The Dreaded One Year Anniversary Is Here

Dissolution of Marriage

Today is the one year anniversary of the dissolution of my marriage. I have no idea how I feel today. I do not mean depressed or manic as those are mood states that encompass many other emotions. I am definitely not depressed (well not really depressed; I am always depressed), and I am definitely not manic (at least in any noticeable way). I am something else today. I do not know if I feel sad although I know that would be an appropriate emotion to have, I do not know if I feel somewhat angry that my ex-husband’s behavior forced my hand and made a divorce the only logical thing to do, or maybe I feel both sad and angry. Perhaps, it is a much more tangled set of emotions: I feel sad that marriage counseling didn’t work, I feel angry at him for not taking the counseling and/or my feelings seriously, I feel a certain amount of failure that, in spite of two attempts at counseling, the marriage still came apart. Maybe, I feel a certain amount of relief? That just seems so wrong to feel, though.

I know I am still angry with him for the behavior he engaged in that was really the root cause of the failure. I am trying really hard not to blame him; the behavior he was and is still engaging in is classified as an addiction in the DSM~5. However, it is very difficult for me not to blame him to some extent because I think that everyone has a tendency to point the finger at the other when it comes to things of this nature. He blamed my reactions to his addiction on my having Bipolar disorder (which he never bothered to become even remotely educated about), he blamed it on my lack of ego (if I had no ego, his addiction would not have bothered me to the extent it did, hello), he blamed my reactions on low self-esteem (once again, if I did not have some regard for myself, it wouldn’t have bothered me because I would have been a door mat). He pointed the finger at me and blamed me for his addiction. That still just flat out pisses me off. However, having been an addict of a different kind, I can see the behavior of blaming whoever and whatever is handy, and understand that is part of the nature of addiction.

He doesn’t and will never see it that way until he knows with his heart and soul that he has a problem. It is one thing to know intellectually that one is an addict. It is another thing entirely to own it, make it yours and yours only, and then get help. So far, he has only recognized it intellectually, and with me gone, he sees no reason to stop even though it will impact the next relationship and the next and the next. In many ways, I feel sorry for him that he just cannot see it.

I think also that I feel a sense of loss of self. I am not the same person who went happily into this marriage thinking it would be my one and only for the rest of my life. I have allowed myself to become jaded, cynical and suspicious of the motives of men, in general. I didn’t really realize this until several guys had hit on me, and my reaction to them was to question their motives. They could have been nice guys who just wanted to get to know me. I have been deeply wounded, and I do not know how to heal because the person who hurt me claimed they loved me more than anything else. And, I believed that……for a while. If he had truly loved me, he would have educated himself on Bipolar disorder, he would not have tried to change me from the boots and jeans type of woman I am into a woman who ran around the house cleaning in high heels like some mad version of June Cleaver, he would not have tried to make me look like the women he saw in Texas (of all places; no offense meant). Had he truly loved me, he would have let me just be me. But, he didn’t. 

I think more than anything I am confused. I loved him so I did the things I thought or that he had expressed would make him happy, and I received nothing but blame, emotional and verbal abuse, and shaming in return. And, he wonders why I divorced him. Had he really wanted to, he could have changed for me, or we could have compromised. I always thought compromise is part of a relationship. At least it was in the ones I have been in before him. I am also quite confused by his present behavior. It would seem that he wants to reconcile, and he is being the person he was (for the most part) before we were married. I have no reassurances, however, that he won’t go back to the person he became and, at heart, probably still is. Why can’t this man just be normal like everyone else I have been in long term relationships with? Why the confusing gestures and mixed signals? I dissolved the marriage for a reason, and in my experience, those reasons rarely change all that much.

 

 

I Need To Write But……

Swirling thoughts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

my brain feels stuck. Ever have so much running through your head that you have to get it out or you’ll most certainly go crazy, but you just have no idea where to start. I mean stream of consciousness writing is fine for your journal, but it doesn’t work well when you want people to be able to follow your thought process. I think this is the natural offshoot of a draft I started called “Marriage Counseling Round Three” that I never finished. It is finished now. 

