That time I almost ruined it

It happens in every relationship- someone has to institute “the talk.” I really thought The Yankee and I were past it. I mean, he bought me jewelry for Christmas (we started going out in late October), scheduled a weekend vacation with all our kids and us, etc

. But then, I got paranoid.

I saw a message from some teeny bopper 22 year old to him, clearly looking for her next baby daddy, because of course she already has one kid. What else does a 22 year old want with someone nearing 40? And he mentioned that he was seeing someone but that we hadn’t had the girlfriend/boyfriend discussion.

Then he asked me not to tag him in facebook pics when I asked if he cared if I posted some. His response was “post anything you want, just don’t tag and don’t post any of me snoring lol.” Now I know that last part is ridiculous. It does NOT matter what goes up on facebook, facebook is stupid. But all the sudden, I got paranoid. Is he embarrassed of me, does he not want to be seen with me, does he not want his family (all of whom still live in Yankeeville hundreds of miles away so I clearly wouldn’t be meeting them any time in the near future) to know about me? Is he having second thoughts?

  Enter: OVERTHINKING. The destroyer of so many good things.

So I did what any paranoid girl would do. I instituted The Talk.

 He had stayed over on a weeknight due to some convenient kid scheduling, and before leaving for work I said to him, “hey, I really like what we have going here between us.” He said “me too. The breaks suck but we make up for it when we’re together.” So I responded “well just so you know, I’m not looking for someone else to fill in those breaks.” He knew immediately where I was going with that and says “are we at this point already???” I was floored and honestly knocked off balance, rare for me. So I said “wow well I guess not. I won’t corner you at 6:30 in the morning.” But of course it ate at me. Combined with work stress it made me physically ill. I *thought* we were past this and really was just confirming. But his idea of where we are is definitely different than mine. I thought with the introduction of the kids to the mix, we were definitely in girlfriend/boyfriend territory but he has other ideas. So I couldn’t take it anymore and broke every rule of The Talk and sent him a message. Basically saying I need to know if this is exclusive. I don’t need to know our future past the next set of plans, just that it’s us and no one else for now.

His basic response is he’s a one woman guy, but he is careful regarding what he puts on facebook and what goes on in front of his kids. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t thrilled with his comment. To me, Facebook is about 50 times less intense than vacationing as a quasi family. But I know my facebook frustration is more about me than him and I’m working through that.

Who knew, with age comes maturity sometimes? I know that despite no sign of me in his life on facebook, he cares about me. We don’t hide. He’s good to me. He’s my peace in a crazy world. We talk openly, we have an amazing connection. So I’m putting this into perspective. It’s easier to do when you’re coming off a great weekend and he made big sacrifices to spend the night with me, including having to make a half hour drive back to his house, get ready quickly and drive to a site for work. So I’m just going with it for now and enjoying what we have.