updates

well, in regards to my previous post, sure enough that cycle quickly ran it’s course and he was even more miserable than before. about one month after i wrote that letter, i sent it. then had huge assed panic attacks waiting for him to bring it up and see what his reaction would be. i didn’t expect that he would ignore it all together. it really confused me.

my daughter and i went out of town together for a week, and when i came home i started implementing some of the things i had mentioned in the letter and he seemed totally confused by them. i mentioned the letter and he feigned ignorance. so i sent it to him again. we were in bed that night when i mentioned the letter again, so he read it while i lay beside him.

i don’t think he got it the first time, holy christ did he react! he was LIVID, and he got NASTY! FAST! he started talking about how i wasn’t going to take his kids, that i could do what i wanted, etc…

i took a tear break in the bathroom, when i got back he has calmed down, but it was not a happy conversation.

the next night we were in bed, and i told him my head and my chest were aching. he asked if i really wanted to leave, i told him that it wasn’t ideal. he said he realized that if he didn’t make these changes that his family was going to fall apart. i told him it was already falling apart, he just hadn’t seen it. i would do ANYTHING for my family!! he said and i corrected him, he would do ANYTHING for his children.  we had a far better conversation, but i didn’t promise to stay, am still looking for work to save up some money… honestly the best i think we can hope for is a bandaid solution that will make it easier for me to stay a bit longer. i do not believe he is capable of long term, permanent, necessary changes.

for now, he promised, for the first time ever, to change his behaviors. and he had a few earth shattering epiphanies… let’s hope he follows through and that they stick

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.

Husbands play games too

the day after TH and i had that last conversation i sent him an e-mail telling him that the things he had said to me were making me physically sick to my stomach, i was unhappy all day.

this weekend he told me that he read the e-mail and was really confused about what he could possibly have said that would make me feel sick. i looked at him and he really didn’t understand.

to give you the gist of the conversation: he said he misunderstood the question i was asking. He said he thought i was still talking about the physical side of our relationship and that “of course i have positive feelings for you and think about  you.” does this not feel like shit a MM spouts to keep his AP happy?? it did to me and i told him it sounded like he was backtracking. Apparently he thinks backtracking is lying and it upset him that even said it. and then, in spite of the 20 times he has been asked, he does feel attracted to me. horseshit, i say.

it sounds like games to keep me just happy enough to stay. that night he came to bed when i did, wrapped his arm around mine and held my hand.

it didn’t make me feel any better.

he told me he thinks i am trying to tell him i want to split up. that isnt’ what i want, i want us fixed. i want this to work. there are so many good things about him, and our family. I want Us to be a good thing too..

what i want

i told my very good friend K about mylast talk with TH. her husband is even worse than TH is many ways, but their marriage is in slightly better shape than mine. she asked me what it was i wanted out of that conversation.

i told her that what i wanted was for him to say “ok, fine. this sucks, we’re over, lets get this figured out.” and all amicable. lol.. sounds like a fairy tale thinking about it later. she asked if i wanted it to be his idea. i said no, but that i wanted him to see what i was saying, realize he isn’t going to change and that it isn’t what is best for me.

the talk

so, the talk turned into little more than a few sentences. last night i asked him if it was only me he wasn’t interested in sexually.

 “who else should i be interested in.” so like him to deflect the question entirely and i didn’t let him get away with it. i clarified and asked him again.

“well, i guess i am just on the low end of scale”, he is trying to tell me his interest in anything is low. i told him he wasn’t even ON  the scale and he laughed. i wasn’t making a joke. i was frustrated, angry and trying to tell him.

“i guess it just isn’t as important to me as it is to you.” well, we can just smack a big fat “DUH!” right on that one!

so i said “so nothing changes then.”

“what is it you want me to do”

“nothing, i suppose.”

and so, talk over. that’s it. everything stays the same and it doesn’t bother him. this means that my days here with him are numbered, but i don’t know what number to give them. certainly not while the children are so young.

talk – part A

i think this part of things is going to be a series of talks. In the last 2 weeks things have been going downhill between us and i have started contemplating leaving, yet again. this is usually a sign of how he treats me.

i have often accused him of treating me like a child, reprimanding and punishing. I realized last night that it isn’t a child that he is treating me like, it is a stupid teenager who just can’t get a thing through their thick heads. it pissed me off worse than when i thought he was treating me like a child that just didn’t know better.

it is more degrading to be treated like a teenager than a child, especially seeing as i escaped that phase of my life pretty intact. i am an adult, a mother, and a wife, not someone who needs to be constantly reminded how to do things, corrected, criticized, and talked down to.

i even said all that to him, and more. it was a productive talk, i got through to him, he repeated to me the points i was trying to make and agreed. of course he just had to tell me, as he was agreeing with me, that he was just going to have to learn to live with the fact that i wasn’t going to change, that my personality is what it is, and he is going to have to give up on me being fixed.

boy, do i know how THAT feels. ass.

our conversation made a few forays into how i spend my time, how i DON’T spend my time, and that he cannot believe no one else criticises me at all! that one stunned him. why the hell does he think everyone in my life should be correcting me?

anyways it was a relatively short conversation, i stuck it out until he conceded, however ungracefully, and then i rolled over and went to bed. i didn’t want to be up all night talking and the other stuff is going to have to wait but i think that is a good thing. if we do it in small bits then we both have a chance to focus on that, reflect, and make the changes needed.

baby steps