A Grim Fairytale indeed

I feel like my brain won’t shut off lately. I’ve been doing so much thinking.

At bedtime, in the middle of the night, before I want to wake up in the morning, while driving, while working….I think you get the picture.

I just keep going over and over the same things. There are so many angles and, of course I keep finding new regrets, new ways to beat myself up.

Then I decide there’s no value in that, determine I can make peace with myself, that things aren’t going to get better until I just accept them and move on.

So, you know, I’m there, somewhere in the middle, trapped between, “it’s no big deal, marriages just end” and “what the fuck?”.

See me there? It’s not pretty so you might not want to look too closely.

The main thing I can’t get over is how I let things get this out of control. I’m not a passive person. I know how to stand up for myself, take care of myself, I am a successful businesswoman, part of which required holding people accountable, many people at all levels of organizations. 

I just never transferred this home. I so badly wanted my husband to be happy, wanted to have a happy marriage that I stopped holding him accountable for his actions. I told myself his happiness was more important than me. I decided it was easier to not have the tough conversations, to tell myself that things weren’t so bad, that it wasn’t what I thought, maybe if I just ignored it, it would even go away.

His lack of interest in any family activities, his inappropriate relationships, his need for 4 hours of alone time every day, his irrational anger when I made any decision he didn't agree with (coupled with his refusal to make decisions), his ability to drink every drop of liquor in the house.

I know better than all this, problems of this magnitude don't just go away. So I can’t figure out how I let it happen.

I expected marriage to be work, and I worked hard. I’m just disappointed with myself for letting some of the important things slip by. For not addressing them. For letting my anger at things build until I couldn’t address issues reasonably, all I could do was vent my anger.

I guess the only thing left is to walk away with a lesson (I have a three year old can you tell?)

So the moral for this marriage:

If you’re afraid to talk about it, there’s probably a reason. A reason that is not going to just go away by itself.

Bring it up, discuss it, be honest about your fears. All you've got to lose is everything and that will disappear anyway when the problems finally become so big you can't ignore them anymore.

(or as David Wilcox says, in a moral friendly length “Start with the ending, it’s the best way to begin.”)