Taking my own advice

I have a friend having relationship problems right now. She’s feeling overwhelmed and doesn’t always want to see her husband at the end of a long day. I gave her some advice to try to focus on communicating better about when she can and cannot spend time with her husband so that when she is with him she’s in a better mood. That way, they are spending less time together but the time they do have is higher quality and creates happier memories. Then I realized that, even though our relationship issues are different, I needed to take my own advice. I miss Mike all the time and I resent anything that takes away from my limited hours with him these days. But if I spend the time we are together indulging in jealousy and insecurity and self-pity, it will just compound the problem. It’s far better to give him the space he needs and to focus on keeping myself healthy as much as I can. Then I can try to just make the time we do spend together low pressure and fun. That’s less likely to upset Mike and will create more happy memories of time with him, which in theory should help me feel less insecure (but with my brain, who knows).
Mike’s out of town, and while he’s been gone, I’ve been trying to give him space and practice not being clingy. We have a tradition of writing notes to each other, and he always slips a love note in my suitcase when I go out of town without him. So I wrote him one letter for yesterday and one letter for today and gave them to him. We’ve texted a few times, but not heavily. But it sounds like he’s having fun and in a good mood, which makes me glad. I’m just working on being OK without him around all the time so that I can be a better girlfriend when he is around. Hopefully when he gets back tomorrow I’m really hoping we can hang out and he’ll be glad to see me.