I decided to complete the no bitching challenge inspired by this thread, and I'm here to report my findings.

It spans the course of 10 days, but 3 of them are empty as nothing notable happened (we are LDR some days). So it's the conventional 1 week/7 entries; I did it this way because we spent 2 weekends together, so the weekdays we are apart and that doesn't really count if we aren't interacting much. I actually thought I was going to end it on the 9th day, but realized that made little sense since he had only one more day in town and there was no point ignoring the great stuff that happened. So as you read, I think at points I reference that it ends on Saturday....but I lied (:

It's quite long (ergo why it's split into 2 parts), but I think it ended up being the absolute perfect time to do it because a lot happened;

  • We had 2 biggish relationship discussions, one positive and one negative (both handled with love).

  • 'Twas my very first time visiting him in his new city he relocated to for work (which is known to be an awful place).

  • We attended an engagement party for his brother who he is extremely close with.

  • And related to that -- me spending even more time with his mother than usual to help set up for the party.

  • On my running 'top three moments' with HB from our whole relationship, 2 of them happened in the 10 days I did this challenge...I am under no illusions that they are unrelated.

Without further ado, Part One of my field report. It begins with neutral background notes, ends with concluding notes, and is otherwise sorted from Friday to the following Sunday. Please find below Friday to Wednesday.

  • Neutral Background

We have had a great week this last week past, but it has been an LDR week to be fair.

(Most of you have probably heard me say my SO travels a lot for work, but for those who haven't..there you go. We live in the same city, but he needs to leave for weeks or months at a time and we trade off weekends with who sees who depending on how busy he is and where he is).

We've never gone more than 2 weeks without seeing one another, which is what this leg was. At any rate, I have nothing but positive things to say of this time and our texting/calling. I will say he had the busiest 4 days he has ever had this week and we exchanged maybe 7 texts and 2 calls total in that time -- he had to work events from 6:30am to 9pm Saturday through Tuesday (which is why we went 2 weeks this time, no sense visiting with an insane schedule like that). That is extremely out of the ordinary as he is usually amazing texting and calling me. I didn't let it get under my skin once because I know if he's not in contact it must be something insane. He checked in at least a few times a day to make sure I was okay. Not ideal but I haven't any complaints (:

It's my turn to see him these next 3 days, but I'm going to do this 'No Bitching Challenge' for the whole week and report.


Friday


I had my 9-5, and then planned on driving the 4.5 hours to see him after. I actually won a work game a week or so back, and my prize was getting to leave a paid hour early on Friday (: so I got to leave to see HB at 4pm. I have been so excited to see him and his new place (he's only been in the new city the past 2 weeks) and I prepped EVERYTHING the night before. Apartment cleaned, bags packed, outfits laid out, lunch ready, food to bring him prepped, car gassed, and even set up my workday for Monday so when I leave him Sunday I don't have anything to worry about when I get home. I am in a great mood.

  • The Bad

I'm on my long drive, enjoying the road and paying no mind to my phone unless it's an important call. HB calls and we chat, and he is barely present. Like, 4-5 minutes of dead silence and no notice is given if I say anything. I keep checking to make sure the line is still connected. I even told him a story about my coworker literally trying to convert me to her cult and me having to go to HR, and his response is distracted "oh wow" followed by a 3 minute silence while I hear him clicking keys. I feel annoyedness bubbling up inside me and try and shove it way down deep.

I stay quiet and think about if someone posted they were annoyed by this behaviour, I would advise them he's hard at work and your story probably wasn't that great anyway. I pout to myself but stay quiet about my displeasure on the phone. We keep talking, and he gets a little flirty and asks if I want to give his shower a test run with him when I get there. 'Yes!', I think to myself. 'My chance to be light-hearted!' and started flirting back. Then I realize I look really cute for him and I don't know if he wants to go out for dinner or what, so we can plan our sexy shower for either before or after food. Whatever he wants is fine, so I ask what dinner plans are to plan sexy shower around. We discuss logistics and decide we will eat in since I'm arriving so late, and he asks if he can keep working for a bit and call me later, I agree and happily hang up............THEN I REALIZE I SHUT DOWN THE SEXY TALK FOR DINNER LOGISTICS AND FORGOT ABOUT IT. We never circled back to talking about the shower. I am the worst. I am a worm. I like the sexy talk! I want him feeling flirty and out of his robot work mode! And it was my fault we stopped talking about it! Why did I ruin that!? Ugh. I have nothing to do but marinate on these thoughts while I drive.

