Lidia and I had a semi-serious talk this morning and she confirmed that our relationship was pretty much broken from the beginning. I always felt that our very first trip together, to San Diego, was the worst romantic trip I have ever had. It seems she felt the same way.

This was barely a week or two after she moved in with me. We both got pretty drunk at dinner and went back to the hotel. Unfortunately I don't remember it all too well, but I think we made love and then went back down to the lounge to listen to live music. I drank some more but I can't recall if she did too. I really liked the music but she was getting tired and we decided to go back to the room.

Back in the room I asked her for more oral but she declined with a bunch of reasons. I immediately got angry and started berating her about how she had said that she wanted to learn how to do it better and that she would "practice" a lot. This, of course, was the worst thing to do. She became defensive and I became even more verbally abusive. I ended up going to sleep sulking and fuming. This is when I began to feel cheated and manipulated. But Lidia said that this was when she felt abused and devalued. She said that if I was more calm and gentle that she would have been willing to try and please me more.

So, from then on, I guess, she shut down and held back her feelings and I became more verbally abusive. I think I was right in trying to end it early on but I was going about it in totally the wrong way. This was well over 2 years ago and I wish she had been much more forthcoming about this whole issue back then. I am not sure what I would have done differently because I didn't (and maybe still don't) have the tools to deal with my frustrations in a positive manner.

Edited to add: I just reread a much earlier blog post about our San Diego Valentine's weekend trip. I then wrote that I got upset and angry when Lidia put me off when she told me she wasn't in the mood when I pressed for more oral. I also wrote that I was hurt and felt misled and that I sulked for a time before I slept. I may have minimized the level of my verbal abuse but I had been pretty blunt and honest about my bad behaviors up till then. So, I now doubt that I was as verbally abusive then as she implied.