Every time I think I’ve come to a decision, the fucking road forks again … and again … and again, and I find myself circling back to the same place.
I’ve come to the realization that — even if I wanted to — my poor health means I can’t afford to leave my marriage. I’m at the point where I need to retire. I have severe IBS-D, and I spend about 80% of my time at some level of pain. Usually it’s also nausea and an upset stomach.
So instead of “hoping for the best but planning for the worst” in my marriage, I need to work on getting comfortable within this relationship for the long haul, appreciating what I have, and taking care of myself. So much for any bold new directions in my life.
I’ve tried so very hard to encourage my husband throughout our long marriage. Until the past 15 years, I’ve done much of the heavy lifting. I’ve worked the demanding jobs, the ones that brought in real money sometimes. I’ve worked one and two and even three jobs at a time. I home-schooled our daughter for four years and backed her up solidly for years before and years after. I never had any real ambition, to speak of, but I kept going with things as they came up, moving ahead, taking on more and more and more until I finally broke.
Through it all, I tried to encourage him. When he talked about wanting to write for a music publication, I searched out a few that accepted freelance work. Nothing came of it. When he talked about wanting to try opening a food truck or a small restaurant, I pointed out that there’s a fine culinary school only 45 minutes from here where he could learn food business management. Nothing came of it.
I don’t know what he wants. After almost 33 years together, I’ve pretty much faced the fact that he doesn’t really want anything unless it’s presented to him as a done deal and all he has to do is enjoy it.
Right now he’s insistent that he’ll never be happy unless he gets to live in Portland. Oregon. I sit here and think “there’s nothing in Portland that you can’t find here if you really want it,” but he’s convinced that if only he were in Portland, suddenly everything would be great. His job would be great. His personal life would be great.
I dunno. And I’m sorry. Here I wanted to write something to commiserate and instead I’m bitching about my own problems. Duh.
I begin to wonder if there actually is anything such as a happy marriage, unless one partner has so completely subsumed themselves to the other’s wishes that they exist only as a figment of their partner’s imagination.
I think marriages can be happy when both are generous realists. I just haven’t encountered so much of that combination out in the wild! The pie-in-the-sky’ers are always plaintively looking toward the future that never seems to arrive for them. My husband is big on believing that everything’s going to be so much better “in about six months.” We’ve been sliding that phrase in front of us for 23 years now.
Sympathies, and big hugs.