This relationship is…

There's a version of your partner you fell in love with: the warm one, the "you're my person" one. There's also a version that goes cold without warning. And you're hoping to bring the first version back.

After a hard conversation, an argument, or being shut out, when they’re suddenly sweet again, almost like nothing happened, the relief feels bigger than the original hurt did.

You’ve ended a phone call with “I love you, goodnight”, exactly the way you used to say it. Recently, you hung up and felt the loneliness the second the screen went dark.

There are moments, like driving home alone after a date that was supposed to feel romantic: your body knows something is off but you don’t have words for it yet.

There’s a folder on your phone or a note, or a screenshot album where you save things they’ve said. Not to use them. Just so that next month, when they tell you it didn’t happen, you’ll have proof for yourself that it did.

You bring up something they said or did. They tell you it didn’t happen, or that you’re remembering it wrong, or that you’re being too sensitive. You walk away more confused than when you started it.

There are nights you lie awake going over a conversation trying to figure out how it became your fault and what you shouldn’t have said. While they’re already asleep.

When you do get upset, raise your voice, cry, or push back, your reaction becomes the new and main problem. What they actually did gets buried under what they call your “overreaction,” your “victim energy,” your “drama.”

You’ve apologized, sometimes more than once, for things you don’t actually believe you did wrong, just to get the silence to end or the harmony to come back.

You bring up a real concern, something they did, said, or didn’t follow through on  and within minutes the conversation is about how you’ve hurt them, how you’re attacking them, or how unsafe you make them feel.

You’ve caught something that didn’t add up: a name in a text, underwear that wasn’t yours, a story that didn’t match what they told you before. You raised it once, they flipped it, laughed it off, or explained it away. Within ten minutes you were the one offering them a more comfortable story. “It’s probably nothing.” “It’s probably your neighbor’s.”

They’ve called you things that don’t match who you’ve ever been. Controlling. Selfish. Jealous. Needy. Demanding. Too much. Mostly, when you’ve simply asked for something basic like a callback, an apology, more presence. You’ve started, quietly, to wonder if you really are all those things.

You’ve started describing the relationship in vague terms to friends or family; softening the worst parts, or leaving things out, because explaining it accurately makes you sound either crazy, dramatic, or like you should have left a long time ago.

The beginning was almost too good. Feeling seen and valued like you’ve been starving for. Big declarations came early:  “you’re my person,” “I’ve never felt this,” “I want a future with you”. It was  fast and intense, all before they really knew you.

They make big promises about the future: a trip, a project, an introduction, a change in how things will be and then act like the conversation never happened. When you bring it up, they don’t remember promising it, or it suddenly isn’t a good time.

The attention, time, presence, care, the planning, the remembering, the making-it-special you bring to the relationship is wildly more than what they do. You’ve started to wonder if you are getting just the crumbs. And when you’ve named it, you’ve been told you’re keeping score, being needy, or not understanding how busy / stressed / tired they are.

You’ve planned something special for them: the dinner, the airport pickup, the trip, the surprise breakfast, the thing you woke up for at 5 AM to make happen. And right before or in the middle: they ruined it. Got upset over something small. Didn’t notice what you’d done. Or thanked you so flatly it would have been kinder not to thank you at all.

When you’ve been falling apart crying, in a panic attack, grieving, or scared they’ve stayed strangely calm and non-involved. Sometimes distant or even  annoyed. You’ve had the specific experience of being in real pain right in front of them and feeling more alone than if you’d actually been alone.

There were moments at the start when it felt like the two of you were building something together: the synchronicities, laughter, the inside jokes, the plans, the painting of a life together. But more and more, you’ve been the only one still painting that future. You’re the one remembering, trying, keeping it alive while they stand somewhere else.

You’ve had something important coming up: a presentation, a family event, a health scare, a launch, a milestone that mattered. And right before, something blew up between you. When it happens once, you could call it bad timing. By the third or fourth time, you stopped being able to ignore that there is a pattern.

You’ve been falling asleep next to them with your stomach in knots about something unresolved between you and they’ve fallen asleep within minutes, no problem. Like nothing happened.

There are things you used to love to do: hobbies, foods you loved, the way you used to dress, the music you used to play loud, the friends you used to call or hang out with. You’ve quietly stopped most of them. Not because you outgrew them, but because of the look, the sigh, the comments, the fight that wasn’t worth having with your partner over them.

There’s a version of yourself from before this relationship who would not recognize who you’ve become, who you put up with, what you’ve stopped asking for, and what it now takes to get a little bit of care.

You’ve caught yourself acting in ways you don’t even like:  being judgmental, dismissive, entitled, cold to people you used to be so kind to and you can trace it back to their opinions, their eye-rolls, their worldview seeping into yours.

If your closest friend who knew you best, before any of this could see you now, she would not recognize you. And the harder part: most days, neither do you.