The Mattress

Our mattress tells a story. We have had it for about 6 years, i would guess.

The other day i was making the bed, i put the bottom sheet on and was smoothing it out. i looked at it. funny how to see something all day and never actually look at it. It has dips.. it’s starting to feel its age, i suppose.

It has two parallel ruts in it. one on either side, just off centre. the centre is raised up, even with the sides of the bed.

we sleep in the same spot so much and so often, that the bed has changed its shape to accommodate our sleeping habits.

that is my marriage. each of us on our own sides, no one meeting in the middle. the cuddling at night is so rare, the mattress doesn’t show it. doesn’t acknowledge it.

it wouldn’t even help if one of us was willing to meet in the middle, you would just roll back into your spot in the night. stuck in your rut.

The Brick Wall

seriously… like banging my head against a brick wall. i know he heard what i said. he acknowledged it. i asked him a few days later and he says he didn’t have anything to say about our talk but he has been thinking about constantly.

constantly?

really?

how is that possible. nothing has changed. why the hell do i try? why can i not get back into my “i don’t care” bubble and just leave well enough alone!

trying to talk and fix only makes me angry because then i start thinking maybe it will change. i know better. seriously! after 14 stinking years together you would think that i would just know it isn’t going to change.

there are so many parts of our lives together that are really not that bad. why do i cling to the hope that i can make it all happy? why can’t i just appreciate the good stuff, and block out the rest of it. we aren’t ever going to have a relationship. we aren’t even friends. it’s like roommates who tolerate each other but sleep in the same bed. i need to compartmentalize, and keep it there. i am too emotional, i can’t seem to separate things.

confession

i have to confess the reason i haven’t really been posting.

this is my new obsession. i got a kindle. it was purchased as my christmas present, we knew it wasn’t going to come until well after christmas.

 it came. 😀 and i have been attached to it every moment of every day. they have made it ridiculously easy to load books onto it, it has wifi, and i am in LOVE! i have been meaning for  years to read “Wuthering Heights”, and now i am.

the other night i sat down with my laptop, on the kindle free book site, loading books that it automatically sends to the kindle for you! or there is an option right on the kindle to search the kindle store, click a button and voila! you have a new book! conveniently (and dangerously) it comes preloaded with your credit card info, that could get me into trouble LOL.

i am still trying to keep up posting, i will try harder. i will just have my kindle on lap so i can stroke it affectionately.

The Talk – the immediate aftermath

normally after one of our talks, he changes. well, he makes the changes he needs to make as per my requests. this normally lasts for a few days, perhaps even a couple of weeks, before he reverts back to his natural state having done what is necessary to make me stop my pissing and whining.

He doesn’t seem capable of a real change, only short term damage control kind of changes.

I heard a brilliant phrase for it on a blog really recently, but i can’t even remember which blog, never mind what the phrase was. sorry.

This talk, the change doesn’t seem to have happened. there has been no change his attitude, tone of voice, or how he treats me.

so night before last, i asked him he had thought about our talk. and yes, he had but he was tired and didn’t want to talk now. later. i hate that!! i feel like everything is on his terms only. and yesterday he was an ASSHOLE. i have no idea what has been up his ass all day, but it’s something.

he is in the kind of mood where everything i do and everything i don’t do was intended to piss him off and sets him off. i am doing a pretty good job of ignoring it (the only way to deal with it because otherwise he gloms on to one thing i have said, repeats it over and over, laughing, and walks away).

i went to bed early to avoid him.

The Talk – part II – Eloquent Monologue

Last night, with the night before’s talk still foggily ringing in my ears, i went to bed late. TH had been in bed for hours which means he was due to wake up and lurk about the house for hours. I didn’t intend to continue our talk, i hadn’t been planning a speech or anything and i had had two hot rum and honeys. i think this loosened my brain and my tongue, but it worked.

i knew he was awake, we had said a few things about the kids. and then, without warning i gave an inspired monologue along the lines of George C. Scotts opening monologue in Patton (which i have to mention i have never actually seen, but i have heard about it enough to get a good idea).

