I did see H tonight. He is sick again, and I tried to make some polite chit-chat and get out some pain killers and stuff for him on the principle that that's what I'd do if a neighbour turned up under the weather. He was very remote - he almost always is - but it just struck me as different this time. Not that he was being different, but that I felt differently about it.
I was chatting to him about a book I'd read and he was grunting and yes, he's tired and ill and ambivalent about lots of things, and stressed, and blah blah blah - but you'd make more effort in polite conversation with a stranger on the bus. And he has been like that for a long time. It's driven me crazy. He has felt for a long time like a locked cupboard I have been banging on the door of. And now I don't feel like banging on the door, I was just trying to be kind and polite and keep things cordial. And I had the weirdest sense that perhaps it isn't that he is with-holding himself from me, and has been all these years, but it's just that there's nothing much there.
He doesn't really have friends or hobbies or interests. We can talk about the kids. He will listen to me chatter on if he is in a good mood, and will roll his eyes and otherwise humiliate me into shutting up if he's not in a good mood. But he doesn't really offer much of himself - I only know his opinions about things when he offers criticism or a complaint about something. He's always been pretty much impossible to buy presents for because I don't really know about anything that gives him pleasure. That could be my short coming as a wife - that will be part of it - but even when I sit and think hard about what it is the man actually likes or enjoys, I couldn't come up with anything. It felt like a bit of an epiphany to me. It is very very hard to be married to a man when there isn't actually much of a man there to be married to.
Things have been peaceful between us these past couple of weeks because I've been much less interested in getting behind that cupboard door. He sends a faintly affectionate text message most nights before he goes to sleep, and he seems to like me listen to him complain about his work and his health and how hard things are for him at the moment when he comes to see the kids. He is making a bit more effort with the kids and I do appreciate that for their sake. He will ask my how my day went or what I've been up to, but it's like the lights are on but nobody is actually home. It's a bit perfunctory on both our parts. I validate or stay silent, depending on my emotional resources.
This is strange and sad in lots of ways. I don't feel angry but I do feel tired. I have been ambivalent about my marriage and my feelings towards this man for such a long time. I am ready to move into something else now - a commitment to repairing or ending the relationship. I want to be on some solid ground and I don't think hanging on and hoping he turns into someone I can have a happy marriage with is what I want to do. I think I am on the brink of letting him go entirely. If he wants to keep me, he is going to have to step up and do something and do it fast and I am pretty sure that isn't going to happen - he isn't capable of it. There's nothing at all I am able or willing to do that would make him capable of it. The last time we spoke about divorce was back in February. He said he didn't have time to deal with it. He doesn't really seem to have the energy or interest or desire to deal with anything at all in his life, and work is a nice place for him to hide. But I'm more than capable of taking things forward in that way myself, if I want to.
