Which one of the three? in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

So… there are three “Friends Only entries I want to write in my head.
One about Confidence
One about My Relationship
One about “Being Ghosted”

I’m going to eat something (consumed 200 calories today before my workout and errands) and respond to my therapist and hopefully I’ll come back and write one of those.

Fuck, might as well share some of the therapy thing here too. As we work on and discuss “self-compassion” and perspectives, my therapist said to view things more as “practice”. Things are never going to perfect, things are never going to meet your expectations or requirements. Just practice. Keep trying. Keep improving. Recognize when you fail but don’t beat yourself up for it because failure is part of practicing and getting better.

This was… a unique perspective because it helped me to realize I’ve lived my life more seeing things as “rehearsal” than “practice.” “Rehearsal” is about working things through again and again and again until it is perfect or until you have no other choice and must perform. I think in many ways my perspective (at least to those things most important to me) has been “Rehearsal.” Things I need to work on, get right, make better, as I look forward in my life to “when the show starts and we have to be prepared.”

Then I discussed with my therapist the things that I was thinking would be stuff to be aware of for the future and that went like this:

“So… as I do have an interview that I’m really hoping works out… I wanted to let you know some of the things I see coming down the pipe (whether I get the job or not) that I can see I will want to work on/focus on.

(1, conditional A) If I get the job, obviously the things surrounding that kind of transition will become important. But… with a twist. Due to the significant issues in my marriage, plus the fact that wife still needs to keep her job and she needs to keep seeing her therapist. So… my big idea (since we’d be able to afford it) is that she could stay in DM and I could go live in Anamosa, where the new job would be. I think it would be best for a lot of reasons (discussed below) but these things would also cause stress and other issues that I’d need to discuss.

(1, conditional B) If I don’t get the job, I know that some rejection depression will definitely kick in. Because… I want to be an Assistant County Attorney (ACA) again. I really do! And it is a very difficult job to snag an interview for as the openings don’t come up often. If I don’t get the ACA job, I may be offered a monotonous job at the Social Security Administration instead or (if I don’t get that) I was offered a Volunteer Internship at a Government Candidate’s office. So… more decisions and emotional issues.

(2) Either way, no matter what happens with Work Elements… I’m starting to worry and wonder more and more about my marriage and my wife and what life means for us. We’ve… certainly had our problems. I really want to send you my Narrative Thing talking about my past but… I’ll capsule it a bit here.

When Wife and I met, I was into a specific girl who I knew was bad for me. One of those women where there is a quick and instant attraction but my gut was shouting “bad news.” Then I met Wife who seemed like a significantly toned down version of that girl… like a “Version You Could Introduce to the Parents”. We started dating and it was okay; at first, it was great. But about 2 years into the relationship, I moved to Des Moines and thought “That may be the end of the relationship. We can try long distance but that rarely works out.” And I wasn’t terribly broken up about the idea. But Wife moved to Des Moines as well shortly after, claiming that she had always intended to. Two years later (2009), we met at Fuddrucker’s for a very difficult conversation. After 4 years together, I was sick of being in a relationship that lacked affection, manners, and questions. When I say “questions” I mean… Wife is the kind of person who will monologue after being asked “How was your day?” but will never ask you “How was your day?” And it might be small, but things like “How are you today?” and “How was your day?” are important. Just like the fact that she rarely says “I love you.” So… in 2009, I had decided to break it off. Long story short, Wife convinced me to give it all another try.

In 2011, we got married a month before I started Law School and we moved to Omaha. Law School is also called “The Relationship Killer” because very few relationships survive Law School. My marriage was one that barely survived. Wife was not super supportive because she “hated life in Omaha” and “each year was worse than the last.” So… while doing Law School, I felt like I was going through the rigors of law school while trying to help take care of Wife. Further, after moving to Omaha… our first 3 years of marriage were celibate. Entirely her choice. This is when we initially saw our Marriage Counselor who told us that “the biggest problem with our marriage was Wife’s many individual issues. She would have to work on her issues before we could even start work in Marriage Counseling.”

In 2015, we moved to Tiny Town. Wife’s “this is the worst year of my life” streak continued. However, since the town was so insanely small, we didn’t have anyone but each other. The marriage was actually helped by how miserable we both were. We relied on each other and spent more genuine quality time together. Granted, Wife begged me to move us to Des Moines as soon as I could… saying that she would receive better counseling in a city where the counselors went exclusively Skyped in. So, I accepted the job at the Chinese Firm to bring us back to Des Moines. We moved back in April 2017 and Wife started seeing her therapist in October 2017. Again… it was “the worst year of her life,” but this time because of Wal Mart. So… married in 2011 and every year after that was “the worst year ever” because of Omaha, the Omaha Wal Mart, the size of Tiny Town, or the Grimes Wal Mart. Meanwhile, every year that her life gets worse… that puts pressure on the marriage and on myself. Wife continued to be unaffectionate, often rude, and (in our entire marriage) can only have sex in the dark, late at night, after drinking.

That plus the abusive and toxic working environment I was in at work was… absolutely stressing me out(!!) Leaving the Chinese Firm was… 100% the right choice. Leaving that won’t ever be a regret or reconsideration and I can’t say that about most of the things I’ve done in my life. But you’ve been around for everything since. Wife finally left her job at Wal Mart (what she was saying made last year “the worst”) and changed to a new job… that she was sobbing about and desperate to quit immediately.

So… yeah. Our marriage, our relationship… hasn’t really had a lot of good. Primarily when every year of our marriage has been “the worst year” of Wife’s life… though she is quick to say it has nothing to do with the marriage or with me. But that I believe entirely because I’m sure that most of her life stuff has little to do with our marriage or with me.

You may think, “Wow… why haven’t you divorced yet?” At least, I know many of my friends have said that. But I made a vow to work on this marriage (better or worse) and I genuinely care about Wife. My family loves Wife. And even Wife’s friends are saying, “She tells us all the time about how patient you’ve been with her.” It’s just… this is something I’m going to need help, guidance, and assistance in. I’m second-guessing my marriage a lot lately. Wife has a tendency to express rage, disappointment, and negativity at all times with little ability to express love, compassion, or positivity (which spell check is saying isn’t a word). It is one of the reasons why I think if I get this job in a different county… a little time apart would be good for both of us. But… as stated previously… whichever way that interview goes? This is something you should know so we can discuss and deal with.

I need to find a way for (1) Wife’s negativity not to get to me; (2) Find a way to surround myself with encouraging people, instead of people that simply bring me down; (3) find a way to really figure out… what are my boundaries? What are my requirements? What do I need in a relationship and can I/will I feel comfortable demanding it/requiring it and seeing that through?

Probably a lot to dump on you… fairly heavy stuff. But… what has been on my mind.”