Meh in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

Weekend was meh.
Friday Date Night didn’t start great. Wife had homework (good for her doing it early) so I walked Nala by myself. Came home. Went to play video games. At almost 8:30 (after I had pretty much abandoned any hope for Date Night) Wife comes downstairs looking defeated. Her attitude is “I can’t finish this stuff tonight, so let’s at least get some food before the entire evening is over.” We go and the food and drink is pretty good. They converted an abandoned Hardees into a full-fledged Mexican Restaurant. We came home. I was… sore. Emotionally. I’m trying to bring back Date Night, I’m trying to keep the marriage going… doing exactly what our couple’s counselor said not to do… and getting the reward expected. So… fuck it. I slept in the basement.
(BTW: The couple’s counselor said that I needed to “lean back” and see if Wife would put the work in. Obviously, good advice. Obviously, we’re all pretty sure that she won’t.)

Saturday, I had The Talk with her. It started with Important Relationship Questions You Need to Really Think About
(1) Do you have any interest in sexual activity?
She said yes
(2) Do you want sexual activity to be a part of your life?
She said yes
(3) Do you want sexual activity with ME to be a part of your life?
She said yes
(4) How do we get there? What is the invisible elephant in the room preventing this?
Her response: The belief that she is terrible, fat, and unattractive. In other words, according to the conversation on Saturday… the lack of “I love you” and the lack of physical intimacy could be described thusly: She is so focused on herself, so negatively focused on herself, that there is no room in her heart or head for anything else. Or… pretty much the same thing as always. She’s so obsessed with hating herself, she’s willing to let her marriage END.

(1) What is love to you? What does love mean to you? How is it expressed?
She said it is something she can’t articulate. She said it is finding someone to date, be goofy with, someone to be comfortable around
(2) Do you know what love is to me? Do you know how I would define love?
She said, “Like a romance novel, but less.”
(3) Do you want love to be a part of your life?
She said yes
(4) Do you want love with ME to be part of your life?
She said yes
(5) How do we get there? What is the invisible elephant in the room preventing this?
She said spending more quality time together would be good, like Date Nights

I then laid it out for her. Exactly where I am here. How we’ve been doing couple’s counseling for 13 months. How dick-all has changed. How individual counseling has been suggested. And how individual counseling will almost certainly give me the resolve and self-assurance to get a divorce. Because we’re at or past the point where my two needs are reasonable and not being met. So getting mentally healthy is likely to help me understand that chasing after someone who won’t meet my needs isn’t a better choice than ending things. I told her it was to the point where I’m honestly looking at Dating Apps. I let her know that this isn’t “Chris stays forever because love is enough.” This is, Chris has stayed because he’s afraid of Divorce. Because a marriage with unrequited love isn’t a romance and it isn’t good fiction. It is harmful. So that is where we are. CAN Wife even conceive of a life where we emotionally support each other? Tell each other I love you? Have regular date nights? Have sex? Is it even possible for that to be our life? And if so… is it at all sustainable? Or would it just disappear after a few months because Wife thinks it ‘bought her more time’?

Wife… understood what I was saying. Quite clearly. And she agreed. She agreed that me getting individual counseling, which she supports, would likely give me the confidence and self-assurance to leave since my needs were consistently not being met. She was sad and heartbroken over it all. But to be honest? I didn’t see any fight in her. I think she’s to the point where she hates herself and thinks that she should be alone but it terrified of it. And instead of fighting to stay in her comfort zone, she’s just… ready to let everything crumble around her.

Sunday… wasn’t great either.
She spent the entire day doing homework… and she failed it all. She looked super depressed all day about it saying she felt old and stupid and incapable. The math involved in Chemistry is too much for her. The technology of college has become too advanced for her. She went over everything over and over again trying to understand where she went wrong in it all and all that did was fry her brain and make her almost incapable of doing anything.

So that was my weekend!

A Date Night delayed until the point where it felt like “Let’s get this over with.” A conversation about why my Wife doesn’t care about me, with the answer of “She hates herself too much to care about me in any way.” And a Sunday of my Wife finding more reasons to hate herself and focus on her failings and shortcomings instead of trying to find solutions and resources. (sarcastic) Fantastic! And as some extra whip cream on this shit-tastic sundae.... we arrested two more guys for Sex with a Minor. These ones also picked up “enticing” and “abuse” charges as well. So… hooray. Hooray for a life of absolute shit. Now it’s time to go court and try to save Children from parents on Meth. All day. Because everywhere I look? Apparently, everywhere I look I see rot and decay.