Rude

by susansommers

I have been thinking about my interactions with my husband lately, and I keep getting this gnawing feeling that I’ve been really rude. Every time he disappoints me I get angry at him and I begin to blame. Or I cry and blame him for putting us in this situation. What has gotten into me?

Being away from home I realized how reactive and panicky I’ve been to everything he does. I never really just let him be, instead I have been making everything about me. “I know you’re depressed but don’t do these things to ME.” I’ve been depressed and hard to talk to, not just with Chris but with my family and friends as well. Why have I been so rude? It’s no wonder he doesn’t know if he wants to be married to me, I’m not really me!

On the other hand, with my flashbacks I’ve been feeling a lot of what I felt this summer. The pit in my stomach, the questions, the guilt. And I remember the stuff he said to me and how it made me feel. I keep picturing my conversations with him surrounding TOW, his lack of remorse or honesty. And I think about how rude he’s been to me! Stepping back for a moment the things he has said and done have not been my fault and they are incredibly hurtful.

Being in San Francisco I thought about our trip in April. We took a ferry to Tiburon, and I remember how at peace I was, the warm sun in my face, the views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and holding his hand and feeling ultimate love. We celebrated his birthday and he toasted to me, saying how it was the best birthday he’s ever had and he’s so grateful for me. I felt peace and reassurance that our love could outlast anything.

How do two people that care about each other so much also treat each other like such crap? I feel like such a failure that I lost that love and replaced it with a lot of anger. I pushed him away with my lack of restraint and lost myself in the process. I feel like every time I write I keep going back to “why?!” But seriously how did this happen and why me?

I truly feel myself slipping away from the relationship and it is very lonely and very scary. Since I’ve been the only one working on the relationship, if I leave it is truly over. He’s got no fight in him. And I hate it because this isn’t really about me, it’s about his well-being but now I’m selfish.

I wish I could really explain this feeling of removing from a relationship. It feels like the other person is no longer really a person in your brain. They are a fleeting moment in time. It feels like a huge hole in my heart. When I wake up in the morning I think that Chris has woken up before me and is making coffee, and I realize he was never in my bed at all. There’s confusion over missing the person while also feeling little emotion anymore. And after planning a future with someone, it feels like there is no future anymore. Gone are the days that I plan out the nursery and home remodel. It is replaced with realizing all I have is my career ahead of me. Life is happening all around me, and I’m left with little. I wish it wasn’t but it’s so hopeless and damaging.

This removal process makes me see marriage very differently as well. Last night I made my friend promise me that her fiancé won’t do this to her because I can’t stand to think she might have to go through this too. I am starting to wonder what the point to a marriage is, when it is so fragile and can be so damaging to a person. Why be in a relationship at all? I thought marriage was about having that person to live life with, to stretch you, and to commit forever. But now I see how common divorce is, and it makes me sick that people don’t put sanctity in the original reasons behind marriage. And if I married someone that had very different ideas of marriage, who’s to say I wont make that mistake again?

In this moment I don’t know how to go on. I hate myself for my behavior, and I’m so sad to be moving on. I want to be back on that ferry boat, just one more time.