7 month itch?

According to my friends, the internet and countless 'Agony Aunts', there are a few 'stages' (for want of a better word) that most couples go through - the first being the '7 month itch', which is apparently when the honeymoon period is over, you stop being on your best behaviour all the time and you both see each other properly - warts and all. Some couples get through it, some, after realising that their partner really wasn't the person they thought they were, split....

As Jeff and I were together for 3.5 years last time, I didn't think we'd go through it - after all, we went through some pretty tough times and stood by each other. After splitting up in October 2009 and not having any contact until November 2010, we've basically been 'together' for the last 7 months and it's been really, really great.

However, the last week has been quite tough going - Jeff is still settling into his job and I've been feeling a bit unloved and unappreciated. This culminated in a midnight text exchange whilst I was on holiday in another country with a friend and followed by a lot of very LONG emails.

Jeff and I don't really text each other, or phone - we're both quite busy people and we've tended to email each other. However, I've found myself waiting longer and longer for Jeff's replies and even though I was able to email Jeff from abroad, send him photographs etc... I didn't hear from him for 2 days.

After our exchange, Jeff apologised - and I realised that he has been going through a lot of stuff at work and that I probably shouldn't be too hard on him, nor too demanding. I suppose it's just setting expectations? If he tells me he's too busy / tired / can't reply for a while, then I'd be OK.... but it was just the not knowing why he wasn't replying to me and it made me feel a bit crap.

Thankfully, I think we managed to sort it out - Jeff even suggested an open air theatre performance in a couple of months which sounds amazing (it's usually me who suggests things as I'm the planner, Jeff's very laid back) and I'm really looking forward to going.

So, I drove round to Jeff's house last night after work - the first time I had seen him since before my holiday. I said I wouldn't turn up until 6:00pm, however managed to get round to his house by 5:20pm, which meant I did some cleaning (much to his annoyance!) before he got there... Jeff had done a Tesco's order a couple of days before and got all the ingredients for the New York Cheesecake that we were going to make (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2869/new-york-cheesecake) and after I'd given him the gifts I bought him whilst on holiday and had a bit of a chat, we set to work making the cheesecake.

Unfortunately it soon became apparent that it wasn't a very quick recipe - bake the base for 10 minutes, then do part of the topping, stick in oven, reduce temperature, blah, blah.. etc.. etc. I admit, I did get a bit annoyed as I really just wanted to 'chill' with Jeff and whilst I usually love baking and cooking with him, it did appear that we were slaves in the kitchen and couldn't really relax whilst we were making the bloody cheesecake!

Added to which, we didn't think we had enough ingredients to make 2 - one for my work colleagues and one for his, so we actually drove to the Supermarket nearby and got more cream cheese and sour cream - turns out, we didn't actually need any more, so poor Jeff has 3 tubs of Philadelphia in the fridge and a lot of sour cream!

We managed to sort most of it out by 9:00pm and after stating that I really didn't want to cook anything for dinner, given that we had been in the kitchen for at least 1.5 hours, we decided to order curry. It wasn't too bad - however it was hardly healthy and considering I'm getting my tattoo next week (yes, that's still going ahead, can't WAIT!) I really don't want the tattooist to be tattooing on a big, fat, wobbly thigh. Plus - I really do want Jeff and myself to continue eating healthily and not go back to our old habits of eating crap.

Jeff opened a bottle of wine and we drank that whilst watching a documentary about the Elephant man - Joseph Merrick. We had recorded it on Jeff's Skyplus box a couple of weeks ago and it was very interesting.

We then made the final part of the cheesecake - the topping, which thankfully didn't take too long, before heading off to bed and cuddling - that was probably the nicest part of the evening as I had really missed Jeff in the last week, especially as we had a bit of a 'discussion' a few days before that.

As I've got a friend's wedding this weekend where I'm taking the wedding photographs, we're next seeing each other on Sunday night and next weekend is the BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham which I know we are both really looking forward to. I'm going to try and stop being so stroppy and I'm hoping Jeff will be able to give me a little more reassurance that he's not going to go anywhere......

- Molly