I hope it isn't. Things are just really, really hard right now. I have no idea if I'll still be here in a week. I might end up staying at my grandmother's house until I can get back on my feet. I'll need a job, a car, and a room or studio apartment. I don't want to leave. I love Nikki, I love our kids, I love our cats and our froggies. I have three years with Nikki, and I do not want to give up on her. Three years of love and memories. Good times and bad, we shared them all.
So what's the matter? Other than what I was talking about in this entry (though it seems to have gotten better, as she's come to some sort of peace or resolution within herself), it's all about trust. Nikki has issues with trust and control, from growing up with an abusive mother, to living with an abusive husband. Me, I'm paranoid. What's my excuse? Maybe I was just born that way. I have this thing about me, that I have to know the truth. Have. To.
I had suspected that Nikki was smoking for a week or so. First I noticed that the car stank of Febreze, so much so that I felt ill. Then I noticed that she came in chewing gum and smelling like smoke ("People were smoking in the teacher's lounge"), and she would run to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Then I found a cigarette lighter in the car's cupholder. I asked her about it, and she said she'd found it in the parking lot, and she didn't want kids to get ahold of it. It was brand new and still had that sticker on it. She said I could throw it out and, well, we could save it to use to light candles in case of a power outage, so let's put it in this drawer. I later took it out of the drawer and threw it in the trash. The next morning, she said she had to get a knife, and I saw her fumbling around in the drawer, trying to find the lighter. The following morning, I was hugging her goodbye before she went off to work. I felt a pack of cigarettes in her pocket. First she said it was her cellphone, and she wriggled out of the way. She went to the car, then came back, holding a pack of gum. That was not what I felt. I know what a cigarette pack feels like. It was wider and bent easily, meaning there were very few cigarettes left in there. She insisted (and still insists!) that it was the gum, but I know better. She went to the car, got the cigarettes out of her pocket, grabbed a pack of gum and came back inside.
Let me explain my feelings about smoking. I know many people reading this probably smoke, so you won't get it. That's okay. I don't hate you for smoking. I just hate... loathe... abhor... smoking. I feel mental anguish when thinking of my Nikki putting a cigarette to her pretty lips and lighting up. It hurts me inside. The hazards to her health is what worries me the most, but it's just so nasty in general. I hate the smell, and just the image of smoking. I've never thought it was cool, like kids tend to think. I know, most will think me ridiculous at this point, but that's how I feel. If I see an attractive woman and she lights a cigarette, just ugh... the whole image is ruined, and suddenly, I don't find her quite as attractive. I told my therapist today that I would rather the rest of the world smoke and get ill, than Nikki smoke at all.
Anyway, last night, I went through her pocketbook, which I know was very wrong of me. I know what made me do it (I just had to know, and it was the lying more than anything that made me crazy), but I'm not justifying it. I found a lighter. We had a big fight, and I wanted to sleep on the couch. She wouldn't stop crying, and I felt horrible. I hated myself for doing that to her. I think about it now, and I feel hatred towards myself. We ended up sleeping in each other's arms. She said nothing to me, and I just asked her to please calm down. I didn't apologize at that point, for I felt it wouldn't do any good or make anything better. Hollow words. Nikki feels she can't trust anyone (including me now), after what happened with our friend, as detailed in this entry.
Yesterday, we went to my therapist together. Sadly, this is my last session, as my state-funded mental health program is cutting back due to the economic slump we're in. What really takes the cake is that this is a new therapist for me, and she was helping me so much more than my old one (no offense to my former therapist if she's reading this!). I had three sessions and now it's all over. I really need therapy badly, and she could help me so much. She's a lesbian herself, and Nikki is switching from her old therapist to my new one. Nikki's old therapist just doesn't understand lesbian issues, or even why Nikki didn't want to be with a man in the first place! Nikki never told her I'm a transsexual, since her therapist couldn't grasp the basics of women loving women.
Anyway, Nikki was very angry, and I was afraid to say anything. Things got better at the end of the session. This therapist is amazing. Nikki did say she picked up a pack of cigarettes that day, because I was stressing her out so much about it. I know she had another pack before this one. I felt it in her pocket, though she still says it was the pack of gum, and that she hadn't been smoking at that point. She's stubborn, and she told me something that her mother had told her once: "If you lie, never ever admit it." Nikki had told me this after lying to her ex sometime near the beginning of our relationship. It threw up a major red flag for me, so I remember the conversation clear as day, while she's forgotten it.
I need honesty, and I need to not worry about her so much. She needs her privacy and freedom to do what she wants without being harassed and spied on. Now that I know she's smoking, I can stop what I've been doing. I hope she can be honest with me from now on. As far as the smoking, I'll always have horrible feelings about it, and I'll always wish to God she wouldn't do it. I'll try to keep it to myself as much as possible. She has said that she wouldn't smoke around me or the kids. Just the same, I love her so much, but I don't want to be with a smoker.
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