The Hubs

Harry doesn't like it when I talk about our relationship (the crap side, not the good side) on here. He's asked a few times if I talk about it. Maybe that's part of the reason I haven't been blogging the past few months.

The fact is, we're in a marriage funk right now. There, I said it. Or more on point, I'm in a marriage funk.

Our marriage changed pretty much the day we had Ellie. Most marriages do when you put children into the equation. B.E. (Before Ellie), we were that lovey dovey couple everyone hated. We did everything together. We loved spending time with each other. The more time the better.

After Ellie was born, I still needed Harry there with me by my side as much as possible, but a good portion of that was because I needed help with the baby. I knew from the get-go I didn't really have that maternal thing about me, and the first few weeks after my little girl came into my life proved my thoughts on the subject right. I was lost, and I practically begged Harry not to leave the house, well, ever. Kind of ridiculous.

As Ellie got older and our living situation got better (new house!), I wasn't so needy. I got the hang of being a mommy, and I LOVED the extra time I got alone with my girl. Eventually this has now led to wanting alone time with Ellie a lot more than I ever thought possible. So when Harry's offered OT or has something to do, I practically pounce on the idea of a morning without him. I don't say it in those words, but I wonder if he realizes it. I wonder if it hurts.

Around the time Ellie turned 2, I noticed how drastically things had changed. This would be November of '08. Things started to really annoy me. Things Harry said and did made me roll my eyes... a lot (the one thing I do that really drives him up the wall). Little things about his personality that he'd always done suddenly irked me (like the way he rubs his hands together sometimes when he's excited or about to eat something good or buy something wonderful - I'm cringing just typing about it).

I noticed the change, tried to mention as nicely as possible that I was feeling kind of ick, and we kept trucking. I let it be known that I was annoyed but that I didn't want to bring it up everytime he left crumbs on the counter or got water all over the bathroom floor because I didn't want to come across as a nag. I did want him to know that it did bother me, EVERY SINGLE TIME, those things kept happening, regardless as to whether or not I voiced a concern.

It's been a year and a half since I noticed this annoyance, and it hasn't gotten better. In fact, it's gotten a whole lot worse.

It's to the point now where I question how many times I have to mention something before it sinks in? How many times is too many? When did it cross the line from annoyance to hurtful to just plain disrespectful? The eye-rolling is now more hurt feelings on my part, to the point where I feel common courtesy is being thrown by the way-side.

I'm tired. Tired of being hurt and angry and upset all the time and keeping it all in for the sake of not hurting his feelings. That's crap. Something's gotta give.

And something did this weekend.

Harry hasn't gotten any overtime in a few months, so when work offered him some Saturday morning, he grabbed it. It made me happy because he likes getting OT, we need the money, and well, I get a Saturday morning with Ellie all to myself. It's a win/win/win situation. He usually works 5am-12pm on Saturdays, so he's up pretty early in the morning. Usually his alarm wakes me up, but at 3:30am, I can usually fall back asleep, even with this crap insomnia I've been dealing with this past month.

Harry knows about the insomnia. He knows how I've been struggling with sleep. I'm the kind of person that really needs 8 hrs to function, and I haven't been getting anywhere near that.

You would think, knowing how hard sleep is to come by for me, that my husband would make sure the alarm clock was turned off once it went off at 3:30. You would think, right? Common courtesy, right?

I was lucky enough to not even hear it go off at 3:30. I didn't even hear him leave. For the first time in over a month, I was actually going to sleep through the night and get 8 hrs.

Unfortunately, Harry didn't turn of the alarm clock after it went off at 3:30, so it went off again at 5:15, which is the second setting on the clock, the one he uses during the week.

I have no idea how to use his clock. We use separate ones because the bed is so damn big that rolling over to the other side to shut of an alarm sucks. And we need the multiple settings (both of us on both clocks). I fumbled with buttons until the damn thing shut off, and I'll admit, I cried I little. I just want sleep.

