Kali-mah Thirsty Day in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

It seems spring is in the air. I’ll hold my breath and cross my fingers and hope it isn’t an illusion. After all, in the midwest it isn’t entirely uncommon for us to get snow as late as May… so, I’ll cautiously be happy to see some grass now, but I won’t accept that this is The Return of Spring. Of course… changing weather, work, life, and everything combines to make me super tired. Like “I want to just take a 3 hour nap” tired.

In a small bit of good news, Wife actually went to the Animal Shelter yesterday. I feel… negatively about how much this is “important.” An individual with nothing but free time, actually following through on her stated desire to volunteer at an Animal Shelter… shouldn’t be an “applause worthy” action. But with Wife it is. Maybe that’s how far the bar has fallen for her… me just hoping that she’ll do something, anything to start getting things sorted.

One of the things I intend to do today… besides prepare for a busy next week and work on my furshlugginer Felony Jury Trial… is really put pen to paper on Counseling Prep. Because I think what I want to address is easily broken down into various elements as expressed through specific and particular arguments and reactions.

Fight/Item 1: Wife informs me that she experienced a panic attack regarding filling out Volunteer Form at Animal Shelter
Reaction/Concern: I felt cold, no empathy or concern. Just… angry and cold thinking Here we go again!
Post Item Consideration: I considered all the dozens of ways Wife has been shrinking. Not growing, or celebrating life or even pursuing hobbies and interests. Just shrinking and diminishing.
Worsening Item: Wife had Independent Counseling the next day, and I asked if she’d talked to her counselor about this “feeling of panic” that affected her all day re: Animal Shelter. She said no.
Reaction/Concern: I felt angry. For 7 years, Wife keeps saying that she needs help. She gets help and doesn’t even discuss these kinds of things? Does she expect me to just wait until she decides to start caring about her own life? Her progressive withdrawal can even be charted by graph.

Fight/Item 2: Wife informs me that, as much as she likes the house, she doesn’t want to live in IF forever because she wants to live in a town with more opportunities.
Reaction/Concern: I was upset and staving off anger. She’s been saying this, connected to her Destination Addiction forever. It is never something WITHIN her or something SHE can control or change. Miserable in Des Moines because of Wal Mart. Miserable in Omaha because of Wal Mart. Miserable in Tiny Town because of Town Size. Miserable in Des Moines because of Wal Mart. And now… when we get to a place that is paying us well; she’s already talking about MOVING again?! When she’s only been here for 4 months?!
Post Item Consideration: When we were in Omaha, a town with loads of opportunities… she didn’t explore them. When we were in Des Moines, a town with loads of opportunities… she didn’t explore them. When we were in Tiny Town, she had time and could have looked into taking classes at the local community college… and didn’t. Now in IF, she hasn’t even started looking into opportunities and she’s already saying she wants to move? THIS IS MORE OF HER NOT WILLING TO ACCEPT THAT SHE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HER LIFE.

Fight/Item 3: I need a vacation. Wife and I have been delaying and postponing a mostly free vacation for years. This, for many reasons, needs to be the year we take that vacation. As my line of work involves a need to schedule, I wanted to discuss scheduling this trip with Wife. When I bring it up, she deflects and says “Depends on if I’m in classes”
Reaction/Concern: DEEP frustration and and anger mixed with some resentment.
Post Item Consideration: She’s still here talking about going to classes, asking us to postpone plans (and planning itself) because of it but she hadn’t done anything to progress toward doing this. It’s like… she has all these things she thinks about doing or wants to do… but doesn’t do them. But allows those things not being done to impact her/our life. I need a vacation, we can take a vacation, let’s go on vacation… not just CONTINUE to put our lives on hold until Wife can figure out anything at all about what she wants to do with her life.
Worsening Item: Wife hadn’t looked into class schedules, class availability, or even which college she should go to before dismissing my need for a vacation due to “classes” that may or may not ever materialize. So when I ask things like “What semester will you be enrolled… what month....where… when is registration?” She can’t answer ANY of that. Summer terms start in May, it is March, and she wants to not plan a vacation because “at some point, she’ll actually look into these classes she’s been meaning to look into?!”
Reaction/Concern: I felt a LOT of anger. THIS HAS BEEN OUR LIFE for almost the entire marriage. And I’m frustrated and upset and entirely out of patience. I even honestly and actually just told her to Get Her Shit Together. I’m not going to constantly put life on hold, waiting for her to figure out what it is she wants to do in her life, with her life. She needs to get her shit together! And… it’s this kind of thing where… I really do feel like I’m done. Wit’s end, patience gone, hourglass empty, done. For seven years, I’ve heard excuses about why she can’t figure things out, and I’ve tried to be empathetic and supportive… but I’m not going to keep rearranging my life around her inability to figure anything in her life out.

