We spent Christmas together. It wasn't all bliss. It wasn't even very Christmasy, with my decorations buried in storage, living in temporary housing. It just wasn't like Christmas at home.

All fury broke loose over the dog's missing medications. It didn't seem strange to me to think that my H had put them away someplace safe. As it is, he makes me keep one bottle out that I use every day, and a second "back up" bottle elsewhere, in case something happens (i.e. I screw up and lose them) to the every-day bottle. So why wouldn't I think that the new batch of pills is just in one of his safe (i.e. away from me) places. He thought this was a monumental breakdown in communication and common sense that I wouldn't mention to him that I didn't know where the new pills were at. He also insisted that I must have done something since I unpacked and seperated the seemingly sacred "dog box" when we moved. All I can say is that he showed me one of the pills one day, and that I never saw the bottle again. We opened nearly every box in storage looking for them, while he alternated between bawling me out and occassional self-doubt, and I alternated between defensiveness and trying to get him to accept that the pills were just misplaced and it's not the end of the world. (It's a major pain to get the pills and possibly the pills are irreplaceable, because our dog is only compatible with a particular medication that is going to be discontinued, but it's not the end of the world.) At any rate, we ground our teeth about it for about a week, and when he got back to KC, sure enough he had taken them back there with him. Of course, then he was very worried that he's losing his mind. I reminded him that the move has been very confusing, and that the important thing is that he did put the pills in a safe place so that the dog has his medication. I also reminded him that he did yell at me alot about what I must have done with the pills, and he apologized for that, which I appreciated.

We talked about D again on the last day he was here. He's all into how incompatible we are, and I had to be frank that in retrospect I wasn't so sure that it was smart of us to not go through with the D. I also don't think that now, in the middle of all of this mayhem -- living in two cities, renovating the house, trying to achieve a move --is not the time to make a decision on divorcing. He disagrees, saying that the difficulties we are having in being happy with the relationship at this time, just underscores how we are not "on the same page." I can't imagine how we're supposed to be on the same page, when we're not even in the same city. For all intents and purposes he has his mission, his social life, his daily activities... and I have mine. How could we possibly see eye-to-eye, when we don't really know what the other person is enduring every day? I openly admit that I don't fathom exactly how hard it is to inspire himself to get out of bed every day, drive to an empty house and work alone on a seemingly endless project. Perhaps in some romantic movie a man might be so head-over-heels in love that he would walk through fire every day to be with the woman he loves, but for whatever reason (lack of love or lack of romantic idealism or pure dread that he may have to come live with me) he doesn't feel inspired to kick the project into high gear. For my part, I'm impatiently biding my time, waiting for my husband to come out here so we can have an actual marriage, shared activities, a home that we both pick, friends that we meet together. Besides, we've already tried having him fit in with my friends and my interests and it was a total disaster. He can't stand most of my friends and he absolutely despises everything I find most intersting. Fortunately, I'm a curious person, so I can actually take an interest in his interests.

He's all wound up that I'm only learning to ski because of him. When I say that I enjoy it, he says I don't enjoy it so much that I'd do it if it weren't for him. So that's true, but then he says that I am good for him because I push him to go outside of his comfort zone and meet new people and do new things that actually turn out to be fun for him. And how is that different than me learning to ski. Ha! I won that round.

I had to concede the round in which he said that we simply don't agree on having children. I told him quite frankly that it may be that having children may be more important to me than having him. Realistically, though, I'm almost 40 so even if he does divorce me the chances of me finding a suitable father and bearing a child are increasingly slim. So his idea of being noble and letting me go find some suitable and willing father of my children is little more than a fine, but futile gesture.

Ultimately, H said that he doesn't want a D, which suprised and touched me. (I always imagine he has one foot out the door.) And as much as I have grown to think that it may be a practical alternative, I made a vow for life and keeping the integrity of that vow is sacred to me. I concluded that the only solution left was to figure out how to be happy with the life we have.

Another thing that rather surprised me was that H actually gave real consideration to my proposal that perhaps he didn't think he was worthy of me. Fundamentally H thinks he's a bad person (heck, it's the first thing his father said to me when I met my then-to-be future in-laws)and he thinks I'm a nice person (too nice). Probably even more significant to him is that during his military career he really accepted the idea that he was expendable... that it is his job to sacrifice for others, but not to receive himself. I thought the idea in the military was more like sacrificing for one another and depending upon one another... well his tough luck to have me in love with him, because that's how it works in my military. In the end it was a pretty good talk, especially since it didn't end with us getting divorced... though I probably expressed some doubts that I shouldn't have expressed. I would have been devastated if he'd said those things to me, I don't understand how he took it so well. Buona notte! --z

"A man's character is his fate." -- Heraclitus