Client Demands vs. My Services: A Content Writer’s Dilemma

At the address vztahovaporadna@firma.seznam.cz came the following query:

I often read the stories in your column. Today I decided to write mine as well. I have been living with my partner for 15 years in a relationship. We each have one marriage. I’m 57, my partner is 69. At the beginning of December, my partner, who is already retired, kept coming up with various excuses so he wouldn’t have to be at home. Until then, he lay in bed watching TV most of the day, no joint activity. He refused to go anywhere, that everything was expensive.

On Christmas Day, I thought everything was completely normal. There was dinner, unwrapping of presents, but then the friend went to his room. I went to see him to have dessert, but he was talking to someone on the phone and said to the phone: Darling, how are you… I was left as if scalded. So I guessed what it was. They say nothing. Since then, we haven’t had much communication.

My friend started going away all the time, I found out that he was playing crates. They only go home to eat and sleep. Financially, he always contributed only half to the rent and nothing to the household – with the fact that he also buys food, but to a lesser extent than I do.

I am on a partial disability pension with no visible disability and earn extra money as a maid. A few days ago I found out that he was seeing a supposedly lighter woman. He told me he was going to do whatever he wanted whether I liked it or not. He wants to go home as he wants, and requires to have cooked, washed, cleaned, simply serviced. After the argument, I slammed and told him to decide that I don’t want to live like this – like a girl. So he took some things and moved into his ex-wife’s apartment, they share an apartment. I’m in shock, what I actually got. I don’t know how to deal with it, he’s been preparing for it for some time, I take it as a gimmick. What do you think about it? Thank you. Beata

Dear Beata, what you describe is not the traditional “crisis after fifteen years”, but silent withdrawal from the relationship. And I can assure you that the wordless departure has definitely been going on for quite some time. It was just happening without your knowledge and you didn’t notice it. You lived in the belief that you were still “us” while he was already mentally elsewhere preparing his back door.

I think I can guess what hurts you the most. Maybe it’s not so much about another woman. I would say that you are concerned with the unfair inequality. You were at home, taking care, cooking, washing, adapting to his tiredness. And in the meantime he started to live his own parallel life. The moment you named the situation, his answer was clear. It was not an attempt to save something, but a clear message: “I want service and freedom, and you put up with it.” But this is not a partnership. It is just a comfortable roommatewhich only works until you answer.

Your shock is understandable. But while for you it was a sudden blow out of the blue, for him it was just the logical outcome of a process that had already been going on for months, maybe years. That’s why you feel like a girdle. And you are right. He betrayed you not only with the aforementioned infidelity, but mainly with his total insincerity.

At this moment, only one thing is important for you: You behaved healthy. The moment you said “not like that”, you kept it self-esteem. Yes, the partner left. But if you remained silent, you would lose yourself and you would gradually disappear. Not physically, but metaphorically.

I can imagine how you feel right now. Here comes the phase that hurts the most: Sadness, confusion, the feeling that you have been “used and discarded”. Try to mentally reset yourself. Try telling yourself that it is not your failure. It’s just the end of a relationship that’s over he had not been equal for a long time. And his partner’s departure is, paradoxically, perhaps the cleanest thing he has done recently.

Don’t try to understand him. Don’t examine what you did wrong, what his motives were, why it happened. Try to get back to yourself. For what else you want to experience. To a relationship where you will not be a maid or a backdrop. At 57, it’s still not too late. It’s exactly that age when you already know exactly what you don’t want and won’t tolerate.

Fingers crossed for you. Not to get the partner back. But so you never have to wonder if it’s okay to ask for respect.