Chapter 10 - Really Good at Being Good

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021

When I came home from work yesterday, Joffrey had cleaned and helped the apartment. He offered me dinner, but I couldn’t eat. He was nice again. I was exhausted and crashed on the couch. It was comfy. It was nice to rest my eyes, but couch/bed, I couldn’t sleep. We continued Mindhunter together. He asked if I wanted to go on a walk, so maybe he was going to try to communicate, but I was too tired and he let me rest. We didn’t talk about our relationship, but I was grateful for a break. We slept in bed with pillows between us; he’d been nice and I was spent, so I didn’t mind. I slept.

I woke up early from his alarm and cried again. I’ve had these thoughts running through my head all night, but I needed a break yesterday…

Joffrey and I are really good at being good. Really good. It’s wonderful, fun and happy. We meet each other’s needs: food, film, entertainment, love.

But when he’s not happy, he shuts me out. When he didn’t know if he wanted to live in LA, I thought, or we thought, he was depressed and it broke my heart to not know what was going on in his head.

All I wanted to do was help and make things better for him. I wish, I probably, I did beg him to talk to me or someone. But he wouldn’t. I hoped he did. I remember calling his mom – I didn’t know if that was the right thing to do, but I needed to know if there was a history. I wanted to stand by him and not leave him in his depression because I do love him so much. But it was really hard for me not knowing if he was going to stay with me or leave. And he refused to go to therapy. There wasn’t anything to do but wait. I wish he’d confide in me.

I want my partner to talk through their problems with me. What a way to connect, lean on and really grow a bond. But I don’t know what’s in his head. And it hurts that he won’t or can’t share, but I’ve respected it. I’ve always been open to him in case.

Recently, we went out to dinner and a movie. Our friend Justin reached out to me confidentially, concerned about Joffrey and Sawyer at the wedding. They’re childhood friends who love each other. I knew Joffrey was hurt when he wanted them to all contribute to his YouTube channel together, but they wanted to do their own thing. I guess they reached out still wanting to be friends, but he’d been ignoring them.

I can only speculate it was hard for Joffrey to move away from his friends and he didn’t know how to handle his pain in his post college crisis. I felt put in a weird situation. I asked Joffrey about it, just so I’d know what was going on, but he shut down. Our date was ruined and he didn’t want to talk about it. I tried slyly bringing it up a few more times before the wedding. I wish he’d confided in me.

At the wedding, Sawyer asked me for advice about mending their friendship. I was still in the dark. I suggested he just talk to him. I thought... he’s bad at confrontation and opening up and communicating his feelings and admitting he’s wrong, but hopefully he’ll listen and want to mend whatever’s broken because I could see Sawyer cared and that Joffrey was hurt.

They talked for a long while. On the drive home, I hoped Joffrey would finally tell me about it. He didn’t. He was as closed off and shut down by it as before. But it seemed they’d mended their friendship, so I was happy for him. I respected that maybe Joffrey just likes to keep conversations private and I’m just the opposite. It helps me to work things out for myself when I confide in people, but maybe he just doesn’t do that, or maybe he just doesn’t do that with me. I don’t know because he wouldn’t say anything about it! I really, really wish he’d open up when he’s hurt because I think he just keeps it in.

When we lived in New York, in college and right after, I loved that Joffrey had so many friends that we’d hang out with. We both did. He liked going to do things and socializing.

When we moved to LA, Joffrey didn’t want to make any new friends. He didn’t want to talk to people. We had our college friends, and that was nice, but he quickly shut himself in, in moving away from home for the first time. I felt it was up to me to make friends for us. I started hanging out with our friend Samantha a lot and going out with her because Joffrey just didn’t want to do anything. I remember wishing he had a best friend out here too; so much so that I was wanting to find one for him. He eventually got jealous of the time I was spending with Samantha, so I took a couple of weeks to just be with him in his depression. I had very recently entered a new job with a terrible boss and all at once I was in a period of transition with a depressed boyfriend, a degrading boss, a UTI, and loss of a friend. Samantha was going through her own s**t and stopped hanging out with me. Oh, and living with Elliot sucked.

I remember asking Samantha for a lot of unqualified relationship advice. I was d