The One Where I take my own advice

See that little Subscribe thing on the side.  It says Seek Therapy.  So we did. 

Paladin and I have fallen into a pattern of having a big blow-up argument every couple of weeks.  Sometimes its big things.  Sometimes its little things.  The problems come down to just a few things:

A) I can’t seem to find a space in this house that’s ours much less mine.  As I told Dr. Mark, I live with ghosts on a daily basis.  Sometimes I’m just sitting here in the living room and a ghost will go past of the kids & Mull playing in here in front of the tv, and sometimes its set off by an errant remark on Paladin’s part.  The other night we were playing around in the bathroom and I said something like, “Oh so you’ve done this before” and Paladin said, “Many times.”  Yeah, you know where my mind flashed.    Those hit hard.  I’ve also come to realize that my nearly constant redecorating around here (did you notice the wood laminate flooring that we put in the living room like 2 days before the wedding?  we’re nuts…we obviously need therapy) has a lot to do with me trying to erase the past and make this house mine.  Recently, I pretty much gave up on that and during one of our bi-weekly arguments, one of us suggested that we build a new house out in the back forty (it is like 2 half-acre lots and we could rent our part of this house for enough to pay the entire mortgage).  Well within a couple of weeks, everybody around here put in some input on it until I was on the cusp of saying “Screw it.  I’ll live in the storage building!” 

Sunday, I went over the edge of said cusp.  We were having a good day.  We headed out to Mom’s with my second wedding dress (I should have pics of it tomorrow!  ) On the way out, we started talking about sperm donors and future baby making plans.  During our stay at Mom’s the subject of the house came up and Tina made the perfectly rational suggestion that we pay off all of our small debts first.  On the way home, Paladin starts talking about it and the next thing you know he’s determined that in about 4 yrs we can start the build (he was factoring in more than just debts but I forget what it was).  FOUR YEARS.  FOUR YEARS OF GHOSTS.  I lost my mind a little bit, and went completely pouty.  I told him that was fine, but that in the meantime, I wanted to take over the outbuilding and make it my own project.  He flipped.  It scares the crap out of him when I want to get away.  He automatically envisioned me moving out there and locking the door behind me.  No amount of me saying, “There’s nothing to stop you coming too” or “I need some space” or other similar platitudes were reassuring him. 

It’s at these points in these arguments that I get that feeling of there being no resolution whatsoever.  There are a few things that Paladin and I can’t seem to come to an agreement on.  I get the scary “I’ll have to push everything down inside and ignore the problem” or “It’s time to start thinking about moving on” thoughts in my head.  It’s definitely a dread that comes over me.  Leaving isn’t something I want to do.  I just start to feel so drowned in everything that even alone looks better than being caught in this cycle of taking care of everything but me.  It’s an old bugaboo, but it has great staying power.

B) Second, there’s a lack of a future outlook for us as a couple, and the idea of building a house was part of that.  We haven’t set many goals in concrete really.  When I talk about looking at the future, Paladin goes a bit off because he still can’t wrap his brain around being retired.  In the meantime, I feel lost.  I need goals.  I just don’t know what to do with myself if I don’t know what I’m aiming for.  When I try to get Paladin to think about the future, he tends to retreat a bit.

C) One of the other things that we can’t seem to agree on is the state of our union.  Paladin wants to think of everything as “ours” from the dogs to the kids to the house.  That’s not how I feel nor is it the reality of the situation.  All of these things came with the Paladin package.  There is still very much a “yours” and “mine” thing going on here and most of that is coming from me although he gets into the act when we argue over the kids.  I’ve spent the last few months reading about blended families and from what I hear it takes around seven years for that to be resolved.  SEVEN YEARS.  That I can live with, but he can’t.  I sometimes…ok, often…feel like I’m a Mull substitute.  That I’m fulfilling the roll that she never could.  That I’m the wife he dreamed of all along and frankly, if they were our children and this house was full of the kids and dogs and us, it would be perfection for him.  I get that.  I SO get that.  It would be my dream too.  But, they aren’t my children and they have a mother and the vast majority of the time they come both with hugs and a crapfest of what new idiotic low Mull has hit.  It really hurts him that I don’t think of all of this as ours.  I can’t help it.  I just don’t.  As I said to Dr. Mark yesterday, how can I when the MP’s advise me not to even so much as hold their hands in public?  I can be a loving, guiding hand in their lives, but I cannot be their mother.  It breaks my heart too, Paladin.  It does.  I nearly cried during our counseling session yesterday describing how hard it is to have Indie run to me and then watch her own mother ignore her.  Worse yet, to know that our attempts to make a change in that situation have been met with nothing but “call CPS” only to have CPS cock-up the entire situation leaving us with no where left to turn and actually making life harder for those kids (remind me someday to tell you about the hell Mull put them through after the MP’s got involved).

Like I said, they’re old bugaboos, but deep and lasting ones.  And after our argument the other night, I went to my dark dread-filled “push it down or get out” place.  I tried to share my anxiety and genuine fear with Paladin, but when I do that, he freaks out because he’s as tired of this back and forth as I am.  Once again, I suggested therapy.  I don’t have all of the answers for us, and often when I do have a suggestion or comment on issues, he just doesn’t listen to me or it escalates the argument.  Even when he does resolve to try a new tactic, it’s forgotten because there’s no one there to hold him accountable but me which makes him feel like the argument is still going on.  We needed a mediator pure and simple. 

Paladin made the call Monday morning and we went in yesterday and will be going in about once a week.  It sure as heck can’t hurt.  I think we made the staff’s day.  A couple that comes in before they’re ready to chuck it?  Awesomeness.  They were all smiles.  Well, until Dr. Mark heard our situation.  You could read the “OMG” in his face.  If he’d been standing, he’d have staggered.  It’s pretty much the same look people give us when they realize all that’s gone on in our lives in the last few months.  Our life is insane.  We keep stumbling through trying to keep up and putting out fires as Paladin puts it.  We’ve both had it with that mentality, but the truth is that we’ll go on that way unless there is a mediator to keep us on track.  We are both feeling good about this.  I think Paladin has a bit of anxiety about it still because of Mull having gone to couples counseling with him as a stepping stone to leaving, but I know he’s trying to fight that anxiety.  I love him for that.  He made my entire day by making that phone call.  It proves to me how different he is from those that came before him.  I’m really hopeful that we can come together on some of these issues because we’re so right in every other way.

Oh, and Paladin has his version of this going up over on his site shortly.

Ok, enough of my drivel for today.    I’ll most likely load pics of the second dress tomorrow and a few of the bouquet, etc.  See ya! 

 

P.S.- I said it was insane.  Look what was waiting in my inbox from Rachel who took the majority of the wedding pics:

“So I have the other photos but me being the idiot that I am I left them in Jersey on my in-laws hutch. I will get them to you as soon as we get to NJ. So sorry love you babe and the photos here came out great.”

They aren’t going to be back in Jersey for 3 weeks.  Tres Sucks!