Rome may not have been built in a day, but it sure did fall pretty quickly.
I guess it’s true what they say…some things aren’t meant to last forever.
My husband wanted to “talk” with me today. He suggested that maybe things would be easier for us if we lived in separate households. Easier if we spent some time apart...like a trial separation. Like I didn’t know what that really meant. It meant…"I don’t think I want to live with you anymore."
He wasn't saying that...not really. I think what he was saying was, our lives are filled with too much conflict all the time. Too much drama. Not that it is all of our own making, but the combining of our two households has created more than its fair share of drama and conflict.
But I always thought that at the bottom of it all, we had a pretty solid marriage. When it was just the two of us, we were good. Better than good. But, when you have a blended family, it’s never really just the two of you, is it? It’s the kids, the exes, the in-laws (or in some cases…outlaws), jobs, school, pets, mortgages…shall I go on? It would seem that the stress of all those things had taken its toll.
And suddenly it seemed as if my life was falling apart like a badly played game of Jenga.
I didn’t know what to mourn first…the loss of everything we had built over the past eight years, or the loss of the future that we had planned so meticulously—a future that would never be. But I knew that ultimately, the thing I would mourn the most would be the loss of my best friend. Because that’s what it really came down to. I wouldn’t even know who to call and cry to, because my husband has been my best friend for almost eight years.
After he dropped the bombshell on me, he waited for my reaction. I’m not sure if he was hoping I would agree with him, or afraid that I would agree with him, but I wasn’t about to be the one who cast the deciding vote on something so monumental. We didn’t sit down and talk. Instead, we went off in different directions to deal with this new “option” in our own ways. I dealt with it like a woman…I hid in my bedroom and cried. He dealt with it like a man…he went to Home Depot to buy a part for something that needed to be fixed. But an hour or so later we were back in the same room where we came to the separate conclusions that nothing would really be better if we were apart. It would just create new problems. And he didn’t really want to live without me…he was just trying to come to grips with the madness that is our lives.
And truly, our lives are filled with madness. We have teenagers…and PMS…and exes…and in-laws…and his stressful job…and a whole lot of other very complicated things that we deal with on a day to day basis. It’s a wonder we’ve made it this far. And I do think it would be a terrible shame to have made it this far just to chuck it all right before the finish line. Because the kids are not going to be teenagers forever…the exes aren’t even part of our lives anymore…in-laws are only as big a problem as you let them be…and if you live in a yurt in the woods, you really don’t need much money, and therefore probably don’t need a very stressful job.
I think maybe we just need a vacation. We’re taking a very brief one tomorrow…just one day, just the two of us. Something we haven’t done in quite a while. It’s very important to have that time together to remember why you are a couple to begin with. Wish us luck!
Until the next time…I’ll be driving to the mountains for a day of rest and relaxation with my husband.