Clueless
Warning: Major bitching ahead. Read at your own risk.I'm having a bad day/week/month.
My two year wedding aniversary is the 19 & 20 (long story that involves my husband being too lazy/apathetic to go get his blood test on time - so we had to get married in a courthouse in another state the day before our actual wedding - it sucked big time. Yes, I still resent him for doing that because he knew full well what his procrastination would do. Ugh.)
My wedding date brings up painful memories.
The wedding was not what I would have wanted. In sum, I wanted a wedding and Michael did not. Everything - absolutely everything - that was done was something Michael did NOT want. We had no flowers, no professional photographer, and a reception that I would rather not have had given what my (well intended) family-in-law had in mind.
I had no extra income and was saving to move to Kentucky. I could not afford to plan a honeymoon. My would-be husband who made a heck of a lot more than I did at the time (@ 50K) - did absolutely nothing. We got married and then went to his parent's house where we sat around until I could motivate him to go online and try to get us a hotel room somewhere. I was mortified. I actually had assumed when I told him that I would not do anything for the honeymoon because I had no money - that he would put something together. When he didn't say anything about it, I figured he was going to surprise me. The surprise came when we had nowhere to go.
To make matters worse, it was during March Madness, so all he wanted to do was sit in the hotel room we did manage to find and watch basketball. Whenever we did go out anywhere, he didn't enjoy it and couldn't wait to get somewhere to watch the game. Romance was not on his mind. Never once did he tell me he was happy, or glad we were married, or happy that I was now his wife.
So, why not start having good memories of this time of the year? Ah, I can imagine that any sane person would ask that same question. I tried. I asked my husband countless times if he would like to do something. "I don't know" was the only answer I could get. I asked if he wanted me to get babysitters, or respite care for the baby - still no answer. I asked if he wanted to go to dinner, out of town, anything. No response. Now let me remind you that I CAN'T just go and plan something without his input because he is constantly OVERWHELMED with WORK. But he is always such an understanding and accomodating partner because he always says I am "free to do whatever [I'd] like" without him. He tells me, "You're a grown woman. If you want to do something, then do it. You don't have to have me to do it with." It is his way of always making sure he is the "good guy". He's not holding me back at all! He gives me complete freedom! Who wouldn't LOVE that? Gee, what a great guy.
Then...THEN...last night he has the balls to tell me this:
"I have three R&Rs (revise and resubmits) for journal articles that are all due in about a month and I need to get them done. I'm gonna need to take the next few Saturdays to go to the office and treat it like a normal workday in order to get this done. That means you'll have to be alone with the baby on Saturdays, but she is sleeping more and I think you should be able to handle it." (this in addition to the fact that he will be at a conference in Texas April 5-9 that will leave me home alone with the baby - after which he will again be "overwhelmed" with the work time he missed from being at the conference!)
Smack - right across the face. Punch - right in the stomach.
There was no conversation. There was simply an announcement. Now I get a month or so of Saturdays without any help around the house or with the baby - this in addition to the fact that I get very little help around the house as it is and that our brand new house looks awful, and downright dirty. I work two jobs and absolutely cannot handle it alone. I'd hire a housekeeper, but a housekeeper still wouldn't be able to deal with the piles of clothes and papers and shit that my husband can't seem to find the time to "go through". I am very tempted to just start throwing things away. I'm convinced he would never know if I did. The middle bedroom in our house is his office - and the computer still isn't hooked up (we moved in the first week in January) because he can't find the cables.
And what do I get in exchange for putting up with this crap?
Lemme put this in context - he is teaching one class this semester. ONE. One class. One. It meets two days a week - from 3-4:15. And he is apparently overwhelmed with work. Yet - YET - I come home and he is always - ALWAYS - sitting on the sofa in the livingroom watching Sports Center, Around the Horn, and Pardon the Interruption (ESPN shows about sports - for the sporting-impaired). He does not miss a basketball game. He even tapes ones that run really late and takes them to the office to watch in his TV/VCR/DVD combo there "while he works". He also goes to his office every single day from 8-5. On Sundays he sits in front of the television from the time we get home from church until he goes to bed, and he is on his laptop most of the time and on the phone with his brother talking about sports. Then he stays up most all night "working".
Who gets up with the baby during the night? Me. Why? Because he doesn't/won't wake up until the baby is crying so hard she is choking and I will not keep letting that happen, and by the time I shove him and yell at him at the very top of my voice to "Get up! The baby's crying!" I am fully awake, pissed off, and figure I might as well do it myself. So now I get up when she cries, is hungry, or needs to be changed unless I am absolutely too dizzy to feel I can carry her safely to the changing table and back. The only thing I insist he do is take her if she wakes up one last time before 6 am and take her downstairs. Of the two of us, I am the only one who has to be at work at 8. He can do whatever the heck he wants as far as his schedule.
