The good news is that my wife feels quite connected with me during the past several weeks. As well, she is happy with how I supported her this week during her surgery and cosmetic procedures. But talking about it, what was obvious was that she was happy that I could drive her places, keep our daughters' routines going smoothly, and didn't complain about her needing extra sleep or needing time t do nothing but recover. More "good news" was that she revised her judgment of how supportive I had been when she was sick some years ago. Now she feels I was as helpful as I could be.
This leaves gaping holes of bad news. Especially upsetting was that she has revised her opinions about my support during her fight with cancer by lowering the bar on her expectations of what I am capable of. Never tell me you expect less of me! I have high expectations of myself, and hate hearing that someone else doesn't.
We also talked about traveling the world when we are older, something my wife looks forward to and I don't. And while she feels well connected to me lately, she doesn't want to ask me how I feel because she finds it discouraging. (I don't feel connected to her at all, on most days, so its good she didn't ask). And then it was off to the marriage counselor's office.
Our session was animated, as we spent a lot of time talking about our oldest daughter and how we handled a recent poor grade. My wife became upset that we spent so much time talking about that, since we seem to be doing a good job with our daughter. But what emerged, over and over again, is how different my wife and I are. In almost everything..... Really really different. And how much work keeping our marriage together has suddenly turned into. And will probably always be.
It is sometimes easy to get discouraged when realizing the difficulties we face in our marriage. We both have prioritized our children, at the expense of our marriage, for 12 years now. As a result, we find ourselves as two strangers sharing a house and children. And we share little else in terms of interests or approaches. Very discouraging.
But I sometimes take heart in knowing that many others are in the same boat. Mostly through reading a handful of blogs, I know I am not alone. And that some are in less-healthy relationships than I. Or so it seems.
