Last things first again...
Re. My family - This has been a major topic of discussion at both my marriage counseling and personal counseling. It has been determined that a large source of the stress in my life comes from them - this is a result of me being the person EVERYONE (all three siblings and both parents) calls whenever there's an issue in the family or just in general with them. Not sure how I came to fill this role, but alas - it is what it is and I need to find a way to cope with it because at the moment, all I feel is annoyed every time I see I'm getting a phone call from any one of those family members. I think it has reached this point because of the inordinate amount of time I have been spending with "the family" over the past couple of weeks since my little sister's wedding back on April 24th. It's been every single week since the week before the wedding - if it wasn't prepping for the wedding, it was the wedding itself, the brunch on that Sunday after the wedding, spending a weekend with the older sister and her husband in D.C., celebrating my grandparents anniversary in Frederick, MD (a 6 hour round trip drive made all in one day to enjoy 25 people eating and arguing with one another), to helping my brother move into his new house. On top of all that I've got to deal with my mother constantly calling me - 5/6 times in a row until she can get a hold of me and NOW she knows how to text!!! Having all this family stuff and now my utter annoyance and frustration with it has hampered my ability to cope and work through what I'm really supposed to be focusing on - good job to me for choosing such a bad time to go through things! BUT - good news is, after talking to the marriage counselor this past week I've determined that I need to cut them out - at least temporarily - which I will be doing - I didn't see them this past weekend and I'm leaving for Africa for work on this upcoming Friday and I'll be there for another three full weekends - so that'll give me approximately a month with limited to no contact with them. And regarding the calls from my mother - the counselor said... and I quote: "Normally this is something I would say to a parent about a mis-behaving child, but instead the roles are reversed. Your mother is acting this way (with the multiple phone calls - repeated over and over until someone answers) because it gets her what she wants. What you need to do, and you need to do it consistently, is not answer the phone. Don't give her what she wants." I tried it out - and surprisingly it's working. I proved that it's working because yesterday on my way back home from the holiday weekend I answered my mother's phone call, whereas previously should would call and I'd roll her over to voicemail and she wouldn't call again - if she did, she was rolled over to voicemail again. BIG mistake answering the phone because not only did I get an earfull about how I need to email her everyday when I'm in Africa, but she also called me another three times in a two hour period!! I'm thinking I might have to tell my mother to back off because I'm not able to focus on my husband's and my relationship - only thing is I'm not quite sure how to do this without hurting her feelings because the last time I asked for space she started to cry.
Re. the emailing her everyday when I'm in Africa - I told her that I didn't need to hear any pressure from her about contacting them because I was going to be in remote locations in Africa and I couldn't guarantee that I'd even have internet access. I told her I'd have an international phone, but I couldn't guarantee that I would be in an area where I could get service. She said, well you should at least have an 800 number where you can make a call - I told her I won't be staying in hotels because there are no hotels where I will be staying. I will be staying on compounds and guest houses and sometimes even someone's actual home!! She said she would need to be able to contact me because my grandmother is in really poor shape and my grandfather wasn't doing so well either and if they died, then I'd have to get on the plane and come home immediately. I told her again, I would do the best I could - but she needed to keep in mind that it's taking me at least two and a half days to get to where I'm going. It's just very frustrating to me - she continues to tell me that I shouldn't say it's going to be fun or that it's going to be an adventure - she says I'm going to hate it and it's going to be an eye-opener. Ugh - now I'm just venting. No matter what she tells me - it won't make it true - these are things that I'm excited about and I won't let her impact that. And I'm really sorry to say, that if my grandparents do suffer some sort of fatality, I will do everything in my power to get home - but I can't stress out about having to possibly schedule a flight home for a "what if." All I can do is hope that something of the sort won't happen while I'm out of the country.
Ok - moving on from the family discussion and onto the larger matter at hand - my relationship with my husband. I'm still living in the apartment and we have set a time-line of three months at which point I am to have my decision. The marriage counselor did state though that if I felt I was getting extremely close to making a final decision, that we could extend that three-month window slightly. I'm currently feeling as though that three-month window might need to be extended slightly just given the above issues I have been slapped in the face with while also trying to deal with this. I am struggling to determine how I feel about my husband - do I love him? Am I in love with him? Sometimes I say I am - yesterday I let an "I love you" slip from my lips while I was giving him a hug goodbye - I spent the weekend with him and his family (not such a bad thing because it wasn't a constant one-on-one with him - there were a number of other couples and people down there that I interacted with). I had a relatively good time and wasn't angry at him too much - wondering if the family thing is assisting in creating that anger with him?
He has also tried to "fix" some of the things that have really bothered me in the past - i.e. his "who cares - not me" attitude where he would just come home and sit on the couch, surf the internet and watch tv - he now has multiple projects he's working on; his inability to just listen instead of telling me what I should be doing and then getting frustrated with me when I don't do what he has suggested; him not pressuring me into doing things and ultimately guilting me into doing them because he knows I don't want him to be upset at me; him trying to be healthier - lose some of the 70 pounds he's put on since we started dating, eating healthier, being active, etc. (please don't read that as me being superficial - I just believe in at least trying to live a healthy lifestyle by eating right and staying active - I understand it's natural for it to be more difficult to keep off the extra pounds as we get older). These "fixes" are wonderful and it definitely gives me something to think about - but then again, they're confusing because it makes me wonder if I decide to stay with him, will he revert back to the old ways?
Other things I'm thinking about as I go through this process: I think about all the times we have spent together - these are good things for me to do as they help me remember why I fell in love with him; I think about being alone - going through the divorce process - the pain and emotions that could be involved with that (do I really want to do that??); I think about starting over with dating and falling in love and finding someone that has my same interests and desires out of life (how do you even go about doing that??);
*** break ***
my mother is calling my office line for the second time today. I didn't answer.
I think about this other guy that I've befriended and about how it
is possible for me to meet people; I think about the nights I've spent alone in my apartment and how I've laughed at TV shows, enjoyed that time doing what I want to do, and I've thought about whether or not that's something I want to have more than having that time with my husband; I've thought about how he is still one of the first people I call when I'm upset and frustrated about something with my family... that is if I call anyone at all - more recently I've just been working out and dealing with the stress from that in that manner; I've thought about my parents, my siblings, my husband's parents, my husband's brother and how they will take everything if I ultimately decide to get a divorce; I've thought about the vegetables in the garden behind our house that my husband is growing and how I will no longer have access to those (pidly, I know...); I've thought about who I would take vacations with if I were no longer married; I've thought about life after marriage and how people view those that are divorced.
This is such a heafty decision and I don't really feel like I'm anywhere close to having made a decision.
*** break *** I just called my mother back. My grandmother can no longer walk up the stairs. They believe she's had a stroke or that her cancer has gone to her brain because she is now incontinent, the woman helping her could barely get her dressed, she's confused, can barely keep her eyes open, they didn't want to do kemo on her today because of her current condition, they're sending her in for a CAT scan tomorrow. My mother started crying on the phone. I feel like I'm the one having to keep them up - I told her it would be okay, one way or the other, because she's lived a full life - she has three wonderful children, all married, they have grandchildren and their own children. She's traveled the world and left so much happiness and joy behind her that she will never be forgotten and always treasured.
Again - I think to myself - what horrible timing. Good thing I still haven't told anyone in my family that I've moved out - I think they might die if they got anymore news of that sort... Back to thinking - putting away what I cannot control and moving onto what I can.
