Relationships are bloody difficult, for everyone, it seems.

A, on a ‘break’ from Fr, and I went to this cocktail thing last night. The wine was good. The food was good. It was ‘finger food’, A’s new craze right now. He’s doing us Sunday lunch this weekend – which will be finger food.

Fr phoned him several times. He was annoyed.

“She shouldn’t be phoning me because we have agreed to meet at 9.15″, he moans to me. He doesn’t answer her calls.

As we’re walking away from the cocktail do to his car, he tries to phone her.

“She’s switched off her phone”, he moans further.

I ask where they were going to go. He says just ‘for a walking’ near to her place. I suggest that he goes to her flat anyway – the risk being that she doesn’t answer the door. I also suggest that he doesn’t say he was in the swimming-pool all the time as, if he gets to see her, she will smell the alcohol on his breath. I suggest, instead, that he blames me (as, anyway, she blames me for his drinking too much).

I tell him that he should stop playing games with her. Her phoning and he not answering. Then him phoning and she not having her phone on. He, of course, denies playing games, as, probably, would she. But, the reality is that, as in any other relationship, he (and her, probably) is playing a game. We all do it to a greater or lesser degree.

I don’t know whether he went round or not. I will email him now.

And then, this morning, S, my colleague, was upset. Upset because of her husband who she had seen, sitting at a café with other people. One of these people was a woman who, some time in the past, he may have had an affair with – perhaps – maybe. And she rang him and so they had a fight. So she wanted advice (but, as is normal, didn’t really want advice at all but to be told that what she planned was the right thing). She’s going to change her route because then she doesn’t see it – but, of course, that doesn’t mean it goes away. Her husband, of course, denies everything. She then spoke about, maybe, she should start going out with her friends. It’s more game. I suggested that she didn’t as going out with her friends meant that she would be doing it to try and make her husband jealous and if it didn’t work, then where would she be?

And so, interrupted by colleagues, she has been telling me the story over the last ‘x’ years. And why it all happened and asking what I thought. And I feel sorry for her as I do for A and I wish I could make it better for them but I can’t. But I did try to explain to her that I, too, have these feelings of jealousy – it’s just that I know what they are and I force myself to act in a proper way and not give in to them.

My example was this week. F texted me to say that he was going out with a friend. Of course, my immediate reaction is – who, what, why, where????? And what relationship do you have with them? Or have had with them?

I do none of that. I know that for what it is. And I prefer that he feels free enough to tell me this much. Later, on the phone, he said that he did not stay with them and went out for dinner on his own. It was complicated and he will explain it to me after; later; apparently.

And that’s OK. Maybe I will mention it or maybe not. In any event I have to explain the other night so that he knows I am not angry with him. Maybe it will come out then. Maybe I should explain that I have the feelings but don’t act on them. Maybe. Perhaps. Or not, of course.

A asked me when will we move in together. I said not now. Not yet. Maybe never. He didn’t understand. I said I would wait for F to decide. He thinks I’m crazy and that I should push. I know that I should not. When or if it is right, it will happen. F complains that his flat is too small. It will come – in time. There is time (or, at least, one has to hope for time). And, anyway, if there is no time, then there is little to be done about that.

In the meantime, I am, again, like a rabbit in car headlights. The fear of everything is causing me to freeze; to do nothing and, therefore, making everything far worse. However, today I did some stuff. And some stuff is better than the ‘nothing’ I had been doing until now.

At least, now, finally, the weather is more like summer. High twenties already and set to get higher with almost clear blue skies.

Even if my life is not perfect, I love it still. F returns tonight and I shall pick him up – he asks if the ‘babies’ will be there too. I say maybe. And, as he flies into Terminal 2, which is smaller, maybe I will take them. I know that Dino would love it. And so would F. And, as long as F and my dogs are happy, then that is all that matters.

And, whilst I may play some sort of game with our relationship, it’s not the one of A nor S nor their respective partners and I will not let the jealousy thing become the thing that controls me and takes me over. Each time it happens I will make it stop in my head.

It’s too nice a day to have problems like that.