Round Three of marriage counseling culminated in my being so angry and upset and frustrated with the fact that I had just sat there for another hour listening to how everything that is wrong with my marriage is due to my having Bipolar disorder (among several others that just exacerbate it, namely PTSD, but that’s a whole other post). It is not our marriage. It is my marriage like I own it as a possession. Last I looked marriage was defined by the union of two, not one, persons. Anyway, we stopped at Walmart on the way home, and not really wanting to deal with Walmart in my current state of mind which, at the time, was rather antisocial. Funny how listening to everything being your fault can do that to you. Especially, if it is a recurring theme. Anyway, I opted to stay in the car while husband went to buy juice and some other item. “I’ll be right out,” he says. An hour and a half later, I was handing the keys to the car to him wordlessly and heading for the bus stop. I didn’t really mean to stay out until 3:30 in the morning, but maybe I did. I know I wanted nothing to do with him or being around him or feeling trapped in the house. So, maybe I intentionally stayed out that late. 

I get home, and he is mad. Probably rightfully so. I told him that i had stopped by a dive blues bar that I used to go to with a really good friend, and that they had a band that night. He said he had tried to call several times but I did not answer. Ever tried to hear your cell ringing when a band is onstage tearing it up? You can’t. So, here’s part of where my brain gets stuck. He spent an entire hour telling what essentially amounted to lies to the therapist (he slickly left out his own predeliction to shopping when upset or just bored), and blamed our entire financial situation on my having Bipolar disorder. I can honestly say that, yes, having Bipolar disorder does sometimes make handling finances a bit tricky. However, I have managed for 22 years to keep a roof over my head, bills close to paid, and food in the fridge. Granted, I don’t have a stellar credit rating, but that may be a blessing in disguise.

Anyway, here he is telling me how he had gone out looking for me, and drove around for a couple of hours and called and yadda-yadda-ya. All this after spending an hour telling the therapist how essentially everything was my fault which is the same tune he sang a the previous two sessions. So, now my brain is trying it’s broken best to process this conflicting information and coming up with nothing. It’s like a seized engine. 

The relationship between us has been declining fairly rapidly over the past 6 or 7 months. He is sleeping on the sofa, refuses to sleep in the bed, no “marital” relations, you know, all the precursors for divorce. All of this also contains two fairly “feisty” arguments, one of which left me feeling so much rage after being yelled and cursed at for an hour that I had to take my night time meds and go to sleep rather than remain awake and prone to who knows what. Although, when I am that angry, I tend towards a sort of homicidal calmness that freaks even me out. I don’t curse, I do not raise my voice, I simply say exactly what I am thinking in no uncertain terms, and that can be a little much sometimes. I never claimed I was the vision of perfection. I am simply a person trying to manage life with several rather debilitating and chronic and potentially dangerous (to myself) diagnoses. 

Well, last night, I ended up bringing a friend home so he could just chill out for awhile in a relatively calm environment. Note: the friend was a guy. So, we kick back for a while and read the Craig’s List personals to amuse ourselves (they are amusing). Then about 12 am, I set off to take him home where he and his girlfriend commence their argument that was the reason he left in the first place. I didn’t think anything about bringing a FRIEND over. But, apparently, husband took it as I was cheating on him by bringing this male friend over and then hanging out at his house while he gathered some stuff and getting a motel room. When I got home, I sure as hell wished I had the money for a motel room. I was Jezebel for bringing another male into the house. I had disrespected the house, disrespected him, disrespected everything holy.

He said it was a good thing we had no lethal weapons in the house. That type of statement does not have a good effect on me. Inferring that you may or may not try to physically hurt me sets off a whole host of triggers; the strongest of which is self-preservation at all costs. I have already been assaulted and been in a physically abusive relationship. I do believe they call what I have as a result of those experiences in my youth PTSD. Any mention that you may be about to hurt me makes me defensive and ready to go an the attack because I will never be hurt physically again. I made my mind up about that a long time ago. So, we get into “feisty” conversation number two in the same number of weeks leaving me determined to end this whole debacle once and for all. It didn’t even occur to me to sleep on it, and maybe things would be better in the morning because I already knew they wouldn’t. Besides, now I have been physically threatened. Now it is a given. I am leaving. Staying and trying to work it out is no longer an option. He has threatened my life in a round about way. 

