I know it's been awhile but I've had a lot going through my head lately. So... This post hit me as I was sitting in my car, having a discussion with Todd. He wanted to stop at the garden center on the way home from his appointment. I told him I would drop him off, because I didn't have two hours, (average Todd time) to just sit in my car waiting for him. He asked why I couldn't just come in and look around. And this is where I look at him with an "Are you serious?" look on my face. Even if I'm at a place I love, like the garden center, if I haven't planned to go, don't have the money, any number of reasons... I can't do it. If it's my time by myself, that's one thing. If I can't walk out that door when I want to that's something entirely different. It is stressful and draining...and I can't do it. It's hard to explain... I understand that, but still I asked him, "How is it possible that we've been married for 17 years, and you still don't get it, you still don't know this about me?" Then I started thinking about a few conversations I've had this week. Mother's Day is this Sunday. Every year, and I'm serious, every...year, we have the same conversation. "What would you like us to do for you this year?" Do whatever you want as long as I A. don't have to go anywhere when I wake up, B. don't have to do any dishes and C. can just stay in bed most of the day. Please... Just let me relax and be lazy. "How about we take you out to breakfast?" I'm sorry did you happen to hear anything I just said? Something about me not wanting to go anywhere? Every year people...I'm not kidding you...and 3 times in the last week. I would like my children to bring me breakfast in bed...period. That's all I'm asking for. A quiet, relaxing, lazy day with my kids or by myself. That's it, perfect day.
Now we've had plenty of arguments where I've told him he doesn't know me, as I storm out of the room or house or whatever, but this is a valid question. We've been married 17 years, and I'm not sure he could tell you anything about my life before we met. He's never asked. We've rarely had those kind of conversations. Funny enough I realized that, last night, talking to someone I know. How do I even make this marriage work when I only find things out about my husbands life/childhood when he's drunk and telling me how much he hates his dad and his family. And we never really talk about anything at all, because by the time we are alone he's already been drinking. How do I make this marriage work when I feel like I don't even matter to him? The first and last time we went to Las Vegas together, where I was born and lived for a few years, he wouldn't even give me two hours to drive around and find the houses I lived in. Two hours was all I wanted during the 3 days we were there....for him...to see a big monster truck show. When we were in New Jersey for a family reunion, I barely got him to drive around my hometown, where I feel like my whole life happened, in the few years I lived there. He didn't care about the schools I went to, the Linwood Market that was just a corner store that my friends and I went to all the time, the bike path I'd ridden on a million times, the swings at the park where I sat with my best friend, my home where I grew up. None of it mattered. If he loves me, why doesn't my life matter? How do you make a marriage work, when you feel like you are nothing to the other person? Well you don't. How can he possibly love me, when he didn't even try to know me? When all he knows is what he wants me to be, but not who I actually am. Crazy isn't it? I'm sure it's fairly common. Well, if you don't want to listen to me talk about my life before we met, then chances are you're not caring what I say on a daily basis, so you're not growing and learning with me and then we find we're together because....? I don't know about your marriage but this is mine and it makes for an incredibly unhappy one.
Maybe it's my own fault. I thought as long as someone told me they loved me, that was all I needed. We didn't really need to communicate because I was busy raising our children? I have kids to take care of...that's enough right? No... That's not enough. I needed him to show me he cared about me. To make me feel like I was the most important person in his world. I don't think that's too much to ask, because I would have done the same for him. Well, we live and sometimes we learn. I can tell you in the last few years I've learned a lot about myself and life in general. I'm moving forward with my life. Doing things for myself, getting to a place mentally where I'm good. I'm limited to what I can do, but that doesn't mean I'm completely stuck. I'm still going to take care of him. It's ok if you think I'm completely nuts. I'm happier right now, than I've been in a very long time. That probably only makes sense to me, and I'm fine with that. I know I have people in my life who love me for me, who let me live my life whether they agree with me or not, without judgement and without trying to change who I am, and that's really all that matters. And maybe one day he'll understand I could have been so much more, if he just would have accepted me for me, listened and gotten to know me. Then again...maybe he won't and that's fine too.