"That's fine" I said in response to his announcement about working on Saturdays now too.
I spent the rest of the evening wondering how much more I was going to take of this. We haven't been out since we went out to dinner on New Year's eve. Don't even ask me about physical intimacy. I think I'm growing a new hymen. I'm not so sure we really know that we can't get pregnant. He's always too tired. And no, it wasn't any better before the baby came. Now he just has an excuse you can't argue with.
I made the mistake of asking him again later that evening "What about our anniversary?" And his response was "I said that I realized that things might come up and prevent me from working. I could just do a half-day of work on Saturday or something. I didn't say we couldn't do something. What do you want to do?"
I'd had it. Really, really had it. Tired of being treated like a roommate. Tired of being an accessory to his life that can be taken off and set aside and put back on whenever it's convenient.
I got out of bed. I cried. I tried to "lay down the law". I told him exactly how I felt.
He said nothing. Nothing. NO-THING. Then I heard him snoring. I went back to sleep.
This morning there was no acknowledgement on his part that anything was wrong. He loves to do that - get up in the morning after I've been fuming all night and pretend like we're one happy couple. It just pisses me off even more.
So, I went to work and decided that at least I needed to take care of myself. So, I planned a small road trip to Knoxville, TN. I figure I can take the baby (yes, I have permission) and we can go enjoy ourselves there alone. Michael can have his "work time" in which he will accomplish next to nothing and then I will come home and the insanity will start all over again. But at least I will have gotten to take a vacation - even if I had to do it alone. (oh yeah - we have also never taken a vacation - he is always too "swamped" with work).
Our marriage counselor tells us that we just have major personality differences. She says she has never seen a couple at such extremes. She also says I need to decide whether I am willing to accept Michael as he is and learn to appreciate what I have - or I need to leave if I am so miserable. She says I am torturing myself by trying to get Michael to be the kind of partner I want/need because he is who he is. Lovely. So everything is wrong with ME. How comforting. How freakin' hopeless.
I am tired of not being valued.
Now, I know he loves me - and he loves the baby. I know he wants me to be happy and he wants the baby to have a good life too. But he it unwilling to alter his value system in order to build a happy life for us together. He figures we should just each do whatever it takes for us to be happy, spend some time together where we can find time, and then just exist. To him, there is no work, nothing to build, nothing to envision for the future. This is why I call us roommates - we just happen to sleep in the same bed.
I think most women would look at my situation and wonder what I'm complaining about. I have a relatively new house, a car that runs, nice clothes, a respectable job that pays fairly well, and a husband with a high status job who wouldn't leave - and who is a Christian (I think). I'm assuming he's a Christian. He did all the Christian-like steps and performs Christian well publically. He goes to church on Sunday and writes a check for our tithe. But beyond that there is nothing. He never mentions God to/with me. He does not do Bible study or devotions with me. He does not pray with me. In church, he does not speak to me. In the car on the way to church or on the way home from church, he does not speak to me. We do not talk about our faith or our spiritual life at all. It is as if it does not exist in our home, and that is very sad to me. I know it is sad to God. He doesn't drink, smoke, cuss, or yell. So, I have it pretty good, right?
I honestly don't know what my limits are anymore. I don't even know how to explain what is wrong in our relationship. I only know I'm not getting what I need to just survive it. I'm not even asking for "over-the-top" treatment here - only what I see as the basics.
It's a morbid thought, but if my husband were to croak, I wonder what people would have to say about him at his funeral. No one could honestly say he maintains wonderful realtionships with his family - he might talk to them for 5 minutes on the phone no more than maybe 3 times a month (except his brother, whom he talks to everyday yet knows absolutely nothing about personally). What does he do for other people? I have no idea. I guess at the funeral they'd talk about all the awards he's won and how many articles he's published. It's unfortunate, but no one can say what a great husband he's been. I can't even say if he has any friends that could say he's been a good friend. In every sense of the word, he's a loner. He has a lot that he could offer the world - other people. The saddest thing is that he has no desire to share his life with anyone, and I think there is a lot he could contribute - if only he was willing and able to.
The one thing that continues to bother me the most is this - my husband is the most truly unhappy person I have ever known. Yet, he says he is "content". That makes one of us.
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 3/07/2006 11:12:00 AM
<< Home