We barely connect.

Let me preface this by saying I don’t like when people are all the time sad, all the time angry, all the time complaining.

Yet I am all of those things in this diary. I like to curate my emotions, for myself and for others, with an appetizer, the main entree and a subtle dessert. Make it a journey, starts fun, slow it down, go painful, end with connection and epiphany.

But life, as it is now, moves slow. Caught in a bog. No idea where the end is.

I just tried connecting with her. I saw movies growing up about people growing apart, married couples, American Beauty etc. The main characters wondering how they ended up like this. Thinking back to how they fell in love. Who is this person they are now with?

I don’t exactly know how she and I fell in love. It was so different. The biggest thing: she had no stress, had just quit her job to volunteer at an orphanage, annnnnnnnd — we dated long distance for 6 months.

So the real world was removed. And we worked wonderfully. I held my relationship with her with an open hand, whenever conflict would happen I would hope it would end if it needed too, because I didn’t want to force the relationship to happen. First time I had ever done that.

My stomach is feeling a little sick right now.

I didn’t force it. She came back after 6 or 7 months and we dated in person, and then, I believe I rushed it. I didn’t realize that long distance was any different than in person. I mostly thought well if we can make it long distance, which kills a lot of relationships, well in person should be easy. I also liked how long distance forced us to just get to know each other without being driven by sex. I thought it was good.

She got back, I proposed like a month later, and we got married 5 months after that.

. . . . . . . . . . .

We. Never lived a real life together. And unbeknownst to me, she wasn’t doing the same thing as I was, the complete honesty, almost daring the relationship to end. She was hiding, herself, and her frustrations with me. That was, I now know, how she lived her entire life before me. Silencing herself. Not trusting her gut. Smiling angelically, but underneath crumbling.

And then we got married, and nearly immediately, like day 1 after the wedding, it felt off. Just a hint, like old food in the trashcan, no biggie.

And then I started hiding. Because now I can’t hold this with an open hand. It’s final. We are clasped palms. How do you hold an open hand after you’ve committed for life?

This, again, was day 1. She was already hiding. And now I was too. What should I have done?

Also: suddenly on our honeymoon she started being honest with me about her issues with me. Fear popped up in her. And moments of intense anger. I did not understand because I had shown her all this before. For her, marriage finally meant being open.

But, um, I married the girl I dated. I didn’t marry the person she opened up to me afterward. I didn’t marry the woman who didn’t trust anyone, who judged the world and all of its issues, the woman who punished herself for all her sins, and then of course punished me for all of mine.

I dated either the woman she actually is underneath the trauma and the coping through negativity and rage, OR: I dated someone who was a coverup.

I’m still on the fence about that.

My stomach is still feeling sick writing this.

The first 5 years were mediocre, but not awful. They had moments of awfulness, some big fights, but they didn’t overwhelm it. Mostly I was dealing with my own shit, honestly thinking that how the marriage was going was mostly my fault.

Still on the fence about that too.

But enough was wrong with me, and started coming up, that it’s what I focussed on. The marriage was like a neglected puppy. It got enough water to live, and it would get pet sometimes, but it was limp and bedridden.

We almost got divorced about 4 years in, or at least questioned it. Then she got on anti-depressants as a reaction to it, and dude I am telling you, our marriage suddenly got good.

For 6 months, not perfect for sure, we liked each other. We had fun again. Essentially her self-hatred and judgement I guess got numbed out by the pills. It was great.

We decided to have a child.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The last 5 years have been the worst of my life. Worst then what my mother did to me, worse than what my father did to me. As soon as we found out she was pregnant, she hopped off the anti-depressants. And. Her hormones, added to becoming a mom, exponentially grew her hatred, for self and me, and her rage.

6 of the 9 months of the pregnancy, every night she yelled at me. At least that’s what I remember. I could be exaggerating a touch, but not much. I started backing away from her even more. Once he was born, our first, maybe there was a little period of good. But then it went fairly ballistic. I was working a bunch, she was now a stay at home mom which is what she desired, yet it took everything from her, and I got blamed for everything.

Blamed for her childhood, everything that had ever happened to her, she felt abandoned after getting pregnant, and seemed to completely forget the abuse she started leveling at me. Mostly verbal and emotional, but intense. Nobody knows this. I don’t like to to write. I mean like 3 or 4 of my closest friends know it, but nobody else.

So I’ve been living there for 5 years. Now we had a child, much harder to live open handedly. We both wanted another, but I was hesitant with how she was treating me. She said, sigh, she’d stop if we had another. I barely believed her, but it was enough to push me.

We had another. It didn’t stop.

I am not just a victim, though I am one. I yelled back a lot the last 3 years, mostly trying to do what I did with my father who was abusive — try to control him through logic to stop him from abusing me.

I relived that on her. Yeah. I just wanted to feel in control.

I mean that’s the short version. In that time I faced my demons. She is just starting to face hers. But man is there scar tissue. Seriously. I don’t exactly know, even if we both change, if we both want it, how do we cut through that scar tissue?

So now back to the title: we barely connect. I don’t really remember how we connected, other than when she’s not stressed, she seemingly can be nice to me. Open to me.

But I don’t know if I even like her. Did I like a fake version of her she presented, or was that the real her, covered in all the shitty ways she has protected herself?

Bog. Hastiness has been a calling card of mine throughout my life. If I’m going to throw this away, I just want to make sure it wasn’t salvageable. I want to make sure I don’t end up like my father: married and divorced 5 times, and every time he blamed her.

At the moment it feels like I don’t like her. Fuck. Please make it easy.