The main reason my brain is stuck is that I have never once accused him of cheating even though he would get all dressed up just to go run errands that took him 8 hours. The same errands took me about 2 hours. Where was he for those extra 6 hours? And he has the utter nerve to threaten me. No. Divorce proceedings will be initiated at the end of this week. He killed what was left of his marriage last night. I have had it with the constant barrage of well meaning remarks, had enough of being told that I am the problem, that because I have mental issues I am not worthy enough, that I had no life before him, that everything I do is not quite good enough, and lastly, being told that it was a good thing there are no lethal weapons in the house. You do not threaten me like that. You just do not. So, that’s the culmination of Marriage Counseling Round Three. Divorce. Sometimes you have to protect yourself.

 

Marriage Counseling Round 2

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night. Oil on canvas, 73×92 cm, 28¾×36¼ in. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

So, here we go again. Another fateful trip on the counseling merry-go-round. I really hope that the Psychologist is bright enough to cut through the husband’s bullshit. He keeps telling the doctor that I was at an all time low when he met me. He makes it sound like he gave me a life that was not unfulfilling and dull.

 

I liked my life. I was up at 4 or 5 am, and by 8 am, I was on my bike, heading somewhere for two or three hours. I rode with a close friend (and his brother or nephew, sometimes) every Sunday morning. We’re talking 40 mile treks through the urban jungle complete with smoke belching dragons (aka cars). In the summer, after I got back from riding I would rinse off and go hang out by the pool at the apartments. I’d talk to people, some of us became friends. I dated, I went out with friends. But, somehow the egocentrism he is accusing me of (you only care about your illness, ummmmmm, correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn’t I be somewhat concerned about it, you only care about your cat, well, maybe if you hadn’t made me kill the other two, I wouldn‘t have such a clingy cat;the others were her brother, and surrogate mom, and the last thing I care about is myself).

 

Maybe if he were more affectionate and supportive instead of being “constructively” critical the majority of the time, I wouldn’t feel the need to be so vigilant about my own well-being. I would know someone was there to help me if I fell. He is not about that. I have to pick myself up and he calls it being egotistical. Maybe if he would actually bother to learn something scientifically researched and published by M.D.’s, P.hD’s, people who have spent their lives researching and treating Bipolar people, and not just relying on some rather unfortunate experiences he had with one who also was Boderline (bad combo), and one who promised him that she had it under control What a fallacy! Bipolar is never “under control”; it is managed with proper medication, seeing a therapist as often as needed and making regular appointments with you psychiatrist. 

 

I told him when I found out what the one woman had told him that I was offering him no guarantees. My bipolar was managed, but that I would never promise that it was under control. And, I was right. I went through episodes of depression, mania, depression and mania, and outright violent moods. I just wish he would educate himself because that would take so much pressure off of me to be “normal” all the time. I can’t cry because that is showing weakness. I cannot be angry, happy, sad, joyous, any emotion because it isn’t “real”. It is the illness. It really does seem to me that that is the way he sees me: as nothing more than a mentally ill person who always needs help, and can’t see herself any other way. I know what I see in the mirror when I am looking: I see a determined person, I see a person who has goals and dreams and the ambition to realize them, I do NOT see a weakling (as he would have me be).

 

So, I have to question, if I am so many negative things, why’d he even bother looking for me last night? I am pretty good at handling myself, not to mention that I tend to wear Harley hard toed riding boots. That alone could break something if necessary. If I am to be so denigrated in the therapy sessions, why would want to go find that? Are you trying to say I Love You? Why can you not just tell me if you love me or if you don’t? If you don’t, let me go. Let me live. If you do love me, stop disparaging me, and let me live.

 

But then again, I am the one who could be filtering all of this through a “defective” mind……but I do not think so.

 

“……Making love to his ego, Ziggy sucked up into his mind…” ~ David Bowie

 

I Am So Freaking Frustrated

I am feeling so utterly and completely frustrated right now. I feel like crying, but I can’t because the meds keep me from crying most of the time. I really need a marriage counselor, and my Medicare Advantage Plan does not cover marriage counseling. Like older people do not need a bit of help here and there with their relationships?!!?! WTF?!?!?! I realize that I am only 40-ish, but since I qualify for Medicare part B, I also qualify for the Medicare Advantage Plans. It covers my psychiatrist and my therapist, so why does the outpatient mental/”behavioral” health not cover marriage counseling. A bad marriage is mentally taxing and draining. And, those are bad things for Bipolars. Maybe that’s why every one of my relationships have gone south. 

