I hit an enormous low point last night myself. Jeese, maybe it's the moon...we all seem to be hitting rock bottom.
If you need to bail out and cut your losses, Sooner, no one is going to blame you. Man, you have tried, God knows you have.
Hang with me. I'm going to ramble for a moment.
I think one of the reasons I hit rock bottom last night is because when my husband got home, I had been thinking of all you on this board who are so like him, and I asked, "honey, what made you hang in there? What made you change?"
And he looked at me and said..."Nothing made me hang in there. I was as close to the end of my rope as I could get. I think you were the one who did the changing."
Well, hitting me across the face with an ice cold wet towel couldn't have been more shocking. I can't verbalize why this was so disturbing to me...it didn't really hurt, per se, but it knifed through me. I don't know why, but it's irrelevant anyway. But I did do a tailspin into the deep blue.
My dog woke me up at about 4 a.m. this morning, and damn near pissed a river all over my house before I could get his butt outside. It wasn't his fault...he's not used to holding it and being an indoor dog...but that didn't make me any happier to be cleaning up dog piss at 4 in the morning.
But as I was scrubbing and cleaning, I did notice that I wasn't feeling despondent anymore. And then I wondered why...
I remember my shrink telling me once in one of our sessions, "all it takes is for one of you to make a change...sometimes a significant change, to save your marriage. I can't give you a specific time frame for it to work its magic...all I can tell you is that if you are committed to change, it will take as long as it takes. And once those changes have occurred, the time it took for you to get there will be worth all the struggles and pain you've faced...you will look back on it and say to your spouse, remember when we were there? You will appreciate and revel in the happiness you now share."
I thouht he was spewing a bunch of sh!t at me at the time.
Then I realized, as my H said, I probably was the one who changed, where all along I had thought it had been him. Right now, I understand it doesn't matter a fig who changed first. The fact is, one of us did, and it was enough to bring about change in the other. We almost didn't make it. But 'almost' doesn't count...except in horseshoes and hand grenades.
I read an article about Mother Theresa once...I cannot fathom that woman. She's going to be named a saint one day, I'm sure. Anyway, I only remember the gist of the article. It was something along the lines of her talking about her 'calling' in life...and the most difficult things she had ever faced. One of the things she mentioned was when she worked with the third world AIDS children. Emotionally, it was a very difficult thing for her to deal with. Day after day she was there until one night, she cried herself to sleep wondering how she was going to get up and do it again the next day. She didn't think she had anything left to give.
But the next morning she got up, and she gave some more, thinking surely it was going to be the end of her. "In giving, when I thought I had no more to give, instead of finding the pain and desolation I was expecting, I only found more love."
I don't know what to tell you, Sooner. There may be no resolution to your situation. You may in fact have nothing left to give. I think your wife hears you, and I think you hear her.
But maybe in the moment of asking her to cuddle, rather than asking something of her, you can offer something to her. "God, you are a great woman. But you look exhausted. Come here, honey, and just let me hold you for a few minutes. Nothing else. You just look like you could use a hug, and I know I need one."
I don't know, Sooner. Sometimes it's enough, sometimes it isn't.
The road you are on is a tough one, and you will continue to experience ups and downs. It is going to take as long as it takes to get to the end of it. If you can't make it, you just can't. But hang on as long as you can. That's all you can do.
