Waning Gibbous

After a great deal of deliberation, I've decided to publish this.

Our hearts are filled with so much sometimes that it's surprising that we can focus on anything else around us.  That focus can carry us for long periods of time through all sorts of obstacles and events, but it can also take us to very unexpected and dark places at the same time.

To a select few, I've had this discussion, and opening these doors in a more obtuse way makes my stomach turn over.  It hasn't been until the last few months, when things have gotten their darkest that I've been facing this subject with more seriousness, but my marriage is in a terrible, awful place. 

Beyond the struggles we are going to face to have a baby together (which I have been the more enthusiastic and interested in educating myself in, while my husband has remained silent, withdrawn and will not participate in unless I insist he be part of), I have discovered an anger in my husband that has reared itself through the trials having to do with his daughter.  As his wife, just watching him communicate with her via text, and observe as they play the roles of father/daughter together, I see him resenting and hating her.  These are his words; that he hates her.  Some of you may or may not know what we've been through together when it comes to her, but I'll spare you the regaling of tales of woe we've had. 

This anger he's got is completely consuming.  To the point where I am sitting next to a man who won't speak to me with more than 1 word, and won't communicate with me, even though we've been apart all day and haven't really had a conversation of more than a few sentences for a whole week.  This is what our week days looks like.  The anger is at everyone, everything, Our weekends have begun to be a complicated dance of him being unwilling to commit to any kinds of plans with the 3 of us (his daughter will bow out for work, her boyfriend, or to be with her friends. This is a 99.9% guarantee), so it's up to me to come up with activities for my son and I.  He and I spend most of our time together, and I treasure that time together very, very much.

My husband is so unhappy, and it seems like any solutions as to how to cure it is a complete mystery to him.  I've suggested time for him, time to be with his friends, that he takes bike rides, or go to the gym, or go play basketball, but he won't do it. 

The way our relationship has changed in the last few years, going from best friends to people who don't seem to know each other anymore, and have suffered even more at the hands of spites, disagreements, and judgments, have stalled my machinations of getting pregnant.  It wasn't long ago that in my mind I realized that it was likely that in our marriage I wouldn't see any other children. 

I can't tell you how devastatingly sorry this makes me to admit. 

In my life I've never imagined that I would be part of any great discoveries or processes.  I am not going to be the person who cures cancer, or who solves problems for the world, or builds rockets.  My dreams are so much more mundane and simple in comparison.  Just the love of my family, and the people I love and care for around me.   This was all I ever wanted in my life.  To be surrounded by love. 

I was the youngest by no less than 6, 10 and 16 years.  None of my older siblings had the time to spend with me.  My playmates were stuffed toys and Barbie dolls.  Imaginary friends and the boy across the cul-de-sac a little older than I was who suffered from a severe mental and physical disfigurement.    It wasn't until my adult years when I could finally breathe in the possibility that I could choose to make a family of my own. 

All through my 20's this was what I sought, and it was insanely difficult.  It was riddled with disappointments, devastations, set-backs and a few instances in which I realized these dreams might be founded on nothing more than the imaginary fumes from a child’s imagination.  Naturally when the moment in which I quit trying to find my dreams, they found me, and it was the scariest fucking thing I've ever experienced.   At the same time it was like cutting into the fabric of pure joy.  The hardest kind of work imaginable, but the highest level of reward you can imagine. 

I clung to that high for a very long time, and I suppose I still do.   

There was a great deal of idealizing going on when we got married.  We were drunk on the passion for our interests and plans, and each other that we felt when we got married, but it was almost immediately afterward that I experienced the first of several reveals about his person that made me balk at what I'd done.  Following this we've seen an onslaught of unhappiness all around us. 

I want to choose happiness, I want to choose a life more happily constructed and free from people who cannot simply choose NOT to wallow in hatred and anger for so long that it will poison everyone around them.   I want the person I am sharing my life to celebrate the happiness that we create for ourselves is just that - It is created.   You can choose anything you want for yourself, and to watch my husband be unable to choose something more fullfilling has hurt more than I can say. 

I've questioned so much about our pairing at this point, it's almost as if having a child together would be the absolute worst thing I could do for everyone (especially the baby I'd be having), but it doesn't stop my heart from pleading with me to keep trying to have one.  Ovaries are strange, you see.  Sometimes your hormones don't want to hear about all the problems you have; they just want to be sated.  They don't give a shit if you're having problems:  "Find a way to stick a baby in your womb, lady!" they say.   It's a terrible, awful conflict. 

So there it is, the naked truth.  Scratch the surface and you will positively reel at what can be found underneath.