Let me see if I can figure out how to say this. I might fail completely.

I’m a weird mix of being an optimistic person and not being a happy person. Being chronically depressed means I have a fairly realistic outlook about the fact that life is shitty and hard. (Depressed people are more realistic!) But I also take ridiculous risks because sometimes I shoot the moon and that’s awesome, which I think demonstrates optimism. I try for things I have no right to expect them to succeed.

For many years now Noah and I have been trying to make each other happy. That’s been kind of the goal, I guess?

In the email Noah referenced “winning” and how gratitude and appreciation are complicated and mixed up with who is doing more.

I have done a lot of things for a lot of years trying to make Noah happy. When I say that sex is the only thing that counts I think this is a lot of what I mean. If I take over all the house chores and cooking and all Noah has to do is go to his job and come home and play… that doesn’t make him happy. If I stop doing stuff and Noah gets to help me and feel useful that way…. that doesn’t make him happy.

He was broadcasting that he wasn’t happy long before I went and started fucking people.

I feel like I have heard a lot of “I need sex to give me motivation because I do so much for you“.

Even when he isn’t doing much for me other than going to work and thinking about me.

But the sex doesn’t motivate me the way it does Noah. Often sex feels like yet another chore I’m supposed to get done before I can drop into bed exhausted.

So if I’m told that Noah wants the sex because it is bonding and intimate and connecting… that feels like a giant fucking lie.

Kind of like how it feels like a lie to Noah that I would date other people so that I can be more physically present in the sex life he wants.

Maybe we are both trying to give from the place we know how to give without really respecting the fact that filling our own bucket involves punching a giant whole in the bucket of the other person.

We try to make each other happy. That’s not going very well.

“Thank you” doesn’t seem to stack up to much against “No one could love me and think I should be with you.”

I’m really struggling to cope with this. What is there to thank me for?