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Hi Steve,

Happy Hump Day to you.  Is that album done yet?!!  (Nag nag nag).  I only do it cuz I love ya.

So my former coworker at the Museum told me today that there is a memorial service being held for my friend Mike next Thursday, and I mentioned it to Pete this morning---inferring that I would like us BOTH to go---and he said, "Well, we do have two cars if YOU want to go."  I don't know if he was just saying, "I don't WANT to go with you," or maybe he didn't quite get that I was inferring that I'd like him to go with me.  If one of HIS friends died, and he was invited to their memorial service, he would automatically ASSUME that I'd come too.  So, was he saying that he has no interest in going with me, KNOWING how important it is to me??

If so, then maybe when his mom dies, I will have other plans that day.

He's been rather cold to me the last few days.  Perhaps he reads this blog and saw that I'm upset and feel like he doesn't understand me.  Perhaps he saw that I'm in the mood to pack a suitcase and leave.  Well, it's not the first time I've felt that way, and it certainly won't be the last I'm sure.  But like I told his mother yesterday, "He's STUCK with me, 'til death do we part," and buddy, I meant that.  I ain't gonna be miserable all by myself in this marriage, hell no.  If he doesn't help work at it, then it'll just fizzle and get ugly, (like his other two did), but honey, I ain't goin' NOWHERE.  Oh sure, I might VENTURE, no doubt about that.  But I will not be divorcing.  Nope.  We may not live together anymore, we may not have a life together, but there will BE no divorce on my end.  I refuse.

He would be wise not to go there with me, because I've learned what the other 2 wives did, and I COULD be even worse than they were, if I put my mind to it.  I'd just rather not go there at all if I can help it.  I wouldn't like me much, but if there's no choice in the matter, I would resign myself to it.

Yesterday on the phone, I was suggesting that we get this M-W-F nurse to come in every weekday for 3 hours, to increase the time spent with his mom, because now she will no longer have physical therapy on Tues/Thurs each week like before, and will need something or someone to occupy her time.  He snarled and said, "Yeah so that way YOU won't have ANY responsibilities anymore."

I was instantly pissed.  How DARE he say such a thing to me.  Was he talkin' to his two EX-wives??

Obviously he doesn't even know ME at all and has no motivation to even TRY to know me.  I've had two jobs ALL MY LIFE, I've worked 12-15 hour days for MOST of my life, I am NOT lazy!!   I have worked harder than most women EVER WOULD to take care of HIS mother for over 3 years!!  Even hinting at me "not having responsibilities" is so totally offensive.

I told him I am NOT the type of woman or wife who sits around eating BON-BON's all day long, doing NOTHING. HE SHOULD KNOW THAT.  I simply RUN OUT OF IDEAS AND ENERGY to try and keep his mother entertained 24/7 like she seems to need.  Who the hell does he think cleans this house, takes care of all the laundry, does all the cooking and grocery shopping, and dealing with the two mom's all the damned time?  Is he REALLY that OBTUSE???

What a fucking jerk.

So I told him he hurt my feelings, but he didn't even say he was sorry for that comment.  What he said was, "Well, that's how it comes across sometimes."  But ya know what?  HE comes across as being a totally selfish, insincere, unfeeling and cold ASSHOLE when he says things like that to ME.

Maybe his momma didn't tech him any manners, but I was always taught that if somebody TELLS YOU that you've hurt their feelings, and you didn't actually MEAN to, isn't it customary, and common courtesy, to simply say, "Oh, I'm sorry, that was not how I intended it, I apologize"...?

He didn't.  So how does he think that makes me feel?  Does he even CARE how I feel?

I mean, I could question why it has taken him 3 years of knowing I'm miserable taking care of his mother---after promising me it would only be "for a short time"----to finally discuss the next steps that need to happen for her, without ME.  Three long years of knowing that I am overwhelmed, stressed out, exhausted, scared, and completely hating this role of caregiver, and yet he does nothing about it.

He doesn't seem to "love me" like he claims to, or it wouldn't have taken him this long to HEAR me.
If I'm not being heard, and I'm not being understood, and I'm not being loved, then why am I here??

Something is definitely going on in the cosmos lately.  A big life change is coming, I can feel it.  Whether it's the death of his mother, or a big promotion for him to move to San Francisco, or me to leave and return to DC to get my job back at the Museum, I don't know.  Something is definitely going on though, it's so electric, (the energy I mean), that it's almost tangible.  I don't know if anybody else can feel it around here or not, but I definitely feel something is happening.  Some kind of shift in the universe, leading to a change that is on the horizon.

I don't know how I know that, but I always have had this ability to sense when something is going to happen or change soon...so, I just go with it.  No point in questioning it.  It is what it is.

Next Thursday, every person I knew at the Museum will be at Mike's memorial service and reception.  Everybody.  The volunteers, I'm sure Nesse and Manya and all the others who knew him, will be there.  I would like them to meet my husband.  I would like HIM to meet THEM.  Maybe then he would have a smidgen of understanding of how deep these friendships really are in my life, maybe then he would see just how REALLY LOVED I was by all of them when I was there.  Maybe THEN he would get me.

I live in a place where I have no friends.  I live in a house with 2 mothers, NOBODY my own age to talk to, and nobody to go and do fun things with.  He never wants to do the things I'd like to do.  I don't think he quite understands just how LONELY I feel here, and have felt here, since day one.  He's got HIS friends, he can go out with THEM and have lunch with THEM anytime he wants to, but I've got NOTHING.  I have no social life.  My friends are in DC, at that Museum, and in Michigan.

But, if he's not willing to go with me, or even TRY, then I guess there's not much I can do about it.

The bottom line is, I'm no good at this.  I'm a failure at domesticity, and at caregiving.  I have been trying to accept that about myself, and not feel like such a loser about it, for 3 years.  I haven't had much support or encouragement about it from Pete though, and that's the thing that confuses me.  Even if I'm in the middle of a meltdown, he just hugs me, let's me cry, and says very little or nothing at all.  I get no pep talk, I get no "you're doing the best you can, and I appreciate it," I get very little comfort and it hurts me.

On occasion, he has said that "he's glad I'm here."  Well, isn't that nice.  That makes one of us.

Yeah, this life is really not the life I had in mind for myself at all. I am sick and tired of trying to be something I'm not, of being forced into some kind of role that I never wanted in the first place.  It doesn't WORK for me, and after years of saying that, nobody seems to give a shit.  Why would I keep trying? What is the incentive?  What do I get out of it, except misery and loneliness, and sadness and stress??

Maybe the cosmos is saying, it's time to get MY life back, and leave his.  We shall see.

Love, Rebecca