I plan feverishly how I am going to reopen the sexy discussion next phone call. If I can get it back, we will be just fine. Yes, everything will be fine. (If you're picturing me chuckling maniacally to myself then you're envisioning the situation perfectly).

I decide to wait until I'm 100 miles out, and then call him and let him know I'm only that far away from his sexy self. Yes. This is a good plan. He will be so turned on and I will be goddess of the flirt.

I call. He is annoyed I'm interrupting him while he is working. I change the topic to work talk to avoid him feeling like I'm wasting his time. He perks up. I feel worse about this because he's excited about work but not me. I ponder the future of our relationship. 'Why is he ruining my efforts to be flirty to him??? Why??' Can I really do this forever? He's such a workaholic. throws hand over forehead and tragically sighs.

I pout to myself but keep quiet. He asks my ETA and we hang up. The hamster is running wild. It says things like 'he never pays attention to me. All he cares about is work. Maybe he will never be balanced about work.' (I should add.....he does a very good job with this balance lol). 'Oh god...Maybe we are going to break up because I'm such a big distraction.' I realize how wild the hamster is running and shove it angrily into a box. 'He's staying focused on work now so he can pay attention to you later', I angrily tell myself. 'Yes that's all! If another girl posted in RPW describing this situation I would tell her she is being a fool about his work and an absolute diva. He wants to enjoy his time with you and can't if you keep distracting him.'

  • The Good

I am mostly calmed down, and pull up to his place and he is already standing in the rain because he asked my ETA, and is waiting to help me carry my bags in. He scoops me into his arms and gives me the most loving hugs and kisses, carries my things upstairs, and tender couple time begins. He doesn't mention work once.

  • TL;DR

What. The. Hell. Did I almost just ruin by not STFUing? I am acutely reminded of this image and am utterly ashamed and simultaneously relieved. Thank god I didn't almost atomically over-react /S.


Saturday


We don't have any concrete plans, but I know he wants to show me around a little and he definitely can't take an entire day off work. I'll have things of my own to occupy me, and I know he will need my help with several things as well so that's no problem. Also, his apartment is a messy average bachelor pad so I'm going to clean it. In fact, I'll start now.

  • The Bad

I don't think I have anything to report!! I feel I was already very rewarded by my decision to enter our weekend together with absolute 0 negativity and criticisms.

  • The Good

Oh what a day, what a lovely day! (Spoiler: we ended the evening watching Mad Max: Fury Road).

Actually, I don't know how much insight today's report can have -- it was just a great day because we both a had a great attitude. Period. I am going to talk about my day, but only because it was so wonderful -- skip ahead to Sunday if you don't care to read (:

Today may have been one of the best days HB and I have ever had. We had so. much. fun. We planned to basically just explore the new city he's staying in (It's actually a notorious horrible city that people hate, my coworker's oh said things like "uh Jesus, have fun then" when they heard where I was going. What a crappy attitude).

Our plans for the day included a mini-day trip to see one of the many nearby sites, getting Basque food (I'm Basque and there is a restaurant for it and HB was so excited to bring me), then help him set up his new office, getting frozen custard that he saw and promised to wait to try with me, get a nice dinner, and go to a well-known country bar after.

He was really happy to get out of the shower to find a 100% cleaned apartment! Great start. We had a slow morning then went and bought a bunch of decorations and spent some time in his office gussying it up, and realized the day was getting away from us. We skipped Basque food to save time (no big deal, always next trip!) and he took me for seriously the best nachos I've ever had. I love nachos but eat them so rarely d: He gave me a quick driving tour and we stopped for coffee at a 'Bikini Barista' shack -- OUR GIRL WAS WEARING A THONG BIKINI and the craziest scanty getup I've ever seen. We drove away and he was like "uh, I swear they usually just wear Daisy Dukes and crop tops...", it was really funny and the coffee was soo good.

