I think I just spent one of the longest nights of my life and I’ve had a few. And if you thought the last post was long…

 

I arranged for a job with Tina (and the possibility of working with Dave on another project) that would allow Pascal and me to get by financially for a while.  M. and I talked and hammered out a deal to let him finish school and start work before he had to move out (in return, we’d stay legally married long enough for me to finish school using his GI Bill…but there would be no other financial support even while he lived here).  It’s the first time I’ve ever put a plan to leave my marriage into place and it broke my heart. 

 

Yesterday convinced me that it was impossible for me to do that.  I’ve cried over loss before, but not knowing that the other person was still just a few feet away from me and would be for months on end.  I knew it would be impossible for me to get past the failure of our marriage with him still in the house, no matter how I’d suffer financially.  Last night, I told him that.  It was the first time we had said more than a few words to each other in days.

 

A lot of things came tumbling out of him that I didn’t know about.  He explained the incident with the playstation and Pascal barking by saying, “I figured if I was what was making you cry, you wouldn’t want to see me.”  He told me that he still wants kids and that what makes him uncomfortable about testing, etc. is that it’s more failure and he already feels like a failure because he’s not working.  This has come up before when we fought.  He’s always saying he wants to get a job, but I’ve always told him no because what he’d make working a graveyard or afternoon shift here would barely cover the expenses of taking the job.  I didn’t realize he wanted the job for more reasons than just money.  He wants some measure of control over his life back, and the psychologist in me can’t help but see this as a good sign for him (as a wife, I’m uneasy about it because there is a measure of lost trust because of his online infidelity in the past, but it is my fear and my issue, not his…and in all fairness, I was uneasy about the possibility of him meeting someone else when he was in the Army too…if you’ve been on a military base, you won’t say I’m wrong about that…there are many female soldiers and civilians on bases that spend a great deal of their time trying to get a man and quite a high percentage of them don’t care how they do it…Dave calls them barracks bunnies).  I can hardly say he’s wrong for wanting to be more independent.  We have spent all but 3-5 hours a day together for almost two years straight.  And I’ve never denied that he’s henpecked (I might excuse it but I don’t deny it). 

 

At the end of the night a few things were clear:  Neither of us wants to divorce the other.  There is a need for more independence.  For the moment at least, we’re still going to try to have children (this was larglely M.’s decision…I assumed he’d want to put it on the back burner for a while…but I had already taken my Clomid for this month and he wants me to opk test…in fact, he wants us to keep using the Clomid we’ve already bought…but we’re not going to worry about taking any further action for now…we won’t have to make those decisions for over 6 months anyhow).  Pascal can’t take stress like this any better than we can (he’s peed on the carpet after being taken out, barked and jumped at me when I was crying, and woke up howling like he’s having nightmares).  And, SOMETIMES Picard is right especially when he says that a man needs to feel useful (.

 

M. asked to move his things back to our room, and I reminded him that I had never told him to leave it. 

 

He’s happy and relieved.  I’m not comforted at all because now I know that and end-game is in place.  There is a pre-planned “out” and that makes me nauseous.  M. and I have always bickered like a couple in their 70’s might, but that’s all it’s ever been just noise.  Even through the torture of his infidelity and through living with no income at all after he left the Army (it took several months before our current incomes kicked in) we managed to get past it and start over.  After the infidelity, it took me nearly a year to get over the resentment and anger, but our life has improved over the past months (I’ve stopped throwing it up to him, and even though I may always be the initiator, our sex life was back to what it was pre-infidelity).  That being said, I can’t help but wonder if the third time is the charm or if the I-Ching is right when the reading I did (pre-talk) said that we were at a turning point and “breaking through”.

 

Teeni tagged me for a meme the other day, and I think this is an appropriate time to tell ya’ll about the song that makes me cry.  “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” is an old song and it’s hard to find.  Don Henley and Patty Smyth did it as a duet in 1992.  Here are the lyrics:

 

 

Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough

I don’t wanna lose you,
but I don’t wanna use you
Just to have somebody by my side
And I don’t wanna hate you
I don’t wanna take you
But I don’t wanna be the one to cry
That don’t really matter to anyone, anymore
But like a fool I keep losing my place
And I keep seeing you walk through that door

But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much
And it’s sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust
There’s a reason why people don’t stay where they are
Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough

Now I could never change you
I don’t wanna blame you
Baby you don’t have to take the fall
Yes I may have hurt you
But I did not desert you
Maybe I just wanna have it all
It makes a sound like thunder
It makes me feel like rain
And like a fool who will never see the truth
I keep thinking something’s gonna change

But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much
And it’s sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust
There’s a reason why people don’t stay where they are
Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough

And there’s no way home
When it’s late at night and you’re all alone
Are there things that you wanted to say
Do you feel me beside you in your bed
There beside you where I used to lay

And there’s a danger in loving somebody too much
And it’s sad when you know it’s your heart they can’t touch.
There’s a reason why people don’t stay who they are
Cause baby sometimes love just ain’t enough.
Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough.

 

 

Yes, it is a break up song.  Let’s hope I don’t need to play it ever again. 

 

I’m tagging: Ginger (well, duh), Mag’s at Nanny Goats in Panties (hate the knickname? and I see why you abbreviate NGiP lol), KC (that bit about “city style” was the only thing that made me laugh yesterday), Marie (who hasn’t been around all that long), Evil Twin’s Wife (we need to get you a name fake or otherwise…you know, Ginger’s is her porn name) and Slyde and Ron (lord knows, we need male perspective around here *cough*).

 

Despite the song and uneasiness, I am feeling better.  Maybe I’m being an idiot, but I guess only time will tell (and if it turns out I am…I encourage you to say you told me so).  We are wildly out of balance and for better or for worse (there goes that phrase again) we’re going to have to address it now instead of waiting until M. is done with school.  So, M. will be putting in applications, and I will be working with Tina on a very limited basis.  And by this evening, I will be visiting ya’ll to see what I’ve missed. 

 

I want to thank you each and every one from the bottom of my heart.  I’ve never had more than one or two close friends in real life; I’ve always preferred quality over quantity.  You’ve changed my mind about that.  Right now, I wish there were some way we could have a giant sleepover so I could hug each and every one of you in person. 

 

Love, Anna (& M.)