Hope is good

After meeting for four hours with a friend that we both thought could offer some perspective, we came away with a lot said, and a plan for getting us started on the path back from the edge. We aren't off the edge, but we're both sensing that it is worth the work it will be to save ourselves from this hellhole we've been dancing around the rim of. The plan is this:
- Table controversy. Not forever, but just for now. Write it down to come back to later, but for the time we're on the cruise, just defer conflict till we get back. Use this trip to have fun and reconnect with one another and our children. Refuse to be drawn into anything that doesn't serve that goal. When we get back, we'll talk about the situations we've written down, but not until we get back.
- Dh needs to spend time one-on-one with this friend, searching out some of what's going on inside him.
- She suggested that I get away for a solitude of at least 2 weeks, maybe three. Alone, or perhaps with the help of a spiritual director. She observed that I need to find out who I am, unrelated to whose daughter, mother, and wife I am. She said I needed time without everyone around to rediscover the nugget of who I really am, at core. I have been wanting a spiritual director, and lo and behold, she gives me a brochure of a local ministry of spiritual direction -- that has both Catholics and Protestants on the board, and among the directors.

In the past few weeks, I've had 5 glimmers from God that he's out there, and I'm not forgotten.

One was a momentary flash of just how great a marriage ours could be...it lasted a nanosecond, but that instant was filled with images of what dh and I could look like if our marriage existed at the level it should and could. A

Another glimmer was a searing insight (in a McDonald's bathroom, along I-26, of all places): what IF there's a big ol' problem in myself and it isn't primarily dh's problem? This insight wasn't a capitulation to his perspective, but rather an opening myself up to do the internal work that I (and only I) can do.

The third glimmer was a phone call from this friend we met with, last week. I hadn't heard from her in ages, and I had spent the day in tears. Finally I threw a pair of socks on the floor and told God, "ENOUGH. I've had enough. You're going to have to do it, because I've had ENOUGH." Within a few minutes, she called, and we set up the meeting that we just attended.

The fourth glimmer was the snakebite. It really gave me a metaphor for life.

My last glimmer was the solitude/spiritual director angle our friend suggested....I had been wanting that, but didn't know where to find what I was looking for. It's almost like, if this had been a script, it would have tied itself up too neatly to be believed. But it isn't a script, it's my life. And somehow all these threads wove together to lead me to a spiritual director.

League Tennis

You learn a lot from playing tennis. I returned last night from the state championships with my little team of 2.5 players (beginners). We wanted to win, but it wasn't a higher priority than savoring the experience. Everyone on the team is supportive of one another, so it has been an amazing season. We're not 'friends' really, just a group of women who play tennis together more or less once a week. That's it. But it clicked, and we all had fun. Can't say that about some of the teams we played though!! Really, tennis can bring out the not-very-ladylike inner bitch in some women. But not us. We had fun.

The day before we left for the state championships, we were told to come to the clubhouse for team pictures. We showed up at the appointed time (noon) and were ushered into a private dining room. The table was set with cloth and china, fresh flowers, rose petals scattered over the tablecloth, and a rose at each place. Under each rose was a wrapped package from a local jeweler, with a little rosebud lapel pin attached to the center of the bow. The package contained an engraved Reed and Barton silverplate pictureframe. There were champagne glasses at each place as well.

We were stunned. A 'secret fan' had treated us all to a surprize luncheon in our honor. I was floored. This is the first year we've been together as a team. There's not a shared history. As the cameras snapped and the glasses were raised, we felt like princesses. One of the women, married 38 years, ventured, "I think this might have been my husband. He knows the jeweler, and he knows that crepes are my favorite." He just happened to be dining in another part of the building, so she sent for him, and found out that it was his doing. He just beamed at having pulled off a surprize on every one of us, and we all tripped over one another to thank him.

He developed the pictures, and sent each one of us prints.

Can you imagine the generosity and thoughtfulness that would do this for a group of women he didn't even KNOW? Just for love for his wife. I'm still speechless.

Views of Reality

Dh and I finally talked last night.
I'm not sure it made me feel any better.
Here's his take:
1. Through hours of prayer he's come to believe that his outbursts are not anger, but frustration with me.
2. What he says does not matter to me.
3. I am defensive, and he believes it is because I have something to hide.
4. If I observe my belief that something he says is incorrect, it is proof of #2.
5. Therefore he cannot talk to me, with any hope of anything good coming of it.

