Ignorance is bliss

MM and I are going strong. Although, I have yet to have "the talk" with him. I seem to do well and accept our relationship as is for a couple of months and then freak out for a few weeks.

We went on a double date with OG and her boyfriend. We went to a restaurant that has dancing - the same place that J works. But I haven't laid eyes on J or had a conversation longer than "can you do a lesson this weekend? Good I'll mail you a check." About half way there MM and I start talking about jobs.

I work part time at a private college, and I also teach two fitness classes at a gym. If you don't count commuting I work 35 hours a week. Although with the drive I sometimes end up with 12 hour days. I also take a language class for four hours once a week. But my shift at the college is only 6 1/2 hours long (w/ lunch). MM works a 40+ hour week and goes to school twice a week for his MBA. Needless to say he's a bit sarcastic about my "difficult" schedule.

Getting a full time job in my field, however, is not easy. My state has one of the worst unemployment rates in the country, and there are two universities with in 40 miles of each other pumping out graduates in my profession. There is another school one state over and a fourth two states over. Funding is being cut at a ridiculous rate for my field, making it economical to hire part-time workers to save the cost of benefits.

Anyway - in defending my part time work situation to MM a few weeks ago, I mentioned this current hiring environment. To which he says, that if I need to look out of state for a job then I decide where I want to live and start applying for jobs.

Hmmm... did I miss something or did my boyfriend just tell me to leave town?

The evening was pretty much a bust, but I really couldn't bring myself to tell him why. MM accuses me of being passive aggressive, although I think I was the first person to mention it because when he came back from his New Years jaunt, I turned my phone off. But the more I consider it, the more I realize, I'm not passive aggressive, so much as I'm terrified of talking about my emotions. Or at least my "bad" ones. I am more than willing to tell him how happy I am, but the minute I'm unhappy I clam up and wait for the feeling to pass.

I know exactly why I do it too. Pretending that everything is wonderful is exactly what I grew up learning to do. No matter how much my parents fought, or my siblings and I fought, no matter what kind of trouble we got into at home, we were always the happy family with no problems of any kind. I heard on more than one occasion from my mother when we were out together that my siblings and I had "never caused me a day of grief in my life." Now maybe that's just a mother's hyperbole because my mother loved us. But it was an impossible standard to live up to and all it taught is is that everyone must see a perfect family regardless of what else was going on. Happy feelings were the only ones that mattered and all the others were ignored.


Despite the fact that my rational brain is screaming to share to tell him what is wrong so that it can be fixed. I am sure that he didn't literally mean to leave and get a job elsewhere so much as being supportive. He knows my part-time job is a dead end job with no potential for upward mobility. But I can't do it. The fear that there is even a small possibility that MM doesn't consider this relationship a long term one with real commitment possibilities just overwhelms me. If I don't ask, if I don't say, it hurts to me think that you wouldn't mind if I left town, or to say you know, I'm not really sure how you feel about me, then I can't hear the answer I don't want. If I never hear the answer I don't want then I can pretend that everything is okay.
I just know from previous experience with the X and the XX that I am more than likely blissfully waiting around to get my heart broken.