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Old 11-14-2010, 05:10 PM
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Lotus2009
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Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 290
How much change can I expect?

I went out with SRAH (Recovering AH that I'm currently separated from) last night. He's only been sober for about 3 months (as far as he's told me without a relapse) and is attending group therapy and according to him AA (without a sponsor or working the steps). Overall we had a good time, but there was this one thing he said that just kinda rubbed me the wrong way.

We decided to go to the movies. I picked him up (since he still doesn't have his license or a car) and since we had some time before the movie, suggested we'd go to a restaurant and get an appetizer first. So we were sitting, talking and finishing up our appetizers, when he all of sudden says "ok, you have two options: you either pay for our "meal", including tip (he's a big tipper) or you pay for our movie tickets". I was a bit taken back by the way he approached the topic and then told him that I would pay for my half at the restaurant and my ticket at the movies. He followed up saying he just wants to make it fair and thinks I should pay at the restaurant, considering he payed the full restaurant bill last time we went out (where I had ordered $5 worth!!!).

So this might seem like nothing major and maybe I am overreacting a bit... but to me it felt like he could have approached it differently, as in asking "so how do you want to do this - do you want to split the bill" AND I feel like in life you give and take (sometimes you give a little more, sometimes you take a little more) and to me it felt like he kept count of his "giving" quite a bit. Honestly during his drinking time I felt like I gave and gave until I had nothing left to give, so maybe I'm a bit hypersensitive to the whole thing now, but I feel like if you keep count on everything you do, then you're probably not giving to be nice, but you're simply giving to get something out of it (which seems a bit manipulative or something). This whole thing really wasn't about the money... I don't mind paying for myself (sharing a bill) or paying the whole bill, if a friend had payed the bill last time... it was more about what he said and how he said it and the fact that he can't just "give" (because then what's in it for him?)!

He did ask me why I got so upset once we got to the movies and then gave me a hug and a kiss after I told him that I didn't like the way he went about it. So that is definitely some progress, because in the past he would have not cared to understand why I got upset and would have just told me to stop acting crazy.

Any feedback?
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