Posters Anonymous

by Mindy

Hello. My name is Mindy, and I'm an absentee poster. When I became a part of DotMoms, I promised to post and participate on a regular basis. And I did well, too, until my life started getting a little too interesting.

Whaaahmmm? You say? Isn't that a bit counterintuitive? Why, yes, it is. The problem, you see, is that I am a very straightforward kind of girl and I didn't trust myself to be able to write about anything that was happening without either torching a hole in my keyboard or doing irreparable damage to my relationship with anyone I know who also happens to read this blog.

It's that bad. (Btw, I'm giving you a chance to skip onto cheerier entries now; if you're up for a bit of emotional flotsam and jetsam, grab a smoke and put your feet up.)

Here goes. A while back, I wrote a post about the end of my marriage. We're still married, and we have no concrete plans to divorce, but we've not moved on much since that day.

We've had hours and hours of discussion, and we've made various verbal amendments to our marriage contract (figurative, this; we did not whip out green eyeshades and armbands and adding machines). It has all amounted to a significant exploration of and many small adjustments to our understanding of what it means to be married to one another and the expectations we have of each other and of the marriage.

You see, we have been doing a bang-up job of keeping house and raising our children. We are an excellent administrative team. And even though the employment landscape has been rocky and varied, we have (barely) managed to hang onto our home and our modest standard of living. What we haven't been able to do is keep ourselves nourished emotionally.

We have starved ourselves and each other. We have allowed stress, personal tragedy, depression, health issues, work issues, extended family issues, and household projects to take precedence over and eat away at whatever emotional closeness and shared security and trust and mutual liking and romantic feelings we had left after 13 eventful years together.

I can't speak for him, but I was plain worn out, and had no one to lean on, no one to tell about it, no one to hold me and tell me it will be all OK in the end. We should have been each other's allies and pinch hitters and sounding boards and safe havens, but we weren't. And we still aren't.

There have been too many disappointments, hurt feelings, outright emotional desertions, careless woundings (and, let's be honest, nuclear bombings), to get back that lovin', carin' feeling. I live in a house with 4 other people and I have never been so lonely in my entire life.

What's more, I have several close friends who have been married just as long, and who also have several children, and who have been through very tough times, but they have somehow managed to preserve a basic core of affection, security, and acceptance. To be blunt, they still have great sex, more than once a year, even, and have preserved a bit of romance and attraction, or at least the minimum required to maintain a loving relationship and weather the storms.

I am absolutely appalled at the intensity of my jealousy of these friends. I have never experienced significant jealousy in my life, and it galls me to think that I am jealous of someone else's ability to maintain their husband's sexual, romantic and emotional interest. I fell like a total failure as a wife.

Before you get out the hankies, let me assure you that I do not for a moment believe that my situation is novel or unique, and I know that I am the only one who can start fixing it for myself. I know that; I have a degree in psychology, for chrissakes. I've just lost the will to do it.

When things got really, really bad, when in the space of one month I discovered I had been royally betrayed by my husband; that my newborn child had contracted viral myocarditis and came within hours of dying several times over a period of weeks; that my in-laws and brothers-in-law, 5 of whom were staying with us from the 8th day after Dylan was born until a few days before he was finally taken off the respirator and sent home from the NICU, had let my husband know how sorry they were that he had to live with an unstable woman like me; that this post-partum depression thing was not a fluke and was likely to be my new live-in companion, I gave in.

I totally caved in and gave up. I prayed for the first time in decades. I promised that if my little boy lived, and if he came home, and if we were able to keep the family together and the roof over our heads, and if we were all able to look at each other again without wanting to gouge eyes, that I would be satisfied.

I would no longer wish for a perfect marriage. I would no longer be unhappy with my husband. I would try my hardest not to be disappointed anymore. I would lower my standards on all fronts, so that I could stop feeling so sad and lost. I would not ask for anything more for myself, if only my children could have their health, a good home, good relationships with extended family, and both parents present to raise them into healthy young adults. I told myself that I could give up being happy if God helped my little boy.

Well, three years later, he is a perfectly healthy, robust little boy. And I have tried to keep my end of the bargain. Anyone who knows me at all, to a man (or woman) would be absolutely floored to read what I have just written.

Mindy? Prayed? And made a bargain? It's not like me at all. And I am trying to stick to the spirit of the deal, which was essentially made with myself (not to discount a higher participant; I am still struggling to accept what I cannot verify, and I am exceedingly grateful for whatever made things work out in the end. Please try to understand. Thanks. You're a Pal.).

I have realized lately however, that it's really not enough to keep maintaining the status quo. I have spent the first half of my thirties feeling unloved and unfulfilled, not to mention undesired, and I really don't want to spend the second half the same way.

I don't have the answers, but I have carved out a small footpath for myself that I hope will take me in a better direction. I have decided to detach a bit, hang up my wifely cloak, and try to be a better Mindy first.

I have started to write again, and that is helping. I have decided to give my husband the widest possible berth in the hopes that less scrutiny and less intense expectations will relieve some of the pressure.

He is not happy with the new Mindy, and is frankly threatened by it and the distance I have created, but he sees that it could eventually improve things for both of us if I am able to shed the bitterness and resentment, and am able to start relying on myself again for happiness and self-actualization.

It will certainly help for me to stop looking to him for what he doesn't have to give at the moment, at least not to me. I hope it works.

Stay tuned.

