Spoiler Alert
This is going to be a very depressing post. If you don’t think you can handle it, please move on for your own sake. For those who know me, don’t contact the suicide prevention line. I’ll be fine. I believe suicide hurts those left behind more than the one who committed suicide, and I would never do that to my family. I’m just trying to decide how to best spend my remaining time.
I've also got an appointment with my therapist this week to hash through these things.
I’m still really in a funk about my wife’s comment last week about my CDing. She asked, “Why didn't you tell me before we got married? I’m not sure what I would have done.”
A few years ago something like this would have had me ready to go off the deep end. But now, I’m confident enough in myself that it doesn't shake me up very much. I know I’m not a bad person, and I’m not doing bad things.
This really cut me to the core. It’s probably the worst thing she ever said to me. It’s as if everything else I've ever done since we started dating (almost 40 years ago) is invalidated (repudiated) by this one thing. I've been a good husband, a good provider and a good father. I've done girl things with my daughter (played with her Barbie’s) and boy things with her (playing T-Ball and taking her to air shows). I've never cheated on my wife, not even a stolen intimate kiss. I've never hit her (or my daughter). I've supported her when she wanted to work, and I've supported her when she didn't want to work. I've been with her “in sickness and in health”.
And it’s all repudiated by this one thing. And it’s just clothes, isn't it? Well, clothes, wigs, forms and makeup...
And she tore me down to the base level. So if this marriage was a sham for her, maybe it was a sham for me also. We’re more like roommates now, not so much husband and wife. She doesn't even sleep in the same bed with me (her choice). Why are we still married? There are three reasons. One is inertia. Our marriage is not so good that I want to stay in it, but not so bad that I want to leave it. Two is money. Both of us would have to lower our standard of living if we lived apart, and I couldn't retire any time soon. (She’s not working now.) Three is medical issues. We’re both having some medical issues, but right now, hers are more severe than mine. I don’t really want to leave her when she really needs me. Also, I've recently been diagnosed with an untreatable disease, which is progressive. It may kill me eventually, it might only disable me, or I might dodge the bullet. Everyone is different. One of her dad’s friends is dying ALONE, and it’s not a quick process. He’s had these medical problems for a couple of years, and maybe still has a year or two to go. It must be terrible to die alone.
All that being said, with limits on my CDing, good time few and far between and being criticized all the time, I may have reached the tipping point.