My husband hasn’t talked to me in two days, we haven’t slept in the same bed for two months, and the marital relations thing is not happening. At this point, it would be like being with a stranger. I do not know who he is anymore. I do not know who I am in relation to the marriage. I know who I am away from him, but not when with him. There is a Crosby, Stills, and Nash song about how two people while apart are two separate people, but when together they create a third entity. I do not know what my place in the third entity is. If I even have one. 

 He claims to want to go to therapy, but I see him doing no work to find a therapist, or anything. That seems to me to be a sign that he is not really serious about repairing what used to be a really beautiful relationship. I cannot live like this. I need for this to either end or get fixed. And, I am not one to admit defeat until I have tried to win. It is like saying you do not like a food you have never tried. How do you know if you haven’t tried it? So, I am unwilling to admit defeat until I run out of options. Then, and only then, will I admit it is impossible, the situation untenable, and that I have failed.

I am trying to find something through Medicare or Community Outreach programs, but I am finding nothing that seems helpful……no wonder the divorce rate in this country is so high. There’s no help anywhere. 

I really feel like having a tantrum; full-fledged with kicking and screaming and crying, but I cannot due to medication. Even though I have specifically kept my doses low enough to be therapeutic, but still allow me to feel, they make it so I just cannot cry. That’s all I want to do. I am so frustrated with our mental health system. It is not just dysfunctional; it is broken, perhaps irreparably. People have crises in all parts of their lives. If I was suicidal, I could get help. But I am not suicidal. What I am is someone trying to save their marriage. So much for family values as espoused by the Right-wingers.

Not So Sure About This Marriage Counseling Thing

A couple of 14-carat gold wedding rings. Picture taken in Brazil, where 14-carat is the most common kind of gold used in jewelry. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I came out of that counselor’s office so angry the other day, I thought I was going to break something, so I went for a bike ride instead. I can easily see this type of counseling making me relapse. It was so confrontational and stressful that I ended up triggered which is not a good sign. This would be why managing my illnesses is of utmost importance. Especially the bipolar disorder, because if it is going to be like this every time, i am going to end up in the hospital. I do not think that my husband really understands that when he indicates that in order of importance I care first about my illness, then my cats, then him. Of course I am going to care about my illness first. If I do not care about it above all else, I decompensate and become ill.

My becoming ill again is not productive for the relationship. We cannot have a relationship if I do not manage my bipolar first above everything else. And as far as the cats go, I feed them, clean their litter box, make sure they have water, and give them a little attention. That’s not making them more important to me than he is; it is responsible pet ownership. I would really like to know how often he cleans, makes dinner, fixes morning coffee; these are all things I do for him and for myself. I don’t see how his never having anything else to do but play on the computer, and take care of his plants is putting him third. If anything, he comes first then managing my illness. I wish he would take up reading books, then maybe he might have a better idea about how this illness functions. I have even ordered a new one geared toward both the ill person and the family of the ill person. I keep trying and hoping. Hope does spring eternal, unfortunately. We’ll see how this goes. The minute I find my self sliding down the rabbit hole to have tea with the Mad Hatter is the day I quit. Stress is a huge trigger for me, and this is the most stressful thing I have ever done. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes. I will try to be more open about the process, but that doesn’t mean I am not going to get mad about some stuff.

Starting Marriage Counseling Today

We are finally about to start marriage counseling today. I really do not know how I feel about this. I am very apprehensive about the whole endeavor because he has this tendency to blame everything on me. Like he walks on water. Everything that is wrong with the marriage is my fault because I am mentally ill, therefore, everything must be my fault. What he doesn’t understand is that his own problem with depression makes me sicker. He withdraws into this dark world of Internet porn, and he thinks that’s okay. When in reality, he is paying no attention to me whatsoever, and he won’t have sex with me, half the time he won’t sleep in the same bed with me, and somehow, I am supposed to okay with all of this. He spends his time watching other women fuck (pardon my french), he spends his time looking at pictures of other women naked. And I am supposed to be okay with this? He has no idea how rejected I feel, how ugly and undesirable this all makes me feel, and quire frankly, I do not think he really cares about how I feel about anything because he just continues to do it. Yesterday, he spent the entire day on the porn sites. And, somehow, I am still supposed to feel wanted? He is an asshole if he thinks that is all okay for him to do. He claims he loves me, yet his actions are completely separate from his words. If he truly loved me, he would quit the Internet porn thing, because he knows how I feel about it. And he claims it all about trust, he trusts that I am not doing anything online, so I should trust that he is not either, but how am I supposed to do that when he is looking at the base asses of other women. It is no different from cheating on me because he obviously derives some gratification from it, or he wouldn’t do it.

