Does What I Want Matter?

Today was actually a good day with my husband.  Those are rare lately, and that gives me all the more reason to treasure them.  But I also feel like I have to remember to be skeptical on days like today.  So often in the past I've been fooled by one good day or even a string of good days, fooled into believing that everything was going to be better now.  Then I get hit with the sledgehammer all over again, feeling like the bottom drops out of my world all over again.  Well, this time I'm staying firmly at the bottom, because it is at least solid ground.  I am going to climb, if I climb at all, very cautiously out, poking my head around and feeling my footing with every step to make sure it is solid.  I will not trust very easily.  But I'm an optimistic person, so that's hard for me.  I tend to believe good things easily and dismiss bad things easily.  It's just that the good I believe has so far always turned out to be insubstantial mist.  Enough rambling.

Tonight, I complimented my husband on what a good day we had.  He went to work. We worked together. We compromised. We cared for and took care of each other.  It was very mutual.  Mutuality is what we've lacked more than anything else in our relationship.  Usually it is him taking and me giving until I am bled dry.  So I complimented him on a good evening.  And he said something that really rubbed me the wrong way, but it isn't until now, several hours later, that I can articulate why.  He said "I have plans for my life. And they don't include losing you."  And I know he meant it in the sweetest way possible.  I have been begging him to fight for us, because I simply can't fight alone any more.  And he meant that he was fighting for us.  He needs to.  He needs to try, he needs to be better, because I simply can't live any longer in a marriage that is all about him and his needs.

But that's the problem.  He has plans for his life, and they don't include losing me.  Therefore, I am not allowed to choose differently.  What if he does everything right, and I still don't want to be with him?

How My Bipolar Husband Affects Our Daughter

Living with a bi polar husband is hard.  But at least I understand, to a degree, what’s going on.  He’s sick, and I have to not take it personally.  I can’t imagine how hard it is to live with a bi polar father.  And so far, I had hoped that my two and a half year old had been mostly oblivious to the struggles.  I mean, he has anger management issues due to his disease, and sometime he snaps angrily at her and makes her cry, but he always apologizes and so far it doesn't seem to affect her for more than a few minutes at a time.  I hate, hate, hate that he does this, and every time it makes me want to gather my baby girl in my arms and protect her.  Which sucks when he’s yelling at her about something she’s legitimately doing wrong, and I have to back him up when every instinct in me is screaming at me to comfort her.  All of this is a terrible dynamic, but I still had hopes that I had some time to make decisions, some time to allow him to continue working on himself, before it started really affecting Olivia.  Well, I didn't reckon on how perceptive and dang SMART my kid is.  She and I had a conversation this morning that made me realize that I am running out of time.

Good Christian Girl is Dead

I'm going through an identity crisis right now.  See, my identity has always been wrapped up in being the "Good Little Christian Girl."  And even though over the past few years I've been slowly changing my theology from the fundamentalist evangelical upbringing I had, my identity has still been wrapped up in being the "Good Little Christian Girl."  I just began defining it differently. I could still be GLCG and believe in feminism. In social justice. In universalism. In gay rights. In abortion rights. In evolution. In a non-inerrant Bible.  Even as all my GLCG beliefs eroded, I still clung to being GLCG.  That's who I was, and I couldn't imagine myself as anything different.  And really, GLCG was not a healthy identity for me any longer.  It wasn't even really who I was anymore, with all my changing beliefs.  But I couldn't let her go.

She had to die instead.  And I struck her a death blow.  See, I could change all my most important beliefs and still pretend I was GLCG.  I had to DO something, something GLCG would NEVER have considered doing in a million years.  And I did. I cheated on my husband.