Fight/Item 4: This is one that just came about due to my thinking about all this crap. I have a lost a lot of my patience for Wife. I’m struggling with built up resentment. So I played, “How would Wife be different from Ideal?”
Results: My ideal is a lot like Wife in a lot of ways, ways that she should hear and know about. But the ways in which Ideal would be different were telling. Also telling… a lot of the things that I love about Wife are the things that have vanished so completely over the course of our marriage.
I love that Wife has a background in martial arts and has her 2nd degree black belt; I love her photography and her artistic passion; I love her interest in science and her curiosity about the world; I love that she feels that cleanliness and tidiness are important; I love that she gets into the Fantasy Genre and the Science Fiction Genre; I enjoy that she (used to be) a Reader; I love that she definitely does have a drive to improve, exercise, that kind of thing.
BUT some of the negative things play off from that.
I wish she wasn’t as lazy about things. This isn’t an accusation, this is her own words. I wish that she felt more motivated to get her life sorted and start living healthy. I wish she could connect with her hobbies and grow, get more hobbies, and just keep growing instead of receding. This receding touches everything. Like, I wish she’d embrace fashion beyond just sweats or jeans. Like, I wish she’d be more social… even if it just means talking to her parents or my parents or my siblings or her friends more. What’s more: I wish she’d take a greater interest in me. Curiosity about my day, my life, my emotional well-being… a desire to learn about my interests and join in… a desire to care about my sexual or emotional needs, not just my “stay alive” needs… in short, she’s so close to being perfect for me but by withdrawing from life, by forcing me to put life on hold while she continues to try to figure out what she wants to try to maybe possibly do, by putting my sexual and emotional needs as a low priority.... she’s hurting herself and she’s hurting the relationship. And the combination of doing this for 8 years and being required to deal with the glut of people in court who refuse to get their shit together… it is tiring and I’m all out of patience.

Sorry to rehash all of that here. Just… trying to get organized for counseling this Saturday and I wanted to make sure I had something relatively quick that I could cite and discuss. Who knows if even Couple’s Counseling is working. I mean… I guess we are making small amounts of headway but… honestly, if she’s not even trying in her Individual Therapy? Then the Couple’s Counseling is just as pointless.

That being said… I am proud of her for actually going to the animal shelter yesterday. She already has a cat best friend. There was this cat that was very clingy… like “pet me, pet me, pet me, pet me” clingy. And every time she bent over to pet another cat or grab something for the other cats; this cat would hop on her back and be like “Dis my hooman. Now youse know! Dis one is MINE.” So… release of Pet Animal endorphins I’m hoping come in to help her with some of her shit. Lord knows she isn’t exactly stimulating her “happy, creative, or motivated” chemical interactions by mostly just sitting around the house, periodically doing house chores or playing on her phone all day.

In other news, my work day has already required I file two more petitions to intervene for Children in Need of Assistance. I’M SO SICK OF DRUGGIE PARENTS! All of them all of them, think “This is so fascist. I should be allowed to smoke meth and watch my kids without the government freaking out. It’s not like Meth makes me a bad parent.” It’s METH. I wouldn’t agree with you; but there could be humorous argument for why it should be okay to use cocaine and watch your kids… but METH?! Man… so unhappy about the pervasive meth bullshit in Iowa. I understand SUPER WELL the desire to submit to oblivion… but Meth is some super nasty, fucks your brain, ruins your life shit. “Meth is my anti-drug” lol.

(melts into small sleepy puddle)
Oh. God.

I just went through the rest of the month on my calendar? That alone felt like an extra week’s worth of tired and stress. It isn’t even this notion of having loads of cases or anything just…
Monday at 10: Case w/MASSIVE violence and Injuries
Monday at 11: Sexual Assault Case
Monday at 1: Case w/MASSIVE violence and Significant Injuries
Tuesday at 9: Case w/MASSIVE violence
Tuesday at 10: Case w/Significant Violence
Wednesday? (Minor Crimes Day?)
Case w/Traffic Violations x4
Case w/Traffic Tickets & Accident
Case w/Ancient Traffic Violation
Case w/No Insurance & Accident
Case of Neighbor destroying neighbor’s yard out of spite
Case of No License
Case of Violating no Contact Orders
Case of No License
Case of No License
Case of Accident Violation
Case of Accident & Leaving the Scene
Then in order to avoid a giant mess of jury trials in April… Thursday requires pleading, negotiating, and praying about
One Case: Defendant beats the shit out of his girlfriend and her brother
One Case: Defendant beat her boyfriend up aided by large lumber weapons
One Case: Defendant decided to watch their children while getting high
One Case: Defendant provided the drugs to the person watching their children while getting high
and if I can get those cases resolved then I’m just stuck with a Jury Trial involving
pages and pages of vile, violent, threatening texts and subsequent violence and stalking… the guy doesn’t want to plead to anything because… stalker but his attorney is miffed by this because… he has bigger fish to fry since he’s also the attorney for the Mollie Tibbets’ killer.
But after all of that....
I have a bench trial where Defendant has a no contact order, and yet found himself “mysteriously” standing outside the victim’s car. He claims “coincidence”; his attorney claims, “the State is bullying the Defendant”.... I claim… if our officer hadn’t intervened, the victim was going to shoot the Defendant.... as she screamed “Back away from my car or I will shoot you.”
And all of that is just next week
The week after? To end March:
Another Monday Juvenile Court Day (plus ENT Appointment)
A Jury Trial likely to take a while(!!)
If I’m in trial, getting my boss to take my Probation Hearing....
then if I’m still in Jury Trial on Wednesday… have boss cover my 7 hearings in Lesser Court;
Only to end with 2 bench trials to finish the week/month.

SOooooooo, yeah. March.... exhausting. lol. No wonder I’ve been having trouble getting good sleep. And no wonder I’ve been more sensitive to the fact that I haven’t been able to masturbate as much as I would prefer… I mean, obviously, I wish that sentence said: “And no wonder I’ve been more sensitive to the fact that I haven’t been able to seduce my wife as much as I prefer” but.... heck, it’s only been 3 weeks… or is it 4? So… certainly undesirable but we’re still well within “normal parameters.” Even if I wish those normal parameters were a little different.