Engagement

[SolidMechanic]

Back for more journaling:

I spent a lot of energy during the middle part of my marriage becoming a good draft animal: working hard, getting and keeping decent jobs, improving skills and bettering my education, being a good father, what Mojo would label as classic St. Bernard. I didn't really know what I could do to make myself attractive, but I at least wanted to make myself useful and provide my wife with the things she said she always wanted: a home, children, the chance to raise them full time.

Before we had children, we were at least good friends, and would go out and have fun. But when we had the girls, our marriage really stopped having anything to do with W and me as a couple. W poured all of her energy into child rearing. We didn't go out anymore because W couldn't bring herself to leave the kids with a sitter. My wife is a worrier. When the kids aren't with her, even to this day, she worries about them constantly. It's hard to go out and have fun with someone who isn't really there.

Of course my resentment grew. I started getting snippy, withdrawn, critical. It would happen at weird times. I would be cutting the lawn and the mindless tedium left my mind wandering. Then I would start thinking about how many years it had been since we last had sex. Then I would be done with the lawn and walk into the house like an ogre.

Well, I started to not like myself very much. I found the SSM book a couple of years ago, and tried to engage my wife in efforts to improve our marriage. She grudgingly agreed to marriage counseling, but the councilor was not good. All talk, no action. We broke it off after a few months because W didn't want to leave her invalid mother home alone. (MIL lived with us the past 4 years, and passed away last month. Another story.) Of course, I think I've read about 20 relationship books, which is about 20 more than my wife has read.

I changed tack and decided to GAL and clean up some of my own issues. I went into individual counseling, trying to deal with my anger and resentment. I started exercising regularly, took up skating to have something fun to do with D9, started working toward my professional engineer license (just found out I passed the exam - Yeeay!) I also have taken up meditation and have been studying Buddhism pretty seriously.

Everything I have learned about myself and my wife has led me to think that I need to let go. I stopped reading relationship books and started reading divorce books. I didn't want to make any kind of decision about the future as long as my wife had to spend all of her time and energy taking care of her old mother.

Recently, after her mother died, my wife started talking about our long term future as a married couple. Another conversation regarding a financial move prompted me to level with her. I really did not want to make a decision now, not when there is still grief in the house, but I did feel the need to come clean with my wife.

Sunday I told her that I was seriously thinking of divorcing her. She told me that she wanted to try counseling again. Of course she wants me to find the councilor.

It's getting late. More some other time.

SM