Sometimes, I'm just stupid

And no, nothing can ever be good for longer than say five minutes. Bleergh.

I've screwed up, and it ended with us spending our night out yesterday, when we were supposed to celebrate our joint achievement and the merry times ahead, crying our eyes out as discreetly as possible over pints in a pub. Yey.

I like beer. It does not benefit from tears.

And now I just want to crawl away into some hole somewhere and bury myself in guilt and shame, but that would be stupid. I hurt Mistress, turns out I've hurt her several times over the last couple of years regarding the same issue, and I had no idea. We were so far from each other in our interpretations of the situation that it's not even funny.

We've got a dog. A five year old miniature pincher named Vilde, which is Swedish for Wild Thing. He's very aptly named, and when the kid was around a year old, we admitted defeat and left him at my in-laws place. He's been there ever since, even though we've made numerous attempts at bringing him home again. We go visit about every fortnight or so for a number of reasons, so it's not as if we've dumped him and forgotten about him, but still. He's not living at home.

And since I have no common sense and no impulse control (and have the papers to prove it, I might ad(h)d) I choose yesterday to bring this sore subject up again, declaring that I didn't think we would ever be able to take him home and that maybe it would be better to give up and start thinking about getting another dog. A nice one, one who doesn't bark incessantly and nips small kids in the face.

Which led to Mistress silently crying, staring out at the window and me feeling totally confused without any idea of what part of what I said was so horrible. I was even feeling kind of righteous - I was only trying to solve a problem that was obviously my responsibility, and I wanted to tell her that I gave up, that I admitted defeat and had failed. Why that would make her break down in tears was beyond me.

Did I mention the different interpretation thing? And how it so not funny? Not even a little bit, actually.

From Mistress point of view, I'm owned and collared. I've pledged allegiance to her countless times, and she's declared her intention to lead me and own me and take responsibility for our life together just as often. That should, one would think, mean that I would trust her to do that, and expect her to do that. That major problems in our life, for example who is and who isn't a part of our family, is up to her to figure out. 

I on the other hand, has the default setting of "Much Fix All the Things!". The dog was her gift to me, I was the one convincing her that we should get him, I was the one calling breeders and arranging visits, I was the one who was at home with him for three months, who made him house broken and taught him to be home alone without barking or biting on stuff. I was the one who went to obedience classes with him. It was my responsibility. I was also the one who first said "this isn't working, we can't keep him, his not happy with us" - because it was my responsibility to make him happy with us, and I was the one failing at it.

All this time, all these years, I've taken my responsibility for the dog, and his place in our family, completely for granted. At the same time, Mistress has taken her responsibility for the situation equally for granted, and my attempts at "solving" or making decisions regarding it as usurping her. Every time I've said "nah, let's not do this, let's do this instead" or "maybe next month we could try again" or whatever, in her mind I've been telling her I don't trust her. That I don't trust her judgement, that I don't believe in her ability to make good decisions and make this right, and that her time is up - I'm done waiting for her and I'm taking it in my own hands.

That's what she's been thinking. And I had no idea. It didn't even occur to me that it would be possible that she didn't think that this was my mess and my job to solve it.

The fact that this is the same damn hole I keep falling in to, the Pit of Responsibility for Things that isn't Mine, doesn't make it feel even a little bit better.

She was right. I've screwed up. I've hurt her, I've hurt us, and it doesn't matter how sorry I am. What's done is done. I can't go back in time and make it right. I'm just sad, and have a hard time dealing with it.