Friday, March 12, 2010

I'm A Coward

I wrote a blog but I am too cowardly to post it...maybe soon, it was real, it was raw...it was about my life...but I am not ready to do it. Not yet. Maybe another day.

I'm A Coward

I wrote a blog but I am too cowardly to post it...maybe soon, it was real, it was raw...it was about my life...but I am not ready to do it. Not yet. Maybe another day.

Where Do We Go From Here...?

Recently my husband and I jointly decided to go to counseling. It was a genuine joint decision it wasn't one of those married decisions that your spouse makes that you really don't want to be a part of but you just go along with it to shut the other one up. It was something we both had brought up on separate occasions he attempted to get us appointments and then we seemed to fix our problems while waiting on a counselor and then we would end up arguing again. And again and again...most of our arguments seemed really silly. I found myself wondering why we were arguing at all because we never fought before but suddenly everything became a battlefield. It started somewhere within the year he was deployed it seemed like something broke between us like our separation severed the bond that we had that made us forgive and love each other. It was a hurt, bitterness and resentment that neither of us wanted to share with the other so instead we let this barrier fester within us. I internalized all the fighting, the anxiety, the depression, the loneliness, the bitterness, the resentment I had for him, and allowed it to engulf me. Like it was the skin on top of my skin, that I defended myself with and pushed him away with. I literally grew into a new person, as did he...and it seemed as if we no longer were married to each other but married to our evil versions of our good selves. I felt hurt by having to raise a baby and care for a home alone. I felt neglected. I felt forgotten. I felt unappreciated. I became a new person that I didn't know and didn't like that I didn't even understand but how could I explain this to my mate. Were it my husband I could have easily explained it to him. But, this new man that was home from a year of isolation and violence in a war torn country wasn't the soft, understanding, patience, goofball I could confide in. I felt like he was an angry bitter stubborn hard headed jerk that I didn't want to be around that further thickened my skin. He was something I couldn't understand. Someone I no longer knew. Someone that pulled away from me, and receded into himself. I never wanted us to be that couple that didn't know what we were mad about but that became us. The anger, the fighting, the desperation, the disgust with each other. Somehow we became what we swore to the other we would never be.

Relationships are interesting in this way they never are going to be what you want them to be. You never can control the other person's feelings or actions. I am young, I'm a wife, I'm a mom, and I an generally inexperienced in the topic of love. I go by what I know and what the bible says and base my standard of love on that. Love is patient, kind, doesn't envy, doesn't brag, its not prideful, believes all things, doesn't lie, love never fails. How then could my love fail, my heart break, my devotion fail with the person I love with more than everything.

I am unsure of what we are doing any more we are going through the motions we are separating, we are together we are happy we are sad. We are trying to love through the hurt. We cannot make the other understand because our minds have already been made up. What else is left? How can you love alone...you cannot. We are failing....we are dying. We are hurting ourselves. We are poison and we are the antidote. But we cannot survive we cannot be saved if neither of us try. I want him to love me and I feel as if he does not, as if there is something else there that he is hiding from me. I feel as if the pain of his deployment and the bitterness is that something. The feeling of loneliness when he needed me there, the frustration at the sense of helplessness his lack of sleep his wanting for my comfort and support. A hug or laugh or kind word. Anything to distract him from the sheer madness he was surrounded by...and I was not there.

I too needed him then through the sleepless night, the struggle to raise and infant child, the lack of support, the constant criticism, the need of help, the need of love, everything, I just needed love, helpless, hopeless desperate love from him and it wasn't there. I needed him more than anything in this world and nothing was there. I needed him to love me and make me feel like he loved me and not just say it or type it he forgot about it, he stopped wanting me to love him he rejected my love and outreaches to him which made me pull further away from him...and now I harbor all of that within me...and it resurfaces the bruises from the past, the reminders of what other men have always done to me and how other men have always treated me. It has been painful it has been difficult to always be treated like a commodity and not like a person. A person of value. I wish I had value anymore...I feel like an appliance. But not like a necessity.

So where do I go from here? I live on through the hurt. I live on carrying the world on my shoulders and smiling through the pain....it does not get any better if neither of us try...I am trying as hard as I can to be here to be present...but I don't know what else I can truly do.