The Deep Pit

I've been silent.  I have post ideas floating around in my head, but I just can't bring myself to sit down and write lately.  I'm doing really well with the exercise stuff and eating healthy and all of that.  I think I may actually be down a few more pounds, but I'm avoiding the scale for now.  I'll check in with it in another week or so.

So, here's the reason for my silence....I've fallen into a deep, dark pit.  I'm not quite sure how to get myself out of it or how I ended up in it.  The longer winter drags on, the worse it gets.  But it's even more than that.  I have a new analogy for you:  Marriage is like a car.  If you forget to fuel it up, do the regular maintenance, it ends up abandoned along the side of the road somewhere.  If you don't turn the ignition on a daily basis, it doesn't run.  A few weeks ago, my husband and I had a marriage counseling session.  In the words of our therapist, my husband speaks German, I speak French.  For my husband, the things that say "I love you" are actions.  Like cooking a meal, doing the laundry, changing the oil in my car, spending three hours on a Saturday, trying to pop a dent out of the front of my car.  For me, I couldn't care less about the dent in my car and the laundry, the cooking, the oil change, are things that just simply have to get done at some point.  Not that I don't appreciate him doing those things, but I don't look at the three hours spent trying to pop that dent out of my car and go, "Oh my, look how much he loves me?"  For me, the things that say, "I love you" are random acts of affection, a card that was picked out and left for no special reason, an email during the day to tell me that he's thinking about me.  For me, it's all about the mush.  I need that.  Those are the things that fill up my tank and give me the energy to keep on going.  At the end of our appointment, our assignment was to make more of an effort to do things that the other person would interpret as love instead of doing the things that we think say, "I love you".  I threw myself into it.  I tried to do something every day.  I picked up the living room so it was spotless.  I swept and mopped.  I had the house clean several days before Leo's birthday party instead of waiting until the last minute.  I cooked meals and made more of an effort.  And then I noticed something; my husband wasn't making the same effort.  And I gave up.

Here's a fact that I'm becoming painfully aware of....if my marriage falls apart, it's going to be because I've given up and chosen to walk away.  My husband would never leave me.  I know that.  But, I don't know for sure why that is.  He has an amazing sense of duty and responsibility.  He adores our children, even though they may drive him nuts on a daily basis.  I know those things.  But I don't know that he loves me wholly and unconditionally.  I don't know if he's even capable of loving me in the way that I need him to.  He's used to being the caretaker, the responsible one.  But he's not used to making himself vulnerable or allowing someone else to help him.  I know that he loves me, but I don't know that he needs me.  If that makes any sense at all.  I adore him.  He's a wonderful person, an amazing human being.  A strong, faithful, loyal, beautiful man.  The problem is, I need more than that.  I need to be needed.  I need him to open up to me, talk to me, spend time with me.  I need so much more than just someone who pays the bills, takes care of the house, and shares the child-raising duties.  But because he already does so much and takes so much responsibility for things, I don't feel like I can tell him that.   How do I tell him that the one thing I need from him is the one thing he finds the hardest to do?  He's not good about showing his feelings and showing vulnerability.

Anyway, I needed to get all of that out.  I keep bottling it up and it just festers until it overflows.  Feelings like these shouldn't be bottled up.  They need to be let out before they cause further damage.  If you're still reading, thanks for allowing me to vent and stick through it.  Right now, my task is to find a way to refill my own tank so I have the energy and motivation to keep going, to keep putting effort and love into my marriage.  Once spring arrives, that'll slowly start to get easier to do, I think.  Until then...I just might be considering hitting up a tanning salon to get some Vitamin D production going!