Well marriage counseling went swimmingly. I am apparently a superficial bitch who thinks of illness first, my cats second, and my husband third. Anytime I try to empathize with his situation whatever it may be, he says I come across to him as shallow and superficial. In other words, a stuck up bitch. All I am trying to fucking do is let him know that I do understand he feels bad about something. I am not trying be some fucking psychic who knows all. Pissed me clean the fuck off. 

One thing the therapist did point out was that my husband spent twice as long explaining his concerns as I did. Basically he dominated the conversation. He talked for like twenty minutes about how he thinks I am saving money to move. Now, i f I wanted to move, I would talk to my mother about staying with her for a couple of months until I had enough money to move out, get my stuff out of storage and I would be gone like the wind. Simple as that. No conspiratorial hoarding of money, no reason why I am constantly broke except I cover about $500 worth of bills and my rent $464. Which actually comes to more than I make in a month. I do not know where the fuck he got this idea that I am going to abandon him and leave him high and dry. I am not that kind of person. Why the hell would I have made a commitment to hearing all about what a bitch I am that thinks only of herself and not other people, and how I need to fix this, that, and the other thing about myself. 

I understand he feels isolated, but he just doesn’t wake up early enough to come with me to meetings, or out to see people. I understand his car is in bad shape. I had no car for 2.5 years. Finally bought one, and it nickeled and dimed me to death so I stopped driving it for like 7 years and rode a bicycle. I took the bus,and  fucking walked evrywhere. So, yeah, when I  TRY to empathize with his car problem. Been there, done that. For many years. I am just going to stop trying to support him, because it obviously is not what he wants. Or thinks he doesn’t realize he needs.

I give the fuck up! I am so tired of his habits, but I am not supposed to take my bipolar seriously? FUCK HIM!!!!

P.S. Sorry for the language in this post. I am really angry, and trying to deal with it with out going off on him.

Life Used To Be Simpler

My life used to be simple. I woke up, had some coffee then grabbed my bike and headed off for school. During the time when only my fiancé was working and I

mountain bike in downhill race in forest ski trail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

was going to school, I used to mountain bike every morning without fail. I always went out between 9 am and 11 am (I am fair skinned, and the sun is still low enough in the sky that you won’t get burned as badly). Nothing beats the thrill of coming down that bitch of a hill that killed your legs going up. Especially if it is winding. It seems that I have always felt better on a bike.

I remember one ride where I actually hit the “zone” that athletes are always talking about. My then fiancé and I were up in the mountains and it started to storm quite seriously. I am talking about lightning and thunder at the same time. That’s how close the lightning was to us, and all I could think about was getting the heck out of there because my bike is made of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is an electrical super conductor. So, I just started to haul ass out of there. I wasn’t into getting fried that day. It was the most amazing ride. I was one with the bike (which never happened),  I was not thinking about how I was going to make a turn or over a log, I just found a way, and it worked. All I was really thinking about was, OMG mountain storm! Get out now! I think it was my favorite ride ever. I wish it were possible to use words to describe the experience of riding your bike through the mountains with all this lightning and thunder and hail and rain. It is one of the most exhilarating thing ever, And yes, it even beat sex.

Life was just so much simpler in those times. I was happy, I was in school and doing well, I was in love, and I had a great best friend that I used to go to the mountains with after school was out. He and I were like little kids, we explored everything that looked like it might be a trail. We were joined at the hip. If one of us showed up somewhere, it was a safe bet the other was not far behind. The sun is coming up, and the sky is turning pink. It is beautiful.

