at tie-signs, you have done nothing to tie us together in the public eye. In fact you do much to distance yourself from me publicly and engage in public displays of affection with everyone on the fucking planet BUT me.
The most logical conclusion based on the evidence is that you wanted to have me around to make use of my resources, my ability to provide for you and Damien. In fact some of the people who reached out to me commented that they thought I was your sugar daddy because they rarely saw/heard you mention me in any way that indicated I was your significant other. They heard from me or from others that we were in a relationship and that’s the only indication they had that there was anything there. How fucking pathetic is that shit? You call me babe but you also call like 50 other people babe. You say you love me but you say the same to everyone else. You call me ‘boo-boos’ but you call everyone else the same. You have very adeptly avoided making any public consistent declaration of my importance in your life. 4k

According to Gary Chapman there are 5 love languages: words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, gifts, quality time.
Think about everything I’ve done for you. Please tell me which of the above I haven’t done for you in abundance. Now think about what you have done for me: 

• Words of affirmation — nope. You say shit like “we’re only friends” or “I talk to you more than anyone else” but you never affirm my importance, significance, or position in your life
• physical touch — Nope
• Acts of service — Nope
• Quality time — Nope. Yes you spend time with me while I’m there. Much of the time you’re drunk, all of the time you’re high. You use me like a baby sitter but you never set aside time for us to connect and spend quality time together. You’ll attend events but that seems to be more about being seen and me being able to tag along (again like a servant or a sycophant) 
• Gifts — Nope. Yes, you’ve bought me gifts and I love them. The problem is that there’s a difference between just giving a gift and giving a gift that signals significance beyond the object based on your understanding of your partner. As an example your Good Guy Doll. I know how much you wanted that and that you have an emotional attachment to it. Your Batman necklace, I got that for you because I saw it and thought you needed to have it based on my understanding of you and your interests. The batteries, first aid kit, the camera, the tripods, etc all gifts based on my understanding of your needs or interests. You have given me a cartridge, a ring, and a watch. I appreciate them all. None of them are based on YOUR understanding of what’s important or significant to me. You could argue that our shared interest in anime could be tied to the watch.

Now think about all of the above relative to other people in your life

• Words of affirmation
• Dylan — Yes
• C*** — unknown
• Jelly — Yes
• Physical touch
• Dylan — Yes
• C*** — Yes
• Jelly— Yes
• Acts of service
• UNKNOWN
• Quality Time
• Dylan — Yes
• C*** — Yes
• Jelly — Yes
• Gifts
• UNKNOWN