Starving

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.  Admittedly, that’s generally where things go wrong, yet the wheels keep turning.  I’ve come to a big decision.  It struck me as I was getting out of the shower this evening.  Why is it the best thinking is done in the shower?

I’ve been married eleven years.  Actually, this April it will be twelve.  My life is in a really good place.  I have a great job that pays well enough.  My teenager is doing amazingly well in school.  All my bills get paid.  But there’s a void.  I don’t see my marriage lasting much longer.  I love my husband.  He’s one of my best friends, but that’s all it feels like now.  Friendship.  I feel like I’m living with a roommate, and if I’m honest with myself, a shitty one.

I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I somehow got stuck doing everything.  For instance, if you were to ask him, at any given time, how much money he has in his account, he couldn’t tell you.  I handle all of the finances.  I make sure all the bills get paid.  I do all of the shopping, all of the cleaning.  That alone wouldn’t be that bad.  Truth be told, I love doing the finances.  I work in accounting after all.  I love cleaning because it’s therapeutic.  Granted, I’m not fond of cleaning up after people, which is what it has turned into.  But what’s worse, is there’s just nothing there.  I don’t really even want to talk to him much anymore.  He only half listens, too engrossed in his pad or phone, watching videos with shitty background music.  Whatever the fuck he’s watching. This inattentiveness means he doesn’t keep track of things that are going on: family gatherings, business trips, doctor’s appointments.  I also never thought lack of sex would be a problem I would ever face.  Yet here it fucking is.  I try to be understanding.  The anti-depressants do slow the sex drive but fuuuuuuuck.  Sexual encounters are few and far between and lack luster when they actually do happen.

I’ve told him all of this, of course.  There’s not much point if you don’t communicate.  Not so much about our marriage not lasting, but about how I’m unhappy, how the things he does or doesn’t do makes me feel.  When I get upset about dishes in the sink, it’s not about the damn dishes.  It’s the disrespect, the expectation that I will do it.  He confesses he’s lazy and apologizes, says he’s going to work on it.  Things are good for a week or two and then it’s right back to where we were.  No communication, superficial conversation, no sex, no partnership, practically begging him to follow through with things he’s said he’s going to do.

At the end of the day, I wonder, “what, aside from supplemental income, are you adding to my life?” What kind of marriage is that?  A one-sided one.  That’s not fair to anyone.  I can’t see spending the rest of my life this way.  I don’t want to.  I’m starving, needy, and I am beginning to resent him for it.

Plus, for a person who says he’d rather drink, he smokes a lot of my pot.