Saturday was a great summer day, we went to a friend's place and swam in the pool. My girls can stay in the water all day it seems. The W came, but didn't swim because she did her hair. Later she went flying, we ate dinner, then she came back from flying and ate with us. Overall, a nice day.
That night, after the girls were in bed, my W was lying in bed and I came in and she says she has work to do, and could I get her the laptop. Instead I lied down next to her. I realize this is what the author if Married Man Sex Life calls a fitness test. She could just as easily go into the other room as me to get the laptop, and she is consciously or not exercising power by asking me to run this errand. Anyway, I didn't get the laptop, and she says I guess I won't work.
We then had a long conversation where she did most of the talking, and I validated or said nothing. She started talking about our girls, women being driven and having a mission in life, and then on her life. My W is unhappy with her current job, which most people would say is a great job with $$ and benefits. Also, it was her dream job when she started it 6 months ago. My W's history revisions involves her always wanting to be a doctor and never "having the balls to just do it." Now she worries it is too late. I was good at validating, but I slipped up once because this is just not true. In fact, my W who is a Nurse always complained about nursing, and once wanted to go into languages instead, even applying to college to major in languages. She seems to have forgotten that she wanted to study and even did do languages about 15 years ago. Other than this slip, it was good to see what my W is thinking and how she feels. Essentially she feels that she didn't pursue things in her life and has not accomplished anything. I didn't argue with her and try to convince her that she did accomplish things because then that is not validating.
Well, on Sunday, we did errands and shopping. The W was in a mostly melancholy mood. Her moods do still affect me. In the evening I brought up again our conversation about college and pursuing a degree. I wanted to know if she remembered that she wanted to study languages. The reason is that she is acting nowadays as if her life dream was to be a doctor, and she wants to return to school to do this (and leave me with the 3 girls). She did remember, but of course not exactly as I do. 15 years ago, we were moving between states and she was going to go back to school to major in languages. But then, 'we' saw that she would be charged out-of-state tuition that was very expensive so 'we' decided that she would go to community college for a year and then transfer when she would be charged in-state tuition. Her memory is that she was going to go back to school, but then "I" said no. This made me feel very sad that I'm being blamed for this, and also I see her point of view. I don't fully agree with it, but I see her perspective. Also, she said that studying a language was her avoiding her dream of being a doctor (this I feel is complete revision!). The discussion became emotional, and I told her I'm sorry if I held her back. She said I'm not to blame, it was her who didn't pursue her dream. We both hugged for awhile.
Afterwards, our evening was uneventful. Put the girls to sleep and my W did yet more online shopping. Her excessive shopping has cut into our savings.