I told him that you can only ask for things for long before you just have to stop. You cannot keep asking for the same thing over and over, you get worn down that these little tiny things gets bigger and bigger until they are insurmountable and turn into the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 i even made a car analogy that was brilliant. can you image actually relating a relationship conversation and difficulties to car repair?? i did! He totally got it. I told him (because this happened to my parents when i was in my teens) that sometimes to have to buy a whole new engine for your car because of a $5 part that you didn’t replace when you could.

I told him that these things that he considered small and unimportant were building, i told him again that i am angry at him every moment of every day because of this and i that i had reached my breaking point. i told him that things feel irreparably broken and that i was staying because i felt i HAD to, not because i WANT to.

He sat up, looked at me and said “well said, darkerside! well said! i get it.”

all the muscles in my stomach relaxed, so much of my tension dissolved. he got it!

then he says “what do you need to not feel like that?” my stomach dropped again, did he really not know? was it possible?

“please tell me you don’t want me to repeat every conversation we have ever had over the last 12 years!”

he said ok, and it was dropped. but 10 minutes later i asked him what he took out of that. i’m glad i asked because he really doesn’t know. He mentioned silly little things without understanding the reason behind them. so i summarized it for him; i want to feel wanted, and appreciated. i feel like a piece of furniture. necessary, but not particularly wanted and not worthy of necessary attention.

i have the feeling this isn’t done yet. it is going to require more, and it may not fix anything. but at least he gets it now.

The Talk – part I – The haze

So, we had a talk the other night. i tried for two hours to tell him i wanted to talk but he doesn’t consider it a priority. he fell asleep, then my daughter took forever to get to sleep, one thing after another and i gave up around 11. TH came to bed aggressively wanting to know what it was that i wanted to talk about. i told him i was too tired, but my brain started working on it again and he was willing. so i did.

first of all, i took one of my meds that calms me down. i was hoping to keep calm and rational, it kind of worked.

i told him that i was angry at him every moment of every day. i told him that i had long given up on asking him for things because he would always agree and then nothing would change. i told him that i had years of resentment built up and that i didn’t know what to do about it. he suggested that i keep trying, keep hoping (a very familiar litany), because the reasons that what i wanted wasn’t panning out could change from day to day. he told me that i am stubborn, marriage is work, we both need to keep working.. yada yada yada.

i was calm, i didn’t fall apart, no blubbering or wailing but i still didn’t feel like i had a strong grasp of the conversation.

after the talk i was left with a hazy unclear feeling of not knowing whether we had accomplished anything at all. he was still convinced that it had to do with us going out, i have no idea why he is stuck on that. he still turned the conversation around and i had to try and keep him on track, but towards the end i wasn’t even sure where i was going or if we were resolving anything.

sunshiney day

it’s hard to be cranky when the sun is shining, isn’t it? between the sun coming in the windows and reflecting off all that snow out there, my house is aglow LOL. it’s nice to see because this morning i was on a warpath…

i’m sure everyone has them too, but i hate my warpath episodes because no matter how hard i try to keep them in check, i hate the way they make me feel inside. i managed to shake it with the help of sunshine and my son’s hysterical laughter.

hubby came home for lunch. we haven’t talked, i haven’t tried. maybe i should try what winona ryder’s character did in “Girl, Interrupted” where she ended up dealing with things by saying everything on her mind.

i hate that he doesn’t listen to me, but i have stopped talking. i hate that he doesnt touch me, but am giving off prickly vibes and keep my distance. i respond to his attempts at levity by staring at him. things will never get any better if i can’t blow off some of my anger. i think it all needs to start there, but it needs to be productive.

i need to ponder.

