Inverse Reality in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

The world has… turned upside down?

I feel bad about my argument with Wife last night. Even worse about how to deal with things now. Because one of two things will happen. (1) She’ll pretend like nothing was said and we’ll just go back to “normal” because Status Quo is comfortable; (2) She’ll be quietly seething this evening and I’ll have to press the issue so that she can explode. And I know exactly what she’ll say. She’ll cry. She’ll say that she IS trying. She’ll say it is hard. She’ll say that she’s so afraid of change but that this job at Wal Mart makes her feel like she is dying every day. She’ll say that she can’t just “go and take any other job” because she doesn’t want to discover that a different job is just as bad. She’ll say that she can’t just figure out what she wants to do because she’s been trying to figure it out for 37 years. She’ll explain how she is miserable and terrified and extremely mad at herself that she doesn’t know how to be an adult. Then she’ll get very self-hating; discussing how terrible she is at being a person and such.

I know it because it is what happens any time I try to get her to start living her life. Because we’ve done this dance. After all, if you are with someone for 12 years and they say their life is terrible because of a job they’ve been doing for 15 years… then you’ve had a few opportunities. One of the first times I tried to deal with this was before we were even married. It was the ONE and ONLY time I have ever been to the restaurant Fuddruckers. I went there with that mindset that we were going to split up. Because… I was tired of being in a relationship where I didn’t matter. We had been dating for 2 or 3 years at that point and… there was never a “How was your day?” or “How are you feeling?” there was never an “I love you” or initiating any physical contact (including hugs, kisses, cuddles, anything). So I went there to say, “This isn’t working for me because I don’t feel like you actually care.” We didn’t break up. She had a version of the above. She said it was because she was an only child with stoic, very German parents that didn’t hug or talk. She said it was because of her ADD and she’s just thinking too many things at once to focus on one person. She said that she didn’t know how to act like an adult; but that she had learned a lot just by being in a relationship like ours. She made me feel (during that lunch) that she did care about me a lot… that she cared more about me than anything else in the world… she just didn’t know how to show it. And we didn’t break up. And then 4 or 5 years later we got married. And we’ve had The Wal Mart argument (to some degree) probably once a year since then.

So… that’s home life. It is going to be… depressing… painful… awkward.

Which is why it is SO BIZARRE that work life is going okay today. Chinese Boss is smiling at me a lot, being helpful, being encouraging… giving me cases and work to do. It is a weird sort of inverse. Work= Good. Home Life= Bad.