Journeyers, I need you right now.
A couple of weeks ago, something inside of me broke.
And instead of trying to fix it, I buried it.
I went on weekend trips with Warren and pretended to myself and him and the world around us that we were happy.
That I was happy holding his hand and standing by his side.
But I’m tired, Journeyers, I’m so exhausted.
Tonight, as we sat in the hot tub, I admitted, out loud, what I’ve been feeling for far too long.
“Warren, sometimes loving you hurts too much. It just hurts me.”
You see, I’ve been sensing for a very long time his ambivalence about being attainable.
The cell phone has been a way for me to have peace of mind.
But for many, many months now, I’ve sensed that he resents carrying it.
Several weeks ago when we were talking, the truth finally came out.
“…a god-damned leash,” he said.
And suddenly my feelings morphed into something viable and real and validated…
“Then don’t carry it anymore. Get rid of the fucking thing,” I said to him, “just get rid of it.”
Hope. I guess my hope that he wanted more than anything to be with me, to make our marriage work, that he wanted it as much as I did…turned sour.
Spoiled.
My pretty glass of hope turned murky.
Journeyers, I’m so sad right now, so exhausted.
Glennon Melton (I swear I’m not a stalker…I just found her a couple of months before her release date), recently wrote something along the lines that she doesn’t want to be a poster child for Divorce, nor does she want to be a poster child for Staying.
I guess if I had to be one of the two, I’ve been closer to the Stayer, but more than anything, I’ve just wanted to be Courageous and Thorough and to give my vows every opportunity to prove themselves.
But, Journeyers, I’m hurting so much right now.
Isn’t there a song about love hurting? Something from the Big Hair 80s?
Where’s my freaking rock band?
Forget the clouds, Friends, please send in the music.
I just want to feel wanted and loved and more than merely needed.
And I want that desire to be authentic.
I know that when we love we are vulnerable.
I just don’t know what to do right now.
I’m so afraid of doing the wrong thing that sometimes I just don’t do anything.
I bury it, until something happens.
Like yesterday, when Warren came home and told me he’d had “an awkward lunch.”
The woman who’d assisted during a dental procedure he’d had that morning had ended up having lunch at the same McDonald’s he’d stopped at.
“She just picked up her tray and sat down at my table and told me her whole life’s story.”
I was immediately transported back to his last affair, when he told me things about this girl living across the street from his job site.
In passing, little details about this struggling and desperate woman who’d had two of her children taken away…
“Why did you tell me things about her life,” I asked him tonight, trying to understand, to bring some order to the chaos, to tidy up the shredded strands of that time of my life.
Me, the consummate questioner of “Why?
Then, again, aren’t we all looking for answers, to make sense of the seemingly senseless?
To understand, so we’ll recognize it if it happens again, and to explain away unusual circumstance when needed?
To have a bed upon which we can lay blame?
To understand, so we’ll recognize it if it happens again, and to explain away unusual circumstance when needed?
To have a bed upon which we can lay blame?
He didn’t remember talking about her.
One thing led to the next, which led to him being frustrated and me feeling even more confused than before.
I want him to wantto do things that make me feel at ease and rebuild trust.
He doesn’t understand that when he becomes frustrated or feels he has to do something, I detect his resentment…
And the whole saga begins, again…
Is he mad because his back’s against a wall and he’s doing something he shouldn’t be or is it pure frustration and guilt?
One thing I know about myself is that when I make my mind up about something, I don’t look back.
I don’t want to do the wrong thing, Journeyers, but I don’t know what the right thing is.
I want to keep loving Warren for all the many good and wonderful and kind traits he has.
But I’m so afraid, Journeyers, so, so afraid of having my heart sliced in two, again…
My therapist (also our marriage counselor) is on a thirty-day leave…
I have to work real hard at that kind of patience…
I know sharing your stories might be equally frightening, but please, I could really use a friend (or seven) right about now…
To hear how others have moved forward in a complicated marriage with some sort of grace and dignity and kindness…
And while you’re at it, can you bring Glenda, the Good Witch from the north, and her sparkly wand?
A little sprinkling of magic would be nice, too…
Thanks for being here, Journeyers…