The hole in my chest is still there. A little bit of reasoning did sneak in yesterday evening when I was thinking about men in high stress jobs, especially the military, needing to decompress when they got home. Meaning they needed time to be left alone with no pressure to do or say anything. I can see how H would be pulled to his parents house where he can go lay up in his old room all day long without anyone so much as asking him if he wants to eat, instead of to my place where there are issues at hand. I certainly wasn't plannin on jumping him with stuff right away. I was planning to give him the first 2 and a half weeks to see if HE would bring up future/R talks. But, I suppose he didn't know that. I don't have a history of brining stuff, up. Just the opposite. But, H is so conflict averse it puts me to shame.
So I can see some reasoning there. And as much as I just want to scream that H puts S4 and I way behind his "first" family because he's incapable of growth...if I'm being coldly objective, I don't think that's really true. I think it's more a case of H just wanting a place that he knows and is completely comfortable in that he can crawl into a little hole, come out to eat or drink anything he wants, anytime he wants, and have absolutely no requests made of him. Of course, H doesn't know that I wanted to give him this (at least for a few days) at "our" house. But, given our history, and the fact that he didn't grow up in "our" house, I can't compete with his first home.
That being said...it still hurts like hell that he's not eager enough to see S4 and I that he wouldn't ignore all that and come to where we are right away. It hurts that I've been waiting for 9 months to see him again for the prescious little time he has for leave and he's going to waste days of it, maybe even a week or more of it, 8 hours away from S4 and I.
But, what do I do now? How do I act? I still haven't figured it out. I do want to see him so bad. But, I'm so scared that he's going to be like that alien who left me up in AK. And it could be sweet vengence to tell him to get S4 and go back to his parents because I won't be treated like a second class W. I don't know. That would also be very painful as soon as he and S4 left.
The way I figure it, there really aren't many do or die situations in our lives (unless we're in war). I'm pretty sure that if I'm not going to be moving to H's next duty station, I want to go back to the west coast to SETTLE. I like moving around, but it's put me so far behind in a career and the ability to support myself and S4, in the event that H doesn't come through. So, if it doesn't seem like I can depend on H to help keep us together as a family, my next move needs to be to a place I plan to get serious about and invest 20 years in.
So about the do or die thing...H may not give me an answer about his plans for us during his leave, even though he said we would have the talk. But, I am not likely to get a job on the west coast immediately either. It will be a long process, hopefully not too much longer than a year, and I might as well admit that if anytime during that year H gets stationed somewhere and asks me to come, I would have a hard time saying no. So, I plan to inform H that I would prefer to be with him, but if he can't commit to doing everything he can to make sure we're together, I am going to start looking for work out west. I want to do this in as nonthreatening a way as I can muster, during his leave. I hope I can make it clear that my first choice is to be with him. But, he never seems to take that part to heart.
I wouldn't be suprised if he isn't acting this way because he's threatened by me talking "career" again. That's been an issue for him since I left the service. He thinks that if I pursue a career I can't be with him (while he's in the service). Never mind that other people in the service have spouses with careers, or that the career I really want is freelance and could follow him to any coastal area. He wouldn't hear it. I am too "ambitious" and put career ahead of my family. Talk about the kettle calling pot black. But, no matter what I said, that was the way he saw it. Maybe when I emailed him the address to my website with my resume on it and told him I was applying for a job (even though I didn't have chance to get it) he got threatened again.
If this is going to be one of those arguements that lasts the entire marriage, I don't know how we can manage to stay together no matter where we live. He's just going to keep leaving because I'm just going to keep being "too ambitious."
I think you may be on to something. Trying to look at things from his viewpoint a lot of what I am reading here sounds like PRESSURE. That is not to say he should not be stepping up and handling the pressure, but he may not be capable of it at this point.
One thing that I have always felt a little disgruntled about is that we had to go trough all sorts of evaluations when H was getting ready to go isolated. Our finances were looked at, we were evaluated as a couple, I was evaluated (can't have the spouse going wacko, while H is away, that might impact the mission! {insert rolling eyes here} ) and so on, but after him being isolated there was not one thing done to ease his transition back in to family (normal) life.
sorry, I don't have a lot of time today to clarify my thoughts. But what I am trying to say is that your H will not always be in the billet he is in now. Maybe you will have to buck up and live through another year or so of coaxing him back into family life, if you choose that it is worth it.
I hope this makes some sort of sense. If not I will come back and try to do better later.
Me 54 DS19 and DS17 Married 06/1989 Divorced 01/2011
And I didn't know they did that family evaluation thing...I wonder if they would do that to our family if H does ask to go isolated again. We would never pass. So, my guess is they wouldn't even evaluate. Needs of the service come first.
okay I have a little more time now, I will try to be more articulate.
You are right, they would probably just waive that because he is already Geo. It wa sa joke anyway, they don't really look for anything and would probably over look it if they did find a problem.
I guess my point from earlier is that I could see once your H got to spend some time with S4 and you at his parents like before that he might again come around, but only if handeled with kidd gloves.
Can you pursue your dreams of a career without giving him the if/or question? What if you actually got some interest from the west coast before you had to bring that into the equation?
Me 54 DS19 and DS17 Married 06/1989 Divorced 01/2011
Quote: wa sa joke anyway, they don't really look for anything and would probably over look it if they did find a problem.
Not remotely suprising.
Quote: Can you pursue your dreams of a career without giving him the if/or question? What if you actually got some interest from the west coast before you had to bring that into the equation?
Yes, I could make sure not to mention any other applications I've put out. Although he already knows that I have been working on my resume and applied for that one job. I used it as an opportunity to DB and ask for his advice and show him that "one-downmanship" the DB counselor recommended. That worked great in the past. But I think H's other issues are too heavy right now.
The problem is he already got wind that I'm looking and I think he's back to assuming I am choosing career over M. He is a black or white kind of thinker. I want to clarify that I would prefer to go wherever he goes. It seems to me that I've said that before. And doesn't me still being here SHOW that too. Maybe not, I don't know.
When H did bring up a breif talk about where he might get stationed next I said that if he was going off to isolated duty again I wasn't staying in this town for that tour. His voice got a high and he said "what?" I didn't mean to threaten him, I just didn't want him to think that I was content to stay in the town I'm in for another of his tours. But, in retrospect I can see how he probably took it as a threat. And he responds to threats by acting as if he couldn't care less about our M, so it doesn't look like he could be hurt.
Isn't it infuriating when you realize months later that one little thing that you said possibly threw everything into a tailspin with out you even knowing it was happening!
Me 54 DS19 and DS17 Married 06/1989 Divorced 01/2011