We decided for our day trip we would go see this industrial wasteland about an hour out. Weird choice for a day trip but we heard it was really scary and looked post-apocalyptic so we went to check it out. We wandered in and out of windy creepy roads surrounded by giant unmanned machines and sort of hoped no 'Hills Have Eyes' mutants came for us. We just wandered for an hour or 2 and then went back, and got our frozen custard and sort of spoiled our dinner appetites d:

We decided to walk it off by (and this was his suggestion!) wandering up and down the aisles of Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I was so giddy. As we wandered I was like "do you realize how hardcore dream date this is for me?" and he didn't understand what I could mean. I was laughing so hard and told him "if I could ever get you to agree to wander around Bed & Bath with me on another day, that would be the best day ever. I'm obsessed with this". He was totally floored I (or any woman) would enjoy something like that but it must have resonated because he let us do two laps around d: He had given me a $50 giftcard for there for Christmas, and I had been saving it for something worth it. We ended up picking a giant wall clock out together that we thought matched my apartment, but also matched his tastes too so we could enjoy it together when we move in together <3

We went to dinner, and it was actually pretty disappointing! We laughed it off and ended up deciding we weren't that hungry anyway and packed our leftovers and left quickly. The second we sat down though we both realized how deadbeat from the day we were, and decided against the trip to the country bar. I was really looking forward to that, and he said he'd be happy to take me if I really wanted, but I figured why not wait until the conditions were better and we were both in the mood. He suggested comfy pajamas and a movie and I was sold. We went back to his place and he suggested Mad Max --it was amazing. And completely coincidental but went perfectly with the wasteland we had explored earlier in the day.

While we were watching he got up to do something and when he came back -- I swear on my life, gave me hands-down the most loving and sweetest kiss of our entire relationship (and therefore of my entire life). If a kiss can say "I'll love you forever", this one did. I couldn't possibly describe it but just...ahh (:

We went to bed right after and I am still warm and glowy from the entire affair.

PS, if you remember my starting note for the day, I thought there was no way he could take a whole day off work. He did.


Sunday


My last day with HB here ): But! Because before I left home I set up everything so well for my workday tomorrow, I can stay much later and make the drive back stress-free (: our plans today are purely productive, especially being that he took the whole day off work yesterday which is huge for him. And to think about my road-rage fueled hamster sesh on Friday..can honestly say I'm embarrassed. We have to get analytic reports set up, more things in his office, and I have been disturbingly not proactive with my taxes /: so those as well. Will report how the more serious of our days goes!

  • The Bad

Actually really nothing, although there was definite potential. We met a series of inconveniences that I expected at least one of us to express frustration at and it really didn't happen. We were interrupted in the office by an important public figure (intentionally vague lol) and it was a big distraction/time sink, but had to be handled leisurely and gracefully. It was worth talking to him, but still took away from what we were working on. Our internet also crapped out, so we had to run to the phone store to get our wifi card checked. They just hit a reset button that we could have done ourselves -__- also ate up much time. We ended up not getting to the reports at all, and not finishing my taxes. So the only 2 things we needed to get done didn't even happen, and not to mention whatever HB had on his plate that he never complained about.

  • The Good

Dealing with all that gracefully! I think we kept expecting the other to lose face at some point, and neither did. I had to be on the road and wasn't accomplishing what I needed to, and lord knows how much work HB had to do. We just kept up the smiles and nothing happened -- great!

I didn't get on the road until an hour and a half later than necessary, which had me getting back to our hometown laaaateee. HB filled my gas tank for me while I was in the shower, and gave me a $20 since he knew I didn't have any cash or hardly anything else. (Click here for a BeautifulSpaceCadet side story that shows how well earned my username is). I don't care about his money but I love that man for taking such good care of me. He never buys me shiny crap or stupid items of social status...but he always makes sure my basics are covered. I didn't (nor do I ever really) spend a dollar while I was with him, not that we are frivolous spenders anyway, but he did he let me buy him some gimmicky item for $9.99 I saw and thought he would love haha. I try so hard to receive graciously but it's hard when he gives and gives and gives and I just want him to stop so I can give too! It's hard for me sometimes dealing with the financial disparity before us, but I can tell he takes real pride in it. I didn't spend the emergency $20 so hopefully he'll allow me to give it back next weekend when he's home again lol.

I spent my last moments scrambling to clean his apartment and leave it perfect while he filled my gas tank. I then shoved 7-8 little love notes all around for him to find later (:

I drove home and at one point found myself completely teary-eyed thinking about how fortunate I was. About everything, having HB, and his wonderful family as well. His mom (Mama M) called me while I was driving just because she knew I would be on the road late and wanted to make sure we enjoyed our time, HB wasn't too stressed, and told me she would be leaving her phone on loud all night and to call even if it was just because I felt sleepy still driving. Angel of mine, am I right?


