Sometimes in a relationship, problems can arise from lack of common interests:
No appreciation for the things that are important to you. No participation or maybe grudging participation... Lack of interest in discussing and growing from a shared experience.
Or instead, it could go like this: "They really don't have much in common, but somehow it works. Opposites attract!"
You could have some things together and other things separately. You do things with your pals and he does things with his buddies.
You could even just be happy partners in domesticity. Never underestimate the value of having someone who wants to feed you.
There are a lot of different configurations... I think basically, you can make anything you want to work work. The secret ingredient that will superglue anything together is LOVE.
That being said, when someone stomps out your love like a cigarette butt... and you find yourself in a vacuum of leadership, interests, moral guidance, and influence... a tabula rasa desperate for anyone to give a shit... Before you go ahead and get out the kindling to try again, you might want to actually make a conscious choice. Do I really want to go there? Why????? Being unhappily married might just be one of the worst things in the world. I might just fix it just to stop the pain. But I am so strong and have nothing to lose that I could also do anything I want to. Roll down the mountain like a speedy fat Sissyphus, scoot up the half pipe on the other side and do a 360 right over your head... Who knows?
I think I'm meant to help people someday...
I don't want to be a train wreck. I started blogging wanting to be somewhat entertaining...
Schadenfreude? : )
8 years ago
4 comments:
common experience can create those bonds instead of common interests. Life is full of choices, all have consequences. Being unhappily married is indeed miserable -- but so is being unhappily alone. The happy and unhappy in my experience come from within each of us, and not from the being coupled or being uncoupled.
Nein, meine kleine freunde! Er ist NICHT der schadenfreude.
In my experience, though I don't pretend to be any sort of a guru, there are two solitudes -- you being alone and you being alone with someone else.
Who questions why bowerbirds (imagine Richard Attenborough's voice) live a life of complete monogamy until one expires.
Even a prisoner in a 6 x 8 cell, if he wants to be, can adapt, even create some sort of meaningful existence. It's just when choice enters into the equation when the gnawing doubts are allowed to enter.
What, after all, is unhappiness? I can find out, real quick. A friend of mine was just recently arrested for conjugal violence. He's not a great friend, but he's a friend, and I happen to know that his wife is a borderline maniac.
It's very scary to read that this "friend" was involved in a "six-hour standoff" "armed with a crossbow" in your local newspaper, even though I know he wouldn't hurt a fly and he called me while it was happening. But it brings it closer.Who knows, it could happen to me!
I think you really, truly have to weigh the consequences of anything you do. Unhappiness is relative. So is inertia. But, if faced with the dilemma of being trapped in a relationship with someone you at least know, compared to the horror of leaving and being cast adrift . . . put it this way. At this stage of my life (more than 2/3rds over) I know that people will never change. They will say they'll change, and might, in some way or another (born-again Christian comes to mind) but in reality, they're pretty much set in stone at the end of adolescence. They will always come back to themselves.
The thing we all have to weigh is if it's worth the consequences to change the status quo. Sometimes that's made easy with a third party entering things. But sometimes . . .
I wish there were some magical scale where you could weigh everything, see what it all balances out to. But the reality is that it's a total guessing game, only resolved in hindsight. And no one but you can make the decision for you.
Not knowing your particular dilemma, I offer my ultimate solution: do nothing. If you're not in physical or imminent danger, nor are your kids, than I would advise sitting tight. But that's my style . . .
No amount of counseling would ever work for me, nor would I advise it to anyone who is at least partially sane.
I think I would get out when it truly became unbearable, when it drove me insane. And that would take a LOT. I would have found out a long time ago, in most cases.
But we're here! Aren't we? yep, that's what we're here for. Good luck, but remember there are backup units when you need them.
Something ChefNick said really clicked with me - he said that people don't change -- except that I've seen people make huge radical changes and become very different in their relationships. The problem is that they rarely seem to change within one relationship. I've seen guys whose wives left them because they wouldn't change, only to have them become exactly the husband that wife 1 wanted in order to get wife 2. I've got these two friends from college, both of whom married stay at home non-working wives, and who were basically traditional breadwinner assholes (pardon my French) in their marriages, until the wives who were dying for change and self expression left them. So who do these friends of mine marry the second time around? Flaming career oriented feminists who keep their own name and aren't homemakers. That's what's really weird about people.
Hi Sue and Nick, Thanks for your comments. As far as change, I think attitudes change really fast. I think habits change pretty slow. Either one can make a difference.
So after 6 months of being broken hearted I mention it. After 3 years of having a blog my husband reads it. I am sorry I hurt his feelings. If it wasn't obvious just through living with me, I guess I am glad he could read about it and finally know.
The picture of me from band was just to show see I used to be cool. I used to be somebody fun.
I think I might be a little bummed. I wasn't thinking I need mental health professionals just friends, but you know, it couldn't hurt.
I am not deleting anything, just in case that would mean $1000's in forensics experts down the line.
I think an understanding of my sense of humor would be helpful and also the way I turn things over. Actually I never "turn things over" I just rotate them. I was just about to flip back again. I always do. Share my thoughts, realize how horribly wrong I am and go back.
I hope we can get somewhere now.
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