Comments

[Kristina]

Mindy,

I was one of the readers yesterday that left a message on your mommyblog and said I was shocked and waiting for the punchline because you're one of the funniest blogs I've come across. However after saying that I have to say that I admire you. You give me a lot of inspiration. You're a great mother, a great wife, and you also work your butt off. Marriage is not easy, nothing is, I know because I too had a failed marriage. Unlike a lot of marriages it was that he asked me for a divorce. It was that I divorced him because, and I am expecting a lot of criticism, we did nothing. There was nothing. We were just existing under a roof and that was it. WE didn't fight, yep you heard right we did not fight, we did not have much of any falling out, we didn't sleep together either. I slept on the couch and he slept in the bed. It became so lonely to me and I longed for something better that I just had to get out of the marriage. I had one kid, and one on the way. I was scared to death because he worked all the time and I was a stay at home mom. I had limited education, due to my own personal family problems growing up I didn't get to finish highschool. I wanted to go back to college but somehow I let him talk me into not doing that and that he would take care of everything. I was stupid in that respect.

I finally sat him down and explained to him the situation. He didn't understand and became really emotional during it all. A little too late. When you're sitting there for years at a time and you grow apart and fall apart then it's the worst feeling in the world to feel so alone in a house with other people. It's horrible. So I decided once and for all, although hard cause I had no money and no real education, to get out of it and salvage my mentality. Best thing I ever did to be honest. I'm more happier today than I ever have been in my whole life. I'm raising my children and getting along just fine. ***hugs to you Mindy*** hang in there.

[Laur]

Just like Betsy, I could have written what you did two years ago. I just started blogging today. But I feel like I have just read my memory by what you wrote. Sounds like Betsy, you, and I could have de ja vu for each other. I'm at work, so I'll go, but please, I'd like to "talk" more with you.

[Betsy]

Just over three years ago, I'm betting I was where you are now. In fact, I could have written this part:

I have spent the first half of my thirties feeling unloved and unfulfilled, not to mention undesired, and I really don't want to spend the second half the same way.

I remember crying from my gut in the shower, water running hard so that no one would hear, feeling as if things would always be this way, that I'd always be trying, trying, trying hard to make it work - and that it was my job and responsibility to do just that.

Then I finally realized that if he wouldn't, I couldn't - and that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't my job to take on anyway. I couldn't fix this, and it wasn't about me not being good enough, or trying hard enough. It was emotionally toxic, and it was past time to end it before we all were poisoned by the fallout. I remember thinking 'Even if I never find someone to be with, it's got to be better than this.' And it was a relief when we decided to split up, even though it was acrimonious at first.

Three years later (even though it was a wrenching transition for the kids), it was by far the smartest thing I've ever done. The kids have a great relationship with their father, and we work together as a team to make sure they have seamless parenting, even if it happens as part of a patchwork quilt of sorts.

And at 40, even though it wasn't a goal or a priority, I discovered someone who made me realize exactly what I'd been missing the first time around - and that it was possible to feel loved and desired and appreciated for who I was and what I could bring to a new relationship, baggage and all.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if I can be a sounding board. I have been there, and I know the pain intimately.

[Amanda]

Mindy: I was blown away by your post. I think you are a very strong and self-aware woman. You vocalized a lot of things people feel and never say. With a true understanding of yourself, a path you seem to be clearly on, you will end up in a good place. You go girl...

[Eve P]

Hi Mindy,

This is a beautiful, honest, heart-wrenching posts...the struggles, the jealousies, the challenges. I enjoy so much hearing your story.

I will stay tuned.

Eve

[Robin]

In January 2003 my husband of 9 years told me that he wasn't in love with me anymore and that when we moved to our new apartment on March 1st he wasn't coming with me and our daughter. Did I mention he told me this 3 days before my 40th birthday party? Things were far from perfect before the announcement but I wanted to try marriage counseling again but Rich absolutely did
NOT. We lived 4 minutes apart for 6 months. Rich came by to see Lillianna almost every morning before school and he took care of her 2 nights a week and all day Saturday while I worked. It was awful.There were times I threw myself on my bed and wept from the bottom of my soul while I punched my pillow and yelled, "why?why?why?"
Writing in my journal helped. I hadn't written since Lillianna was a baby and it had been all about her achievements. In the end I went to individual counseling so that I could move on and deal with the fact that although Rich and I had always gotten along well, he wasn't in love with me anymore. Is there a worse statement than that? Having the person you love and adore and dreamed of spending your life with tell you that they are not "in love" with you? I kept saying to him, "When we got married you should've told me that 'forever' only meant 8 1/2 years to you. For me 'forever' meant FOREVER!"
After 6 months, Rich asked if I wanted to try marriage counseling. He realized he wasn't any happier without me. I made our appointment that day. We have been in therapy for 7 months. This doctor is wonderful. He totally understands us and helps us to understand eachother. It has been a long road.It was more difficult than when my father died when I was 24. The death of a beloved parent is earth shattering but the death of my dream was even worse for me. I mourned the loss of my marriage just the way I mourned the loss of my Dad.....hours of tears every day. crying until I thought I would dehydrate.
I would recommend individual counseling for you because it helped me realize that I couldn't change Rich but I could change how I dealt with the situation. I cried when I read what you wrote because I felt so much of that in my own marriage.
Hang in there! There are so many people who have gone through similar things in their marriage. The key is not to blame yourself because you deserve to be loved and appreciated. We all do!

[Kelly]

Mindy, this is such a soulful piece of writing. I have been there for some of it, not sure how I could have ever handled all of it. You are on the right track by giving yourself a little room to grow. The one phrase that kept me moving forward was: This is the only life I've got. Wishing you peace!--Kelly

[Meg]

Feeling lonely when you're not alone is the worst feeling in the world. I'm so sorry that you're in a situation that makes you feel that way. I've been where you're at...minus the great administrative team part...and it hurt a lot. I wish you the best of luck.