Monday


Tired day for me. Actually, not going to bore you all with a big long post since it's an LDR day. As far as HB and I go, we texted and he called to hear my voice before bedtime. End of story (:


Tuesday


Quite similar to the last and I shan't waste your time with words that don't add anything (I'm wordy enough already!)


Wednesday


Well, I came as close to goofing on 'no bitching' as I could have, but I would actually give myself a 9/10 on the whole affair (docking myself a point because there's always room for improvement). I'm actually happy it happened.

  • The Good & Bad

It all happened together so I'll take it as such. As I'm sure some of you have read, I've been concerned with HB's drinking and was not sure where I stood on it. He drinks it to get to sleep every night, which I know is not good. He also has never compromised on anything because of his drinking, nor has it ever negatively effected our relationship, his work, nothing. So it's been hard for me to decide how I feel.

I came to the conclusion that he's the man I fell in love with (with whatever habits he may have), he's never given me a half second pause to question if he would ever let me down (no), and I would rather have a measured man, even in his imperfections, than someone less reliable. HB is as measured and reliable as they come. I also came to the conclusion that despite that fact, I could not feel comfortable having kids with him if his drinking hasn't changed. I need to know he can be under the safe driving limit every night so they are never unsafe if an emergency happened to them or me. Now, we are not 100% on kids so that's not a death sentence. Also, we are still 5-6 years out from kids, so it's no immediate concern. But it is something we talk about and it had the potential to be an irreconcilable difference.

I had a hard day and let my negative thoughts get the better of me, but I did not allow myself unload on him in a second. I took a long shower to really gauge how I felt and what I wanted to say, and be sure it was rational and not driven by my emotions. I texted him to let him know I was upset (he already could tell) and wanted to talk, but also that I didn't mind waiting if it was a bad time or too much on his plate and that it wasn't an time sensitive nor urgent discussion. He told me our relationship was always his priority, and called to chat. He helped me open up about it even though I was really upset. His first question was "does it have to do with us?" and when I said yes (crying) he said "babe that's good...we're the ones in charge of that, it's everything else we can't control". I told him my concerns and he repeated for the 10th time that this isn't a big scary topic for me to feel like I had to avoid bringing up and he's always happy to listen and discuss. I told him my worst fears (that he would decide he couldn't compromise on children and he wouldn't want to change, so we would break up), and I told him my most realistic fears (that he would resent me for pushing the issue). He told me I was insane if I thought alcohol was going to be what costs him the love of his life and a happy family, and said "you know me, would I ever put my family in harm's way?" Of course he wouldn't. "Have I ever been unprepared for any situation where harm could come to them?" That's also absurd. So he said what's not harmful now may be harmful later, and he'll adjust accordingly. He also reminded me he drinks to help him sleep, not to get drunk (truth), and said he can find other ways to replace that effect since it's not drunkness that he cares about. He pointed out he had also never heard of a parent having trouble sleeping before. I told him the line provided by /u/LittleKnownFacts in another thread:

"Your man should be a reflection of everything you'd be proud of your son to have."

And how that concerned me as well since it was a serious habit, and I didn't want to gamble waiting until kids for him to get it together. He agreed and pointed to several breakdowns in his parents' choices that lead to his addictions, and that he would make sure to not make the same contributions.

He told me the situation would not be resolved tonight as it wasn't a one-time talk, but that we would work on it together and we could have as many talks as it needed on the way.

I asked how I could be sure he would be able to stop, and he said I'd just have to trust him. I said "my worst fears would be eased right now if you could tell me you would not begrudge me for not having children until after it's resolved though" and he said that was reasonable and agreed that we could wait until we were sure he was under the safe driving limit each night. I then asked him if he was okay with him being the next one to start a talk when needed, because I wanted him to know I wouldn't berate the issue. He said that sounded perfectly reasonable but if I thought of something to say to not just ignore it on principle since that wouldn't do anyone good.

It ended really positively and I feel so much better. I'm fine not having children if he doesn't want to change his habits, I've always been on the fence and I would rather have HB and only HB than a family with someone else. So as long as he knows and is okay that that's my boundary, I'm really happy to be alright with whatever course of action he decides.



That concludes P1 of my Field Report for the 'No Bitching Challenge' -- I'm sure there is plenty I could have done better, but overall I am very proud of myself and us, and feel I've already seen returns on my commitment to being pleasant. Thus far, I would most certainly recommend giving it a shot to any of you ladies.

I can post Part 2 immediately, or give it a day to avoid spamming the sub. Whatever the mods would prefer (: