Daniel and I are fighting. I have a carpet burn on knee and my forearms are bruised from a fight last night. My eyes are puffy and red from crying.

I have my annual review at noon today. I was supposed to prepare something for it last night but that obviously didn't happen.

I walked to work today yelling into the phone, rain soaking my hair, me not caring enough to put my hood up.

He wants me to be a certain way, and I can never live up to his standards. He tells me that he wants me to act a certain way or say a certain thing, and that these are his needs, but I can't do it. I've tried. I can meet his needs like this for a few weeks, sometimes as much as a couple of months, but eventually it falls apart because I make a mistake. I told him that I can't live with this pressure, that I can't be perfect all of the time, that I can't always be who he wants me to be. He comes back at me asking me if I care enough about him and his needs to try to change. I tell him that I can't change and that I can't live with someone who wants me to change. He asks if I mean that. I am exasperated and I say YES I MEAN IT.

And there I am, walking across the Cambie Street bridge, yelling into my phone, YES I MEAN IT.

I want things to change too. I want to have a nice relationship with him. I just don't see how it's going to happen while he nags me about my mood and how I don't fulfill his needs.

He's sitting there on the couch last night, fuming mad that I'm in the kitchen making dinner when he wants me to sit down to spend time with him. OK, that's nice, but I'm trying to get dinner on the table so that we don't have to eat at 10pm, which is what happens when we do things his way. Then I'm doing the dishes and he's getting even more mad, telling me that my drink is getting warm and that it seems like I'm making excuses as to why I won't sit down with him. And then I realize that I don't actually want to sit down with someone who is giving me a hard time for making dinner and cleaning up. I finish and go sit down with him. And he sits there silent, frustrated and angry at me. I think about the pile of laundry that needs to be put away and look at him there silent and brooding and am wishing that I could just get up and fold the laundry because that's the better option at this moment. But I sit there and wait for him to say something, as he's the one that wanted me to go sit with him, and then he says SO ARE YOU GOING TO SAY SOMETHING? And I become instantly MAD, like insanely uncontrolled rage.

I don't know what to do. I don't want to go back to counselling. In counselling, Daniel acts nice and says things the right way, and then it turns to me and they gang up on me and tell me about how it's all how I'm percieving things and essentially that this future of this relationship depends on me letting go of some things.

But those two weeks that I spent alone with Alf were bliss. I worked on some crafts and got regular exercise and felt so free and happy and lighthearted. There's nothing wrong with me. The problem is HIM. The problem is that he expects me to fix HIS problems, that if only I will be more loving that he will be happy. If only we move into a different apartment, if only a different job, if only this and this and this... I can't do it anymore. I can't keep trying to please him.

I don't know what this means. I love our apartment, and our lives and finances are so intertwined, and I honestly don't know how I can afford to live in this city alone. I guess those aren't real reasons to stay in a bad relationship. I don't know what it's like to be single in my 30's. I don't know if I want another relationship after this one. I don't know. I don't know.