Recurrence

In my first trimester, I was stunned by the onslaught of highly vivid dreams I ended up having. Very detailed and memorable, and very much like I wasn't sleeping. Rather living an entirely separate life when I should have been asleep.  The amount of information to take in was rather exhausting, and I'd awake tired, rather than rested.

My second and third trimester have proved much less active in this same regard, overall.  But in more recent nights, I've been having the same dream repeatedly.  Different participants, but the same concept.  My husband cheats on me. When I find out and confront him, he doesn't even care to hide it. He doesn't care at all.  I rant and rave, and threaten....  And yet he doesn't care.  He's un-phased.

I feel so sad and lonely in these dreams. Like I've been cast aside, and am no longer loved.  It's crushing.  So far, I've woken up from all three of these dreams to tears in the twilight hours of the morning.  Most have lasted a far reach into the regular day.  They've left me with a dark feeling around my shoulders that has lingered more than I felt it was welcomed to.

A normal human being would turn to their husband and ask for comfort and physical contact as reassurance.  I only bury my head and mention nothing.  An introspect into my psyche tells me that, on some level, I feel that these dreams are a reflection of the lack of involvement my husband has with me at this point in our marriage.  The eternal struggle of spouses who are raising small children; the dissipation of the connection of love and companionship. 

I am unsure if this is because somewhere buried deep, we don't want to work on the relationship we have, or that he's genuinely oblivious to the fact that we haven't worked on our relationship in a very, very long time.

In tumultuous times of our previous married years, we came up with ways to better communicate with each other. Suggestions for ourselves to be better at what we were doing badly.  We'd write lists. Notes. Charts. Letters.  And, thinking we had the problem licked just by talking about it, we simply never used any of the tools we came up with.  At one point we even saw a couples therapist, and spent time doing worksheets at home to discuss with each other and come up with ways to work on the overcoming these problems.  Needless to say, I filled out my portions, and he did not.  He just never went back to the therapist.  Out of shame and defeat, I didn't go back after that either.

Once it was evident that any work I was ever going to try to do in my marriage would not be met halfway, I think I gave up permanently. I've never tried that hard again, I've just let things that are wrong remain wrong and practice unhealthy tactics to deal with them. Like nagging, bullying, name-calling.  All the things I never thought I'd use against someone I "loved". 

I used to be very sure that I loved my husband, too.  But because I know that I am the only one who wanted to put in the work, that I am ultimately alone with a person who would never work as hard as I would to build a stronger relationship, I don't think I'll ever do it again.

I wish these were feelings that didn't bother me as much as they did. I guess in a way it's better that they do, because it means I care enough for them too.  How do I differentiate between feeling terrible that my spouse doesn't love me enough to move mountains for me, and just being on the shit end of the stick?  Does this mean we are only maintaining the farce that we love each other, and that all true vestiges of it are really gone? Are we just going through the motions?

Is this really what I'm thinking, or have I gone completely batshit insane, and I have no idea it's happened. Like in memento where the guy has no concept that it's just him running around insane in his own head.  That's another highly likely scenario for me at this point in life (and pregnancy). 

I'm such a mess.  I feel so lonely.