When a Thing Comes to Me in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

Last night… as Wife was cooking and the TV was playing… I didn’t feel the “warm contentment of comfort” I once did. I felt that shortly before we were married. All I felt last night was lonely. We watched television while we ate… and I didn’t feel a connection. I was even to do one of my formerly favorite things.... I read Simple Mind’s farewell joke to her and she absolutely exploded with laughter. Gosh, when we were dating… that’s all I wanted in the entire world. And then the worst happened. Mediacom failed. At about 9:30 pm, our internet and cable went out. As I write this 2.5 hours later, it has not returned.

That was… a moment. Instead of reach for a book or start a conversation or interact with me in some way… she picked up her phone and played phone games until it was ready for bed. But I’m no better. I could have asked her to stop playing, or I could have started a conversation, or something like that on my own. But when she went “phone game”, I went “PS4 solo game.”

But even that experience was… unfortunate. I have friends of multiple genders that enjoy video games. When I first started to date Wife, she was huge into Halo. But now? Anything more involved than “Gems and Genies” or “Two Dots” and she has no interest. I started thinking… and not for the first time… I don’t know if Anxiety or Depression or ADHD explain the fact that in a lot of ways she isn’t the woman I married… or if it is a case of the woman I was dating was the “Like Me” face and the woman I married is the “Real Me” face.

It got me to thinking about the things we have in common, or don’t.
Interests?
The only things I can say for certain are that we both like movies and television. She might say she likes to read… but that happens rarely and my “recommended list” remains untouched. She might say she likes Comic Books… but other than Gaiman’s Sandman series, she mostly just “tolerates” or “puts up with” my Comic Book stuff. She might say she enjoys video games but (as I said) only the Skinner Box Cell Phone games. She might say she enjoys DnD but she mostly does that so she can spend her Saturdays with me (which I appreciate, don’t get me wrong).

Where it gets heartbreaking, though? If you asked me what my interests were… I’d rattle off a long list and apologize because I kept forgetting things. My wife, tragically, cannot. When I ask her what her interests are… what she likes… what she does for fun… any of that? She can’t think of anything. When I made her watch Buffy when we were dating, there is a Season 6 or Season 7 part where Anya The Vengeance Demon is made mortal and must decide/figure out who she is. Wife loved that scene because she felt she could relate to it so strongly. Even more so now. It is a beautiful, heartbreaking thing to watch this scene with Wife because she so powerfully over-identifies.

XANDER: Anya, wait.
ANYA: Xander, please. Just go away.
XANDER: Whatever’s between us—it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t be alone in this.
ANYA: Yes, I should. My whole life, I’ve just clung to whatever came along.
XANDER: Well, speaking as a clingee— I kinda didn’t mind.
ANYA: Thanks. For everything.

Xander nods, realizing that this is her rejecting his offer to help.

ANYA: Xander— what if I’m really nobody?
XANDER: Don’t be a dope.
ANYA: I’m a dope?
XANDER: Sometimes.
ANYA: That’s a start.

Xander walks away, leaving a teary-eyed Anya to deal alone.

It is heartbreaking and… I totally understand why Wife over-identifies. She went from Home to College… couldn’t deal… went to a smaller college closer to home. Went from boyfriend to boyfriend for 7 years (racking up 15 boyfriends total in that time). And then she met me. But the problem? Whereas Anya knew she had to do the “who am I” part solo.... Wife went the other direction… got married.

So… I’m feeling lonely. Wife is unhappy with her life. And in my emotionally focused brain, I can’t decide on anything. Yes, I’d like to live a bit of the wild life… see if I could pull any attractive women who would love to ride me until my eyes popped. But I wouldn’t love that. Because I do genuinely want some emotional intimacy. Besides, even back in my clubbing days… I never pulled anyone… proof that I was never “a catch” in the looks department. Yes, I’d love to stay with Wife and build our ideal lives together. But I don’t know if that is even possible. Maybe we’ll just always be in this “phase” where she’s comfortably miserable and I’m trying to discover my place. And here’s the thing… not arguing, not being a jerk… but people say I deserve better and I deserve to be happy.... but no I don’t. When I was single? I was lonely. And pathetic. And entirely incapable of chatting up a woman or getting someone to like me. I was single throughout almost all of my college career. Not by my choice, I’ll tell you that. Nobody wanted me. Even my own friends didn’t want me around. Wife changed that. Wife liked talking to me, sought me out. When my 21st birthday was a bust and it was looking as though I were going to spend “turning 21” entirely by myself in a darkened room with a bottle of rum.... she sought me out. When, after making out heavily very HEAVILY at my 21st, I decided to have no contact with her as she was living with her boyfriend… I did something dishonorable and impulsive. And yet… she came after me, showed up at my door. When I left college and moved back to DM, I didn’t ask her to come with me. In fact, I assumed my moving back to DM would be the end of our relationship. But she, on her own, decided to move down. She came for me. In 2009, when I was so fed up with the fact that she was unwilling or unable to ever ask me a question “How was your day?” or “How was work?” or anything showing interest in my life… I was entirely ready to walk away. But she wouldn’t let go. She started working on “being a socially acceptable person” (translation… it is not socially appropriate to speak only in monologues and then walk away. Social must be interactive). So that’s the world. A miserable college experience where (true story) I was starting to think of myself as some grotesque unlovable foul monster that nobody wanted to be around. And then Wife. So… yeah, I’m feeling lonely with Wife. I’m feeling that a lot of my emotional needs aren’t being met. I’m feeling that a lot of my physical needs aren’t being met. And I’ve felt like that for some time. But feeling like that with Wife is a lot better than where I was before Wife. So that is what I think about when people discuss “what I deserve.”