You were right, this is about Rose. And just so you know, I am not speaking behind her back. I’ve had this
discussion with her at our last coffee date.
Sigh. Where to start.
For those who have read “The
Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman, the easiest way to explain it is to
say that Rose’s ‘love tank’ is empty, and I am not sure I can, and should be
filling it.
Rose is a pretty intense person. Not in a bad way, it is just who she is. She reminds me a lot of Marko actually, and my sister and best friend. I guess
I am attracted to people who have strong, ‘strict’ views on life. Rose has very high standards, for friendship,
or fairness, for life. She lives life with
intensity, with passion and with 100% commitment, and she expects the same in
return. Which means that she is often
disappointed by people. And lonely.
She has been through a really tough time recently, and just about
everyone in her life has fallen short of her expectations. Not only have her friends disappointed her,
but so has some of her extended family, most of who live really far away. Even her religion has let her down. Which makes her feel quite alone.
Rose’s love language is ‘quality time’. She loves to spend time with people, bonding,
talking, sharing, laughing. She lives
with me, she has no transport and so she gets very little opportunity to talk,
share and bond with anyone other than me during the week.
Out of all the love languages, ‘quality time’ scores second lowest on
my list (‘gifts’ comes last). Not only
do I really, really not have the time to spend
quality time with anyone other than my children, the ‘quality time’ thing just
doesn’t do it for me.
But of course, I do understand that it is important to other
people. My husband, for example, has ‘quality
time’ as his love language. He wants
nothing more than to spend time with me. I want nothing more than to spend time on my own!!
I am a people pleaser of note. I want people to be happy, and if they aren’t, it makes me feel terrible. And yet…..
My day is so full. When I get
home from work, all I want to do is spend time with the children. Then, once I have put them to bed, I have a
few hours in which to do the million other things I have to do. Work on work stuff, work on my new project,
write for my blog, write for my weekly column. Try and squeeze some time for my poor husband who gets hardly anything
of me. Any spare time I might have left
over, I want to be alone. I need to be alone. Quiet. I need to have the time
and space to unwind, to settle my crazy insides, to slowly and quietly recharge
my bits so that I can start all again the next day.
But I know Rose’s love tank is empty. I know she is lonely. I know she
needs to spend time with someone. To
talk. About important stuff; about everything
and nothing at all. Talk. And it makes me feel so guilty because no one
else is filling her love tank, and so perhaps it should be me. And then I get resentful because I can’t be
there for her emotionally as well. I
take care of her in every other way. I
pay her three times what other people get. I take and fetch her from the shops, I drive her around. I sort out her
financial mess. I buy her gifts. I do things for her. I tell her how much I appreciate her. I do all the other love languages, but I just
can’t do the quality time thing. I can’t. And to be honest, I don’t want to..
Because quality time is her love language, all these other things have
not been meaningless, but they have not filled her love tank. She feels let
down by me. And so she too has been resentful. Things have not been great.
Eventually it came to a head and we spoke about it. I agreed that we would go on a once a week
coffee date and that would be her time to talk. She would have my undivided attention for that time.
It was our first ‘quality time’ date on Wednesday and we spoke about the
love language thing. (She has read the
book too, which helps us chat about what is going one). We spoke about why we
were both feeling so resentful towards each other. It really helped.
There is a part of me that says that I can’t, and shouldn’t be
responsible for filling her love tank. That
as her employer, I am not responsible for happiness (in that way). But then there is the other part of me that
says for whatever reason, whether she is right or wrong, she has no one
else. And so it has to be me.
I don’t know. I really don’t. As you can see, I am trying. I have agreed to the once a week coffee date,
even though I am so, so SO busy. And even
though I can’t even manage a once a week date with my husband!!! (Something that I am going to do something
about, promise). But because I care
about her, I want her to be happy. I
just wish it didn’t depend on me.
What do you think? I haven't had time to check this through for holes, opportunities for misunderstanding, possible offense taking or other land mines so please be gentle.
(Edited to add: re the driving licence thing, that is not going to happen for a long while. She needs lots and lots more practice. So that is a long term solution, not a short term one)