One day I'm up, the next day I'm down. One day I'm indifferent about my marriage, and soon after I feel some hope. When I first started writing this blog, this was often the case. Now the see-saw effect is back.
Today is a hopeful day. Rob and I are just back from a meditation and yoga retreat where we truly enjoyed each other's company. I liked it when we withdrew to the safety of our room to share notes on the dharma talks and secret feelings about the sometimes overwhelmingly enthusiastic New Age devotees surrounding us.
We made our own little world within the little world of the center, and it was a bonding experience. There was giggling, and even a bit of cuddling. New territory. Or at least territory we haven't visited in some time.
That the focus of the retreat was lovingkindness meditation probably helped. (Duh.) The point of the weekend was to grow our capacity for mindfulness and compassion. If there are two ingredients more critical to the health of a relationship, I don't know what they are.
If my editor at First Wives World one day decides to decrease my word limit all the way down to one, no problem. I could still convey my feelings about my marriage. In a word: meh. Rob drinks too much — meh. We don't have sex — meh. Now Rob is turning things around — meh. Life ekes on, and it's hard for me to muster anything other than indifference over my lackluster marriage.
Indeed, sometimes I wonder if the only reaction my posts about my endless indecision elicit is a big "meh" from readers.
There was never a wife so wishy-washy. It's not without justification entirely — my husband was indifferent to my needs and feelings for the first few years of marriage — but it's embarrassing nonetheless. Some days I wonder what's wrong with me.
Speaking of personal growth, here we go. Rob and I are heading to the Kripalu Center in western Massachusetts for a weekend of yoga and meditation. While I wasn't willing to do a workshop specifically for couples, our time there will no doubt bring transformation of some sort. Everyone who goes comes back changed.
I'm already dreading it, which is weird, because I'm a yogi who usually welcomes the opportunity to study with new teachers. I love how the steadiness and equanimity cultivated on the yoga mat make meeting life's challenges off the mat easier, and how each teacher brings unique insight to that process.
But I have big resistance toward growth with Rob. I guess that's what I was getting at in my last post. If you can muster enough compassion and forgiveness for a difficult or mismatched partner to get over your most serious conflicts, does that mean you have rendered moot the reasons you should not be together, end of story?
Can you forgive your way out of marital strife and into martial bliss?
The husband I need showed up again a few times this week. Rob put forth a best faith effort in therapy, helped me prep the house and food for our annual fall party, and stuck to his drink limit through hours of festivities.
He has come far from the boyish drunkard who once frustrated me to the point of leaving. He deserves much credit. And yet the fewer our demons and the more even-keeled our relationship, the more it seems we are two really great friends who should probably call a spade a spade and look elsewhere for romance, intimacy, marriage.
I told our therapist last week that I don't think I can forgive him for the big things that first turned me away from wanting intimacy. He said I gained too much weight and was no longer attractive. He said my depression meant I'd never be a good mom. He secretly suspected he had an STD and counted on condoms preventing transmission to me, putting me at risk but keeping me in the dark.
I promised a report on my latest trip to upstate New York to take of my father who has Alzheimer's Disease, and the level of support Rob mustered around it. In a nutshell: Dad is much sicker, Rob is more supportive.
My father isn't the only one transformed by his disease. I'm enjoying spending time with him, the man who made my childhood miserable. And Rob is stepping up with phone calls to me while I'm away, flowers upon my return home, and the composure of a good listener and sincerely concerned friend.
Maybe being needed brings out the best in us.
My father's need opened my heart and allowed me to see things between him and me in a new way. I no longer resent his past mistakes or withhold my assistance.
Rob sees me sad over my father's messy decline, and he bolsters me up.
It's a ripple effect — the waves gently wash over our resistance, softening us toward each other.
There are moments when Rob is just the husband I need.
By September I had tuned out the rehashing of the campaign's policy stances and the reporting on insignificant campaign minutiae as if each detail was an important political development. I made up my mind months ago who I would be voting for. So had all of my friends. Who were these "undecided voters"?
In an October Daily Show skit Jason Jones and Samantha Bee scream at a focus group of them: "Obama wants to socialize healthcare, McCain wants to buy your house. Tax cuts for seniors, or tax cuts for the middle class? One uses a Sharpie, one uses a ballpoint pen. One's black, one's white. One's young, one's old!" Clearly, totally different.
Sam Bee finishes: "Why. Can't. YOU. DECIDE!"
It's comedy, not political analysis. But the point remains: It's not like they are similar. They are nothing alike. Why, then, the waffling?
I'm getting ready to leave for a few days...and dreading what this trip will do to our relationship. As I've mentioned previously, Rob doesn't do well when I leave him home. He drinks. But I didn't mention the lowest blow of all.
Last time I went away to take care of my father for a few days, we made it a topic of couples counseling. I was nervous about the potentially difficult days ahead, and our therapist felt we should figure out how Rob could support me during that time. We decided on a standing phone call every morning and evening.
Rob and I talked a few times that week, and the days passed quickly. I was relieved to get home, to see the guy whose phone calls had kept me sane and grounded. But it went like this:
It's midnight. I come into our apartment — after the seven-hour drive — laden with heavy bags. Rob is on the couch watching television, just a few feet away.
