Can't sleep again and been thinking about how difficult H has always been. I remember when we were dating, the amount of red flags I got about his mood swings and his constant need to fight and create adversity when there's none. Most of our fights are about nothing.
They start about something silly, that has no relevance and escalate into something serious, then it gets dragged on until we are both depleted: me from trying to reason with him and him from withdrawing while I talk.
Example: when we were dating, he often would come to my house in Friday nights in a bad mood because he hated his job (he has yet to have a job within the marine corps that he enjoys -- never heard him say, I love what I do). I always knew to let him sleep in on Saturday because then he'd be in a better mood.
Well, one Saturday came and I woke up early (I started my work at 5:45am, so I was up pretty early on the weekends too) and decide to get on the computer because the tv would make noise.
H woke up a little later to use the restroom and gave me the stink eye. Immediately I thought, uh oh, what now?
He started fighting with me that I was always on the computer. I tried explaining I was on it only because he was asleep and the tv would wake him up. I closed the laptop, apologized and grabbed a book instead. Told him to go back to sleep. He didn't. He lingered on, still saying I was always on the computer and slowly sat down in front of it. Then he opened it and started surfing the net. I realized then why he picked the fight: HE wanted the computer (he never brought his). I pointed it out and he just withdrew more and more and got in a worse mood. Finally, he said he didn't love me anymore, that we should break up.
A few days later, everything was fine.
This happened so many times in our relationship that I lost count. A friend of mine took me out to dinner, a few days before my wedding and said, "don't marry him. Please don't. You will end up in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of children and without a job, and he will decide to leave you for no reason."
I didn't listen to that friend. I didn't pay attention to the red flags.
The biggest red flag was when he broke up with me because he thought I was too overweight and unhealthy. I was 123lbs and my waist was 25 inches. I wanted to lose another 5lbs and talked a lot about it, so he used it against me when he was pissed about something else (that weekend he saw his ex wife with a new baby).
During this deployment I kept saying, "now, don't go getting to close to a female friend, because that can lead to an affair and if you have one, don't bother coming home." I basically gave him a perfect script on how to sabotage our relationship this time around.
My question is: why did I get into this relationship? Why do I keep pushing to stay together when it's so hard and so challenging? Why do I accept living while walking on eggshells?
H's ex wife says she is happier now without him. I still love him dearly, but I can understand why.
