Some thoughts while I have space to reflect

I am in New York, on a three day practicum for my certification as a Professional in Training Management. With everything going on, I was reluctant to leave, but I have worked so hard preparing for this course and exam. This practicum was the last step in my certification, so I called my mom a week and a half ago and asked her to come stay for a few days, as we are still interviewing nannies.

I am having trouble concentrating in class, with everything swirling around in my head and my anxiety about how things are going at home. The hours back in my hotel room are welcome spans of quiet to reflect and process, away from him and from the constant needs of my children. It can be hard to think objectively about our marriage and our life when I am caught up in the daily business of living.

My therapist asked me a few weeks ago what it was that I originally loved about my husband when we were first dating. It was in the heart of the most recent crisis, and I didn’t have an answer.

I loved the way he talked about his respect and love for nature. He had this code for his life that revolved around energy and the universe that was beautiful. He talked about enjoying doing good for others. He was a hard worker, yet fun and funny. He didn’t need me as a mother more than he wanted me as a partner, which was refreshing.

Now that we have been together 8.5 years, I can see that a lot of it was just theories that he doesn’t actually live. Life since we met has embittered him, and he has closed himself to life’s experiences. He closes everyone out – not willing to trust them, to let them support him. Everyone is out to get him or wish him ill. His constant negativity is exhausting. We have been through a lot in just seven years of marriage. Cancer, infertility, a difficult adoption. Life changes us. He loves me. He says he wants to change, and I believe that he really does, but he doesn’t do the work on himself or on us. He isn’t willing to actually learn or grow to support me or our family. Through every challenge, it has been me doing the reading, the learning, the supporting.

I feel like we are constantly on the edge of a precipice, one of my legs tied to his with rope. One wrong word from the kids or a frustrating experience in his day throws him off the cliff and drags me and the whole family with him. In my mind is it like a perverse Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

I am constantly checking my parachute so that I survive the fall. Meanwhile, he just lets himself fall and relies on my parachute to slow his descent.

My therapist also asked if I still respect him. I thought about that a lot. To me, there are three pillars to marriage: love, trust, and respect.

I love him, but if I am brutally honest with myself, I do not trust or respect him anymore.

I do not feel like I can trust him with his own or my emotional and mental well being. I never know when he is just going to check out. I can’t trust that he will be there when I need him for either the good or the bad, so I stopped reaching for him. When I reach and my hands hit thin air, it is too hard. He says he is doing he best that he can, but he hasn’t t stuck with any of the steps that he has taken. There hasn’t been any improvement in the five years since the cancer. At some point you have to ask to see results and not just professed effort. We had a conversation in August or September that went along the lines of:

Me: I need more.

Him: I don’t have any more. This is it. Take it or leave it. I can’t change.

All the signs that he was being earnest were there, but I just kept pressing through with the daily business of living. I truly believed that he just needed more continued support to get back to who he used to be. As I transcribe this from my jotted notes, I realize the error in that. I have changed as a result of everything we have been through. You never go back after those experiences. Why was I expecting him to go back to who he was; or who I thought he was? I kept waiting for it to happen, for him to come out the other side of our experiences wiser and stronger than before, instead of realizing that maybe this already is who is he will be on the other side.

When we first met, it felt like the curves and the angles of his soul complemented my own. As our souls were transformed through life’s trials, their angles and curves no longer met at crucial places, leaving structurally unsound gaps in between. I have been finding others to meet the needs of my soul, while I waited for his to mold to meet mine again. I have asked myself before, “At what point does a significant other become just an other?” I never thought I would ask the same thing about my husband.

My lack of empathy galls me, but I feel anger and a lack of respect for the way he has responded to life’s challenges. I respect competency, resilience, grit, follow through, determination, the ability to maintain a sense of wonder and see the beauty in people and the world. He has not demonstrated any of those qualities.

Hiring a babysitter/nanny keeps my children safe while I am not with them. It minimizes the opportunities for falling off the cliff, but it doesn’t resolves the deeper underlying issues.

When we aren’t in crisis, it is hard to reconcile these emotions and thoughts with the man in front of me. It is hard to recognize these feelings as valid and not reactionary. It makes me feel dramatic instead of reflective. But when I think back over the course of our relations and the patterns that emerge, I know these aren’t acute, isolated events. When I have time, or force myself to take time, to reflect, and I still feel this, that is a problem.