Anyway, this was long before the “diagnosis” and the medication-go-round that I ended up on. This was long before I got married which I am still trying to decide if that was big mistake or not. I love my husband, please do not get me wrong, it is just sometimes he can be incredibly difficult to deal with. He doesn’t seem to want to learn about what bipolar really is; he’d prefer to rely on his past 2 experiences with bipolar women, and both were total tramps. One was a “I’ll try anything once” type, the other one just cheated on him a lot. And neither one of them would stay on their medication so they were constantly going up and down. I, on the other hand, am medication compliant, and actually start to freak out when I have run out of medication because I know what happens when I do. It is simple, take your meds, and the mood swings will be closer to those that normal people have. It really isn’t rocket science nor does it require an advanced degree in physics.

What I think is that he cannot face his own depression. He has never received treatment for it until now when we finally reach a point where marriage counseling has become necessary, and they have a treatment plan that has us doing marriage counseling every two weeks and him doing one on one therapy every two weeks. He says that he has looked at himself and knows who and what he is. Therapy will fix that. Therapy forces you to look at yourself in a new light. He is going to finally have to confront the ugly in his nature. At least he will if he is honest with himself and the therapist. If he isn’t then therapy will do him no good. Therapy can be very scary. You will have to talk about things that you have buried so deeply it can take years to work your way through the maze of emotions surrounding the issue. I do not think he gets that. I have been in therapy for about 8 1/2 years, but I had some very dark things I had to take care of. I remember one session where I spent the entire session in a fetal ball (this was a few years ago). Something had triggered me. That’s another thing he needs to learn about: triggers. Once you can recognize them, you can control how you react to them, or at the very least manage not to let them set you off.

I swear life used to be so simple.

Whose Depression?

Depression (emotion ) (Photo credit: Andreas-photography)

As you know if you have been following this blog, my husband and I are having dome difficulties in our marriage. We have not been talking to each other, and when we do, it almost always turns into a fight regarding my diagnosis of Bipolar I. Some how, I always get blamed for the problems in our marriage because I am officially diagnosed as mentally ill. The key part of that sentence is “I am officially diagnosed” where as he is not.

So, we’re going to be doing couple’s therapy, because neither one of us really wants to throw in the towel, and admit defeat. Besides, how can you admit defeat in a battle you’ve never fought; you can’t. So, marriage counseling. I was being nosy the other day, the papers were in plain view, so it wasn’t like I had to move boxes to see this weird little tidbit of information. He had reported to the counselor that it was “difficult to live with someone who is always depressed.” I thought that was an interesting comment. Especially since I am not always depressed, bored maybe, but rarely truly depressed. If I am, there are a whole bunch of red flags: not bathing, not changing my PJs, not getting out of bed, hyper somnolence, not washing my hair, no makeup, letting my manicure go. Like I said a whole lot of red flags that I am becoming or am already depressed.

With that having been said, I believe that my husband suffers from uni-polar depression. He is withdrawn, stays to himself, grunts when talked to, is constantly talking about making determinations and then taking action on them. I do not see him doing this at all. He spends all day, everyday on his computer. He will not admit to being depressed (a good sign that someone is). Fortunately, is the process of getting to marriage counseling, he is receiving one on one therapy which he is to continue even after we start marriage counseling (I have my own doctors). All of this is great, but his comment about it being difficult to live with some one who is depressed all the time just begs the question: Whose depression is hard to live with, his or mine?

Especially, considering I am on to very effective mood stabilzers, an anti-anxiety medication, medication for ADD, and an anti-depressant. That my sound like a lot, but believe me, my arsenal is much smaller than a lot of people with Bipolar. My psych believes in only as much medication is needed. So, I am finely tuned, I do not get manic, I do not really get depressed. I surf a low frequency sine wave. I have ups and downs just like everyone else, I have good and bad days just like everyone else. 

All of which leads me back to my original question: Whose depression? Because it’s not mine.

This is Getting Old and I am Getting Tired

He’s done it again. It is 5:30 or so in the morning, and he is sound asleep on the couch. If he’s going to sleep there, I do not understand why he doesn’t just pull it out. It has a bed in it. At least then he’ll be able to stretch out. I do not know what to make of this. This will be about the 4th night he has fallen asleep watching TV, woken up and chosen to sleep on the sofa this week. Maybe, it is the illness having flights of fancy, but this seems odd to me. Its like I have some infectious disease, and if he sleeps in the bed with me, he’ll get it too. Well, I can assure him that Manic Depression is not catching this season.