Even more unfortunately, I didn't shut it off. I merely set the snooze to 1 hr, which means it went of again at 6:15. I nearly ripped it out of the wall and threw it through the window. And again, I cried.

Common courtesy.

I practice it every day. I do all these little things every single day to make both Harry's and Ellie's lives easier, happier. I like to do these things. It makes me happy to make my family happy.

I'm tired of being walked all over. I'm tired of no one even noticing all the little things I do. I don't do them for the recognition, but damnit, sometimes hard work should be recognized.

Whenever Harry, say, empties the dishwasher or sweeps the floor or takes out the garbage, I friggin' thank him for it. I do. Why? Because I know he appreciates that I noticed. There've been a few times (like all 3 since we've moved into the house) when he's cleaned the bathroom and made sure to let me know he cleaned it, looking for that recognition. I always give it to him, but his constant need of the pat on the back irks me. I always recognize things he does; he doesn't have to point it out to me. If I listed all the crap I did day-in and day-out to him, it would probably take hours to tell it all. I know the moms out there know what I mean.

He thanks me for dinner a lot or if I set up his coffee for the next day, so I get recognition on occasion. It's just that sometimes I'll spend hours cleaning the house, and he won't even notice. Seriously. I'll scrub the floors and dust, the whole shebang, and he doesn't even realize it's been done. Maybe he just doesn't care. I don't mean that vindictively. I think maybe he really doesn't care if the house is clean. Crumbs on the counter, water on the floor, mud tracked through the kitchen... it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

We're very different.

I'm all over the place with this post, I know, but that's because I'm all over the place in my life. I don't know what to do. This weekend, after the alarm thing, I knew when I'd mention it to him, he'd give me his apology like always, and I'd be annoyed because sometimes a million "sorry's" just aren't enough. Trying to actually not let those things occur is what I'm looking for.

Instead of his standard apology, he mumbled a quick sorry and moved on to another topic. It was a token apology. It didn't even sound like he meant it. And THAT HURT. Now he doesn't even care when he's hurt me. That's what that "I'm sorry" told me. It surprised me. And I nearly broke down in tears on the spot, but Ellie was sitting there, and I didn't want to scare her.

I just stood there. And for the very first time I thought, "We might not make it."

My problems, my worries, my complaints may seem petty, but to me, they're important.

I want to love my husband like I used to. I want to be able to communicate my worries and hurts.

Last night, I told him it might be a good idea if we had a weekly or monthly talk, time set aside and scheduled where we could bring our concerns to the table. A couple of days before, we should even write down what we want to discuss with each other.

I asked him if he'd noticed I'd been different this past month, and he admitted he noticed. We've just been ignoring.

Ignoring it is bad.

I asked him if Wednesday after Ellie goes to bed would be a good time. He agreed. BUT (and there's always a but) he immediately asked, "So we're not going to tear into one another, are we?"

I had to take a deep breath. This always happens. Any time I want to have a serious conversation about our marriage, he freaks out, thinking I'm going to completely bitch him out. Or leave him. I just want to talk for Christ's sake! Why is he always so afraid of talking about things? It upsets me. This is why I keep things in, because he always gets scared the minute I say something serious. I'm kind of tired of this, too.

I told him I wasn't looking to schedule an argument, just a discussion. It's not like we argue anyway. Hello! When do we argue? We're not like normal couples that occasionally raise their voices, mostly because he just shuts down when we're on the brink of it. I see him closing up, and I stop whatever I'm saying for fear of hurting him.

This has to stop.

I've already written down the things I want to discuss, and I'm really hoping he takes it seriously and does the same. He said he didn't get a lot of sleep last night, whereas right after I talked to him about Wednesday, I fell blissfully asleep and didn't wake up until my alarm went off. Interesting.

Hopefully I'll have good things to talk about on Thursday.

And for any family reading, I wrote this just to get it out. I love you guys, but I don't want to actually discuss it. I know it's personal, and maybe I shouldn't put it here, but I have to put it somewhere because it's eating me up inside. Thanks for understanding.