Trust
One of the things I think is that in some ways, it's a good thing that I don't see my husband for days at a time. It gives me a chance to ponder and organize my thoughts so that when I talk to him, I'm not a sobby mushy crying mess.
One of the things I think is that he's actually been rather awesome the past couple of days. Not in a "let's appease the crazy-angry wife with flowers and cleaning the kitchen" kind of awesome. More the "let's listen to what she says and respect what she asks for" kind of way. I told him I wanted to sleep alone, that I didn't want him to tuck me in or kiss my forehead, or even acknowledge that I'm in the same house at night, for right now. He's done that. He also has not pestered me, or sent me long emails either ranting about how I'm unreasonable (not that he's ever done this, but you know, I've heard horror stories from other women) or begging me to just talk to him so he can apologize and feel better already (he's come close to this in the past, just not really badly). Instead, he just gave me space, let me process. I sent him an email yesterday to remind him that the dog's vaccination booster appt was today (he missed the first one he set up earlier this week), and to say that I'd like to talk to him tonight. He kept his reply short, and to the point- "I'll get him there, and yes- talking Friday night, I'd like that". Then, today he sent me a quick email to let me know he and Mom (my Mom) had discussed today that Mom would rent a truck to get the rest of her belongings out of here, and that they had discussed using it to take some old electronics equipment to the recycling plant, and to haul out some other things that really just need to go to the dump. He also asked if I still felt like I'd be feeling up to talking tonight because "I’ve really been missing you and wanted to tell that it is all my fault, and I’m sorry my errors caused you embarrassment." I'm not sure how I feel about the way the apology is worded, but for right now I'm going to just take it as it is. I'm really glad he remembered this time to mention the conversation with Mom, because for realz, if I had come home from work on the 13th to find my Mom's stuff gone, and a bunch of other things just hauled off without the opportunity for input, I'd have flipped my shit in a way that there's just no coming back from. So yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about the way things have gone down in the past two days, which really really helps.
One thing I was thinking- It kind of almost makes it worth getting so stressed out and unhappy, just to see that my friends will rally and be there for me. I had so. many. good. things. happen in the past couple of days, while my friends did their level best to take extra good care of me. Hugs, sympathy without prying, yummy fresh cherries, yummy home made zuchini bread, the number of a good therapist (I don't know if I'll call this one, but the thought was very much appreciated), drinking today while laughing, even a stuffed otter! (not an actual otter, just to be clear, just a toy). I was very surprised in some cases, at who stepped up for me, just to offer support and caring. It was amazing, truly amazing. I am just the luckiest person in the world, sometimes. The spawn have also been wonderful. I am, of course, Not Discussing this all with them, I refuse to put them in the middle of a problem with me and my husband, but they know I'm upset about something, so they've gone into "Mommy's not feeling good" mode, and have been laying on the kisses, drawing me pictures, snuggling with me, and just generally being awesome. Seriously, where do such incredible kids come from?
The Big Thing I've been thinking- So this thing with the neighbor and the driveway, and what the hell was he thinking or not thinking in regards to not telling me that the neighbor had discussed with him all of this? Yeah, it's not cool. It's really not cool. But my response was... too much, given the specific situation. So, I was thinking, why did I flip out this bad over it? This specific instance is not worth nearly 24 hours of non-stop crying, and a day of feeling like the sun was put on a dimmer switch, and feeling so much badness. But, it's not really just this one thing. I started thinking about all the things that have bothered me in the past year and a half, most of them pretty small, one of them majorly huge, and a few in between. The common thing that it kept coming back to for me, was about trust. About feeling like my partner has my back. Don't get me wrong, I do not need a Rescuer. I don't need a Kinght in Shining Armor to save me from myself and life. But, I do need to know that when I'm in the thick of things, swinging my sword, that my partner has his back to mine, and that we've got each other covered.
I needed him to step up when those guys were harrassing me at the Christmas party. I don't mean wading in with fist flailing to knock their heads off. I just mean, that if he had come up to me on the dance floor and either danced with me himself, or if he really couldn't see his way to doing that, to pretend to tell me that there was a call I needed to take, or something- SOMETHING to give me a graceful out, that would have been so much preferrable to me running off the dance floor and hiding outside.
I need to know that when I'm in a horrible flare, and I'm doing my best to hold things up and get my shit done, that he's going to hold his end up too, and not leave me dragging a load that's too heavy even when I'm well, and near crippling when I'm not.
I need to know that I can trust him to provide good care for our children, even when I'm not around. It's absolutely bullshit to think he can't. I'm not talking about having to perform abdominal surgery on them, I'm talking about geting them adequately dressed and packing decent lunches for them. Goddess forfend that something should happen to me, that I die or something, and he had to be the only parent all the time. What would he do? I'm also talking about attending to their emotional needs. He needs to spend time with more than just Monkey, and his time with Monkey needs to be more than video games.
(TW- discussion of rape)
I need to know, REALLY need to know that I can sleep next to him at night and have my body respected as not being an object for him to use at will. We were talking the other day, about the philosophy that I've seen floating around the web lately on feminist blogs, of enthusiastic consent. That "No means No" is not enough. It has to be "YES means yes, and nothing else does". When I got into the nitty gritty of what that really means- how that means that if you are married, or seeing someone, or having a one night stand, and your sexual partner is asleep/drunk/too exhausted or scared to stand up for themself, the fact that there was no actual "No" passing their lips does not confer permission. I told him this right after reminding him that statistically speaking, the person most likely to rape me, is him. And that not all rape is violent, and bloody. Sometimes it just hurts the soul, and leaves the body unmarked. I think that maybe, just maybe, I saw a little light bulb go on in his head. I'm going to have to lay it out more bluntly tonight, I think, just to be sure that we are exactly on the same page.
(/TW)
I also need to know, to be able to trust, that if he needs something, if he's not happy, he can tell me. I want him to be happy, as much as I want to be happy myself. I'm not sure I can be happy while being married to someone who isn't. And looking at how he's been behaving for the past year and a half or so, it's really hard to believe that he's really happy.
So, it all boils down to trust. I don't believe that I can be happy in a marriage that doesn't have a good, solid core of trust. This slow loss of my trust in him over the past months has been hurting me more than I realized. This one specific instance with the driveway and the neighbor was just the shove that pushed me out into having to face it.
In all of my thinking, I've come to the conclusion that while I would much, much rather we work this out, the world will not end if we decide that in order to actually end up happy in the long term, and to make sure we raise our kids in a way that shows them how to be happy, we have to divorce.
The world won't end.
It'll hurt for a while, it'll hurt really bad, but the Earth will keep spinning, we'll all keep breathing. And it's better to do the hard, painful thing sooner rather than later. We could be so, so sad for a few months, even a year or so, and then move on to happier better lives, or we could make each other miserable, and set a horrible example for our kids, for decades.
So anyway, discussion tonight.