My marriage is falling apart, and I do not know what to do about it. Clearly, he has no desire to touch me, and it is becoming clear that he has no desire to even be near me. And, he had the stupidity to ask me the other day if I was planning on leaving?! All because I had a telephone conversation and closed my door to be private about it? And this from the man who won’t even sleep in the same bed with me.

At this point, we haven’t even started couples therapy, and already it seems like we’ve both just given up on this relationship. I do not even know why we wear rings. It is obvious to me that he doesn’t take his vows seriously. I thought I did, but maybe, I didn’t either.

I really wish he would stop sleeping on the couch, and just come to bed when he wakes up because he is uncomfortable. He already made it pretty clear to me that I do not “turn him on.” So, he doesn’t have to worry about my getting romantic on him, but it is abnormal for couples not to share a bed. My Dad’s parents didn’t even share a room let alone a bed. Maybe that is why there is a 14 year gap between him and his older sister. And he turned out to be a cold, undemonstrative person. My Mom’s parents , on the other hand, slept in the same double bed for their entire marriage. All 49 years of it. My Dad’s parents were married for 70 years when my Grandmother passed away. I can’t even stay married successfully for three.

Feeling a Little Bipolar Today

This has been a weird day from the moment I woke up. First, I realized that my husband had slept on the sofa again for the second or third night this week. So, that made me curious and slightly sad. I do not know why he has taken to sleeping on the sofa. He wakes up in the middle of the night, he could come to bed, but he doesn’t then he complains about how uncomfortable the couch is to sleep on. Well, the bed is comfy. So, I do not know what is up with that. Maybe it is because after a comment he made about my ability to “turn on” an older man, I have cut him and my sex drive off. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be close to me. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, because I can sleep all over the bed. (Or, at least that is what I am telling myself to keep from having some flight of fancy). Secondly, I feel very quiet and somewhat depressed about something I cannot put a finger on. Maybe I had an odd dream, because I woke up mildly depressed today. And, quiet is not something that I normally am, but I simply do not feel like talking at length today. The occasional “hi” to a neighbor or the lady at the post office is fine, but I want human interaction like I want the plague today.

 

I do not know why these moods occur. Especially when it does not seem that they have any sort of trigger like they normally do. Usually something happens or is said or is done that sets me off; either angry or sad or depressed. But this feeling seems to have no basis. I just feel “off” today. I am not happy with anything, I am sad about everything, I am mildly depressed about my life and how certain aspects of it are going or not going which is more accurate. I know I am suffering from PMS, and that always makes the BP worse. 

I am just not excited or hopeful about anything today. I cannot see a future for my marriage, I cannot see a future for my life, I just cannot see a point to anything today. It all seems to me to be just difficult. My marriage is falling apart, my mind is in one of it’s “stable madness” states, I really want to go back to school, but every time I have tried in the last two years, I have failed. Maybe that’s how I am feeling today. Like a failure. There was a time in my life when I could support myself by working not by getting Social Security Disability. I do not consider myself “disabled” just slightly impaired. It is gorgeous outside today, and even the sunshine seems like cold light. This sucks. I hate it when I feel like crying about everything that has happened, is happening, or could happen. I do not like not feeling optimistic about something. I am not a negative person by nature. I can find positive in almost anything except when the moods hit.

 

Maybe I am just growing increasingly apathetic about life, and its ability to change for the better. My husband and I are supposed to be in marriage counseling, but they are still just seeing him and not the both of us which I do not understand. Things are not getting better, they are getting worse. We do not talk, we spend the days at our respective computers in different rooms. He wanted his space. I gave it to him. Nothing is going as I planned it. I was supposed to have a PhD in something by now. I am almost 41, and I have accomplished nothing with my life. My life feels wasted on me, like it should have been given to someone who would do something with it. I certainly do not know what I am supposed to be doing. I want to get a Master’s in counseling so I can help people because that seems to be my main mission in life is helping people. At least that is somewhat noble. But, I do not know that I have the wherewithal to even do that. I hate this. I wish it would just go away, and I would be “normal” like everyone else, not struggling every day, day in and day out. I am getting tired. Mentally not physically. I am mentally tired of doing battle against these freaking moods every single day. I am tired of acting cheerful when I have to deal with the public. I am tired of lying and saying everything is fine, because it is NOT okay. It is far from okay. Oh well, I guess I should put on my game face and go run some errands. Okay, working on putting on costume of normalcy. Maybe tomorrow will be better.