Living in the trenches....Thread #5

[Navyguy]

Well, the roller coaster has continued over the last 2 weeks.

W went to visit a friend in Ohio over the weekend, I stayed home with the kids. From my last post until Friday, things had been really good with W. She was nice, fun to be around, initiating conversations, etc....

At times it felt, at least emotionally, like we were married.

Thursday night she had to do a speech for her class (she is taking online school so she has to record her speech in front of an audience). I got home from work and asked her if there was anything she needed help with before our friends came over...she said "the house needs to be vacuumed, and one of us needs to go pick up a couple things from the grocery store". I said "I can do both" and then did them. Her speech went really well and we had fun hanging out with our friends that came over to watch.

After everyone had left, I was cleaning up and W had gone out on the deck. When she came back in she said "oh, there you are, I was just about to send you this text because I thought you had gone to bed, but now I can read it to you".

W: "Hey, you still up? Just wanted to say thanks for sitting in on my speech, running to the store, and taking care of the kids during and after the speech. And making it possible for me to go see Friend in Ohio this weekend." After she read it she sent it to my phone as well.

I told her she's welcome and it was fun.

Later, we were sitting on the couch watching TV and W watched her speech on the laptop. She was making fun of herself and I told her that she really did great and patted her on the leg. She seemed to not have any problem with the pat and we continued to joke and have fun until I decided to go to bed.

When I got in bed, I decided to reply to her text with this:

M: "You're very welcome. Great job on your speech."

Then I fell asleep.

She was leaving to visit her friend in Ohio for the weekend on Friday morning. She got up and everything was good. She packed up and said goodbye to the kids...of course no hug or anything for me. After she left, I picked up my phone and noticed she had texted back after I had fallen asleep:

W: "Thanks...were you grabbing my leg on the couch?"

Then 20 minutes later:

W: "Not trying to put you on the spot, just asking out of my drunken stupor"

I thought on that for awhile, then decided to call her. I told her that I got her texts just that morning and I wanted to respond so she didn't think I had ignored her. I told her that I patted her on the leg a couple times when we were watching her speech. She said that it wasn't a problem, and she had texted the question because remembered something touching her leg and she wanted to figure out what it was.

That didn't really make sense to me, but she seemed happy so I went along with it. We then had some more light chit-chat and got off the phone. She spent the weekend with her friend in Ohio (this is the recently D'd friend) and I'm sure they had a good time.

W got back on Sunday. When she got back, her attitude had changed. It was back to the short/one-word answers and not initiating any conversation. I had a soccer game late Sunday night and when I got home W had gone to bed. No big deal.

Then yesterday came around. W had mentioned to me that her A/C in her car stopped working on her drive back from Ohio, so I came home early from work to check it out and take her car to the dealership.

When I got home, W was sitting on the couch reading her school book. I was walking with a limp because I hurt my leg at soccer the previous night. I mentioned to W that I hope my leg is just a bruise, and she didn't reply. Then I told her I was going to take her car in. No "thank you", just "ok". I was in a pretty crappy mood because I was really tired from the late soccer game and because my leg hurt. I think she picked up on my crappy mood but thought it was in response to her.

Things went ok through dinner, and then we put the kids to bed. After that, W went outside and I went out to talk to her about her parents' upcoming visit, as I am trying to plan out the next few weeks so I can take some time off from work. When I asked about her parents' visit, it was a lot of "I" am planning to do this and that. No "we's". Almost like she's trying to keep me away from them. (She still hasn't told them what's going on with us). I have no idea what our sleeping arrangements are going to be when they are here. The last couple days they are here W is planning on going up to Pittsburgh with them (once again, "I" am taking them), so I asked if I needed to take that day off. She said yeah, that would be good. Then, as I was saying something she said her stomach hurt and went inside to the bathroom.

Anyways, throughout this entire conversation, I felt like I was talking to a brick wall, and when she got up and left, I was pretty upset, so I decided I needed to go cool off a bit. My car needed gas and we needed some flour and milk so I went out to take care of that...I didn't tell W that I was leaving.

While I was out, I get this text from W:

"Where's the fire? You took off?"

When I got home I went downstairs to put the milk in our extra fridge and W was laying in bed. I told her that I went out to get gas and milk and flour. She said "oh, ok". Then I asked her if she was mad. She said "no, just stressed from school and my stomach was hurting". I asked her why she sent that text. She said it was because I left without telling her. I said "I had to get gas so I could go to work tomorrow and while I was out I figured I'd stop by the grocery store while I was out. I didn't know when you were going to be out of the bathroom, so I just went".

Then I asked her if her stomach was feeling better, she said it still hurts. So I offered to get her some tums. She said she'd try them, so I went and got them. I brought them down and got her some water. Then I asked if she needed anything else. She said no, so I said good night.

Same deal today. Lots of one-word answers this morning. She is definitely in pull-back mode after a couple weeks of lots of positives. This pull-back is hitting me harder than the past few have...I feel closer to my breaking point than I have in a long time. I guess I was hoping things would pick up where they left off (or better) before her weekend away.

To paraphrase a famous Navy quote..."Damn the hopes and expectations, full speed ahead".