I saw my hun off at Clapham Junction this morning, off to Edinburgh for a couple of days for work. He comes back on Friday. I shall miss him, even though it's nothing like the several-week separations we used to have. And besides, I'm ridiculously busy this week, and I have Jerry for company :-)

I stayed over at his place last night, and at midnight (after we'd been asleep for about an hour) his phone started ringing. It actually rang three times (that is, the person ringing tried separate three times) before we woke up enough to know what was going on. As with all late-night phone calls, I assumed it was something bad. It wasn't. It was his XW, who had heard that he was coming up to Edinburgh and wanted to see him. C was all fuzzy and blurry on the phone, due to being half-asleep and a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, and when he said he'd call her back in the morning when he was a bit more coherent, she got upset. C thinks she was about to burst into tears when he put the phone down. She apparently had said something (completely wrong) about how she thought he was coming up "for the last time", to say goodbye "forever" to his family etc.

I don't hate her. I've been afraid of her, mostly the first few times I went up to Scotland to visit him, because C said there was a possibility that if she saw me around town she'd verbally attack me. I'm not afraid of her now. I feel incredibly sorry for her, for C, and for her boyfriend. I feel terribly sad that someone could be affected like that, and be as irrational as she is. C said she seemed pretty balanced when it was just her, her boyfriend and C, in their curious little "we're all mates" threesome. She just appears not to be able to handle the idea that C might want another relationship as well.

bluey-grey wrote something yesterday about happiness. Now, I may moan and bitch and whine frighteningly often in here; but I think, like her, if someone were to ask me if I was happy, I'd say "Yes" too. The shit I whine about is just periphery... Yeah, I don't like my job, but that's not uncommon. My money problems are pretty superficial (the only debts I have are my mortgage - and I don't think that counts as a "debt" anyway - and a small overdraft that will get paid off if I receive even a minimal Xmas bonus). I have my health, unlike a year ago, and Jerry's healthy too. I have a smashing partner who I love very much. I get on with my parents (most of the time :-).

I used to be miserable. I don't know if I was "depressed" per se, but I lived through a year or two during which my moods were all over the place and I spent many evenings lying on my bed unable to speak. Then I made radical changes - like splitting up with my ex - and lived through some truly horrible times - e.g. the fiasco surrounding buying a flat and being made redundant without any pay at the same time. I've been content with my life pretty much ever since.

Meeting C has complemented the happiness that was already there. I've never been the sort of person who relies on being in a relationship for happiness. I remember seeing a woman on Oprah or Jerry Springer, or somesuch, saying that she drew all her happiness from her husband and children, and that she'd be "nothing" without them. That pained me, to be honest. Sure, there's nothing wrong with drawing extra happiness from a relationship, but if you're not contented within yourself then maybe you need to work & focus on yourself for a bit.

Before I start sounding like some hippy self-help manual...

The thing is, I think C relies on me very heavily for his happiness. I knew from the start that he's the kind of person who functions better in a relationship than out of it (while I'm not), and that's fine with me. I like making him happy... no, I love making him happy. But I fear what would happen if I'm weren't there. Would he be OK, or would he disintegrate into the sort of needy, unstable person his XW is? Even though she's got her new boyfriend and seems to be living in domestic bliss, it's clear now and again that she's not coping so well without him.

I have been meaning to ask him if he thinks he'd have eventually managed to get himself back to a plane of contentment without me, but I haven't had the opportunity. I think I know what he'd say, though. I don't really mind being "responsible" for making him happy, but I don't think it's... healthy (for want of a better word). I have this idea that people should be responsible for certain things themselves. Maybe, in time, he'll get there. As for his XW? Who knows. I really hope she can move on.