I find it very difficult to write about your husbands or SO's. I have been divorced twice. I am alone and profoundly lonely.
Feeling, I too know this profound sadness and loneliness. You see, my hubs does not talk, barely. He is a hard working man, but on the occasion when he does speak, can be very critical and negative. Through his illness, the sullenness has progressively gotten worse. It is difficult for me to write this. We went to counseling years ago, and the counselor told me, "He is an introvert, and you are an extrovert, that will never change." In one small sentence, an explanation of a million things. Understanding that he had a very terrible childhood, that parts of it come through because he has never processed it, looking at his accomplishments, his steadiness in providing, helps me to get through some very tough times. I push away my sadness to be able to cope. I sculpt, I want to get back to my painting, I find ways to fill the empty.
I am profoundly lonely in this.
I feel, he cannot help this, due to the trauma of his upbringing, coupled with his illness.
His mother has alzheimer's, Feeling.
Before we knew what was happening, her personality changed, she was sullen, she was angry.I cannot help but think this may be my future with the hubs.
He will say to me "What do you want me to do, have conversations with you?" As if that was the craziest notion, for a husband to converse with his wife. Sigh.
It is as if I am sitting next to my father all over again, with the silence of it.
So, I find ways to replenish myself, and feed my soul. I will not accept that I cannot have joy, it is integral to being. I find other ways to capture it. So yes, Feeling, I am a caged bird, too.
Most of my trauma came from my first husband. Yes, my childhood trauma and helplessness set the stage for me to put up with 12 years of violent abuse.
My hubs was abusive to me in our younger years, he drank and was very angry when he did so. As you wrote of your intense fear with the electricity going out, I completely understood. That is the fear I had many years ago with the hubs and his drinking, when the car pulled in late at night, I never knew what or who I would face.
I cannot blame myself, truly, for staying with him. I was drawn to him like a moth to the flame. When you are faced with something in your childhood that you cannot fix, you find something similar in your adult life to 'fix'. I was going to help him. I should have run for the hills...but it felt familiar.
Yes, Feeling, this is the patterning. The same for me. I am still living it with the hubs, in a different way. It is not a physical thing, but in a way it is, because although he does not cherish or want an emotional connection, he does a physical one. It is a strange relationship we have. Not even a relationship, two people living in a house with very different wants and needs. I suppose he is reliving his traumas watching his two daughters with the horrors of addiction.
The thing he most wanted for his children was to have a better life. He will not speak of it, but I know he is very troubled by it.
I do not want you to feel sorry for me Feeling. I just want you to know you are not alone, that I have my struggles and my ups and downs. If I focused on this, I would perish.
Whether I deserve to enjoy life or not is not the point. I am not able to stop thinking about his plight. It seems very cruel to even entertain this notion. I am not purposely trying to avoid joy, I am just so very sad and hopeless. I am present and strong for my other two sons, but there is a profound emptiness in my heart that will never go away.
Yes Feeling, in this I understand. My other daughters have said "Why don't you leave him Mom?"
They have seen my sorrow, and want better for me. I suppose I have been here for so long, and see my hubs health issues affecting him. It is the same for you, when you say, "My son cannot help himself, but he tried to kill me." It is a kind of emotional death, for me. I have to subdue that yearning for a personal, emotional relationship with my husband. It will not change. It is not all terrible, all the time. But there, just the same. I have to eek it out, by seeing his steadiness, his providing. In small ways, he shows me he loves me, this I see. In the important ways, the practical ways. No flowers, cards, restaurants, sunsets. No romance. No conversation.
He is cavemanish. I do love my Neanderthal, but it is very lonely at times.
It is interesting in a way. I have found ways to fill the empty and being here on CD is one of them. He is absorbed with the T.V. Sometimes I walk in the room and he is sitting there watching the sappiest, emotion wrought show. I wonder if he does that to express that numbing. His father was a very violent man. He saw his mother mistreated in the worse way.
So my dear little bird, you are not alone in your profound loneliness, I am here with you, with the hubs appearing as a dark shadow most of the time, with glimmers here and there of sunlight. What a paradox, to have someone, but to be profoundly lonely.
We are two caged birds, you and I, each with our different situations.
And I?
I will SING!
(((HUGS)))
leafy
word. I hope I am not banned for that.