Here's my take:
1. It's not me who is throwing pans and hitting people. So let's keep that in mind.
2. He has such an ability to sublimate pain and to dissociate from the pain of reality, that he in actuality 'splits.'
3. He has such abuse (sexual, physical, verbal) in his childhood, which he has only recently come to remember the full horror of, that it colors all his observations.
4. I recoil from his anger, frustration, and shame both in its outward forms (tantrums, harshness) and its quiet forms (passive aggressive behaviors, blaming the victim).
5. Therefore, I cannot talk to him, with any hope of anything good coming of it.

I wonder how this marriage can weather this.

Snakebite

Something happened yesterday that I think is a metaphor, if God indeed sends metaphors into our lives.

Dh went adventure racing this past weekend. He came home Sunday afternoon, showered, slept from 5pm to 7 am, and went to work. After work he went to the gym, realized that his ankle was killing him, and looked down. Lo and behold, 4 fang marks. Then it all came back to him. He had been racing Saturday night on his bike. He was pushing his bike up a hill and suddenly his ankle felt like it was on fire. He commented on it, but did not bother to think WHY it might be burning so badly; the race was taking all his concentration, so he compartmentalized the pain away to get back to later. He didn't think about it again until at the gym two days later. We looked on the internet last night, and learned that only poisionous snakes have fangs, rather than teeth. Apparently, they can opt for poison (which burns like fire and serves as a last defense warning) or they can opt to inject poison and venom (which could kill someone who was doing strenuous exercise and miles from medical assistance). Fortunately the snake opted to only send him a warning.

Warnings. Metaphors. Slices of providence. Thin places, where the spiritual and the physical brush past each other.

All the What - Ifs

In an effort to take my mind off my misery, my friend Julie tagged me to answer these much-more-enjoyable what-ifs than the ones I've been contemplating lately!

If I could be a scientist…the world would be in sad shape. Like, there would be no advances.
If I could be a farmer… I'd farm out the work.
If I could be a musician…I'd play the cello. That way I could get in a good cry everytime I practiced.
If I could be a doctor… I'd be a damn good one.
If I could be a painter… I'd think I'd gone to heaven. To be able to paint like I want to paint....ah.
If I could be a gardener…I'd love to be able to have fresh flowers in every room. And some yummy fresh food.
If I could be a missionary…I'd hate living on 'support'. I hate fundraising.
If I could be a chef…it would sure come in handy for the family. I'd create tasty, healthy, attractive entrees.
If I could be an architect…I'd meld beautiful design with 'green' technology, and no one could afford me.
If I could be a linguist…I'd go nuts.
If I could be a psychologist…I'd carry the weight of everyone's problems. But I'd be good at it.
If I could be a librarian… I'd be frustrated at all the books I'd want to read, and never have time to.
If I could be an athlete…I'd choose an extreme sport, or a funky unknown sport.
If I could be a lawyer… I'd clean up. But I'd probably lose my soul.
If I could be an inn-keeper… I'd stress out. When will all these people leave me alone?
If I could be a professor…I'd love it.
If I could be a writer…I'd capture a phrase like Forster and I'd plumb the depths like Dosteyevsky.
If I could be a llama-rider…just shoot me and put me out of my misery.
If I could be a bonnie pirate…I'd be rich and promiscuous, but I wouldn't live long.
If I could be an astronaut…I'd hate the math, but I'd love the missions.
If I could be a world famous blogger…I'd be content with that. Gotta have a forum for life.
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world…it would be a magistrate's office. Help the little people.
If I could be married to any current famous political figure…Arnold, of course.

New month

I wish I felt more hope with the beginning of May. But in actuality, I still feel the same old numbness. Marriage isn't really marriage; parenting feels more like an effort to be informed as to their lives and plans...but not really MOTHERHOOD. I have to wonder about the future, but I dare not wonder too much, for fear I'll make it happen. For the future I envision, or rather the options I mull constantly, is not something I want to participate in.

Every day I ask dh when we are going to talk. Every day that he doesn't just ignore me, he answers that he doesn't think there's going to be one talk that settles everything once and for all. Fine. But give me a conversation for starters, then. I think he is operating under the assumption that he can delay, and delay, and we can go back into our comfortable intimacy-vacuum, and this will all blow over. But I'm tired of that life. I'm tired of no sex. I'm tired of cordiality. I'm tired of conversation about the day, and nothing more.

I don't want the marriage to end; but neither do I want it to go on status quo. I called the counselor today, I emailed the priest last week, I called the lady who prays sometimes for and with dh....and I've heard back from no one. I don't really want a counselor, actually. I don't want someone to reflect and clarify what I'm saying and empathize. I really want someone to tell me what to do. I feel incapable of deciding the next step....there aren't any next steps that seem agreeable. So I stand paralyzed and crying in my cereal. It sucks.