e-mail conversation

before i went to bed that night, i re-read my e-mail and decided to take some of the sting out and have it make more sense. i didn’t apologize, i made sure because to him, that would negate the entire conversation. I told him i shouldn’t have sent it right away, that i should have sat on it longer and told him what i was irritated over was not knowing the plans, having no idea whether we were going out or staying in. this second e-mail made more sense.

his response?

his response was to ignore just about everything in the e-mail except the fact that we didn’t go out. he was sorry, we’ll start going out.

so i sent him a reply that he had entirely missed the point, and i clarified it for him again. this is why we don’t have conversations in person. i hate repeating myself and he turns everything around until you forget what you were even talking about, forget the point you were trying to make and find myself apologizing for not cleaning more..

his last e-mail said something to the effect of “you are right, i am wrong, i love you, i’m sorry, i’ll change.”

most people would consider that a victory. it isn’t.

all of our e-mail conversations end with exactly the same thing, even our real conversations will end with that statement or some variation. then he comes home, or next day, and everything stays exactly the same.

same story here. i get that e-mail when he’s at work, he comes home and nothing changes. it has been a few days and nothing has changed. and i am still unhappy. the last time things had to change drastically because i was beyond desperately unhappy, i packed to leave. i wont’ do that without full intentions of walking out the door. and i had somewhere to go, then.

the funny part about our e-mail conversations? they take a couple of days, and at home nothing is said about them. not a word. like they are taking part between two other individuals. like they aren’t a part of our life.

this one will become a part of our life, i will have to talk to him. i am hoping tonight. i want to know why he says the same thing and changes nothing. we have had it before, i can tell where it is going to go. i can almost have that entire conversation with him in my head, he doesn’t even need to say a word. that is why i hate talking to him.. i can map out the whole thing in my head, and i can even tell you how it’s going to end.

it’s very tiring to have that in your head and then have it in real-time, knowing how it’s going to go. i will have to do something to turn it on its head, and give it a different ending.

a happier new year to us all

my last year wasn’t bad. i don’t have anything in particular to complain about. it didn’t end well, i will say that.

turns out TH didn’t even ask his mother to watch the kids for us, he assumed she was busy. the only reason i know that is i heard him talking to her on new years eve while i was in bed trying to sleep. i nearly exploded. try getting to sleep after that lol.. i had to take something to calm down.

i sent him an e-mail this morning listing why i was so angry. it’s a pretty long e-mail, and i was a little angry when i sent it.

TH has the most amazing talent of ruining holidays. it’s a gift, really. he knows when the holiday is approaching, he takes the most aggravating approach (differing from the previous holiday so i am not sure what to expect) and he gets crankier, nastier, meaner…. and then on the day he cannot fathom why i am upset, not talking to him and don’t want to spend time with him and wants to know why i am so unreasonable.

after not having the decency to tell me what we were doing for last night, wouldn’t make plans, didn’t ask his mom, wouldn’t let me call a babysitter, i find out at 4pm that we aren’t doing anything and there isn’t even enough time for me to put together something small; appetizers and maybe drinks for us. he asked me at 10pm if i wanted to watch a movie.

i said no and went to bed.

new years eve is only an event if you plan something, anything. otherwise it is just another day.

asshole strikes again

ok.. not very nice.. i get it.. but true.

we were invited to a new years eve party. i was pretty sure it wouldn’t happen, but he said we could go. i called to see if it was kid friendly or not to see if we needed childcare, and no.. i need a babysitter. ok. i offered to call some, he said wait, he would check with his mom.

he finally asked her yesterday and she can’t, she has plans. good for her, i mean it! she doesn’t get out enough. so i started calling today. when the first call busted, i asked hubby if he would call some of his work friends to see if their kids are free.

no.

ok. then let’s not go, i said sarcastically.

ok, he says.

i knew it.. i knew it wouldn’ t happen.

he has been SUPER CRANKY for a few days, and i wouldn’t be suprised if it was all just to aviod new years. whatever. i stopped caring. i knew it wouldn’t happen.

he is also mad at me over something. i have no idea what. i don’t care.