Polly: Hope this one doesn’t speak to you. :)
This blog is getting a bit bi-polar in feel, and I wish I could say this did not reflect its primary author. But maybe it does. That said…
About a month ago, maybe a little longer, I was out at lunch with a friend who has known me a long time and been a listener for a lot of the ups and downs of my marriage, particularly as it relates to Carl’s workaholism. So she asked about that. And it was one of those conversations where you suddenly hear yourself saying out loud what you’ve been telling yourself inside for oh, a few years. And it sounds batshit crazy. Like oh, I am so fortunate I get an entire two hours a month with the attention of the person I love and am married to.
So I’ve been mulling this over since. Basically, that I sound crazy to myself.
And now I can post about it ’cause I brought it up with Carl, the rule being do not blog about anything that hasn’t been said in person.
Anyways… yes, life is bad on that front. Carl is really, really, really a good parent. That is not wishful thinking either. He practically bends time to spend time with Noah, and he takes care of him every morning, and he is patient and loving and all that good stuff.
And the rest of the time, he works.
And that… is pretty much it.
And I do not mean normal work. I mean a typical day goes: I get up, Noah gets up, Carl gets up and takes care of Noah (possibly while checking his computer, more often not). Then he gets working around 9:30. Maybe 2 nights a week he has a half hour for dinner. Then he works until 11 or midnight. Friday and Saturday nights he does maintenance from 11 pm – 2 am. Often things break and he spends the weekends fixing them; if we go out he is basically just putting work on hold until he gets back. He is under pressure all the time. The laptop is out all the time. The pager goes off all the time.
Oh and then since I had that conversation we’ve managed two matinees while Noah was with my parents.
I have been struggling – for years really – to be zen about it. To be zen about having the vast majority of the responsibility for home, finance, vacation plans, my own car, etc. etc. etc. To operate in a state of loving acceptance. To let go of the fact that Carl fled to Ottawa a few weeks after Emily died and worked 20 hr days (literally) while I was so sick with Noah, and then pulled back, and now is slipping into the same sort of work schedule.
I’ve told myself that it’s ok to have to do a lot of household stuff, since as a single parent I would have to do that and more. I’ve told myself that it’s not good to try to force people to change. I’ve tried to develop my own interests. I have my own relationships and circle of support, not least of which are the Eight Lives Left people. I’ve worked on not taking things out on random people on the Internet. I’ve appreciated all the time I get with Noah.
And we all know there are many things about me/us that Carl has lovingly accepted.
So it seems kind of awful in some ways to be at a place where I can no longer unconditionally accept this state of being. It’s hard to figure out what is selfish, what is my relentless drive for “more” that is so unfair to everyone. And what is real.
But I think I have come there, regardless of the unfair and the “is it me?” stuff. This isn’t working. Fair or not, it’s just not. And that’s what I talked to Carl about this weekend.
It’s so hard to know what normal might be, for us. It’s hard to know where we should be headed, even. I just know that it’s not working for me. It’s not a fundamental difference between us as people; if anything it’s more that I want, not less. But it’s been a long time since I felt good about coming home, if you separate out the parenting parts. We need to change something. And this weekend is a start I think, at least in the discussion.
But really awful too, because I never really wanted to say anything like “I can’t handle this for five more years. I’m not leaving right now. But I cannot, cannot handle it.”
It sucks for everyone. Sigh.
Mmm, a hard space to be in.
I wonder what makes us think that when we want ‘more’ from a marriage that it’s somehow selfish. Especially when ‘more’ means actual time with the person we love. When it means creating a relationship, a shared space to enjoy with a partner. Something we can’t do on our own or with our support networks.
Even a team needs to build a strong interconnected platform from which to diverge on separate, shared-goal tasks; and to re-converge to re-establish synchrony. Young families with kid(s) often behave like tag teams because for a short period of time it can work.
It’s brilliant that you take responsibility for your own needs. It makes you a far better person/system. It only works to create a marriage though, when we can bring that wholeness into relationship to form a third entity – that of the partnership.
A marriage isn’t just for comfort or shared responsibilities or goals. Ideally it’s for intense personal growth we can’t manage on our own. It’s about revealing ourselves intimately to someone whose opinion is second in importance only to ours – and being progressively okay with ourselves the more is revealed (and threatened).
For that, time together is essential.
It sounds like that isn’t happening much with you and Carl.
Most of us probably don’t want that intimate personal growth imperative snapping at our heels. We mostly settle instead for a life serving important external priorities that exclude that deeper inner threat of exposure.
Don’t be fooled though. A marriage only works when we can spend enough rich time together not to want ‘more’.
wow, we’ll be thinking of you, oh marriage is hard.
Calder and I struggle with this, too. It’s not easy, and I hope you guys are making some progress, talking it out.
We know a third party would help us hear each other better, but haven’t been successful [yet] in making the time. Then again, we think we know what to do — we just don’t have the real willpower to make changes. Small steps, right? But it’s so easy just to keep floating along in the status quo.