Weary's Diary

[weary]

Thanks fifthsonata. I feel like I'm fucked no matter what I do. Can't handle the stress of staying. Can't handle the stress of leaving. Can't handle the stress of the unknown outcomes of either choice.

I love her very much. Even when I am really angry at her. And I know that she loves me and that she is a good person. Her intentions are good but her problems control her behavior and her life. And she feels like if she has good intentions and does the best that she can that is all that anyone can expect from her.

And there is a place where that twists me into emotional and logical knots. Because she will often say that she is worthless and stupid and unlovable and isn't good enough and never will be good enough for me... But she says the last part with anger, as if what I consider good enough is the problem. Basically, if I am unhappy or angry or disappointed with her behavior and if I react or try to set consequences for her, up to or including leaving or ending our marriage, to her it means I am rejecting her as a person, I don't love her, I hate her. Which is not the truth. Or that I am not accepting her for who she is... She says she just wants it to be ok for her to be herself and not be scared/ashamed/guilty. But it's not her... It's her choices, her behaviors.

And it comes and goes like the tide. Crazy, crazy anger one night, pleasant fun normal the next day. Crazy crazy behavior Saturday morning, pleasant fun normal Sunday. It's like it never happened.

It's my birthday today. I am sitting on the couch drinking coffee alone, it is pouring rain out and my wife is still asleep at 1:30 pm (she didn't come to bed until around 6:30 or 7. I wanted to go running and go to a yoga class this morning, but I'm nit hardcore enough to run in a thunderstorm and I was too tired to drive to yoga so I just went back to bed and slept until noon. I feel the urge to go to work for a while today even though I don't have to and am still in the part of the summer that I don't get paid, but not sure if it is out of guilt,or just wanting to be somewhere else, or what. My wife gave me a birthday card this morning. I know that she hasn't gotten me a present yet. We will go out to dinner tonight. Her birthday is later this week, so we will probably exchange presents together then.

Birthdays make me sad now, because another year gone with nothing to show for it, older and less chance of pulling out of my rut and getting what I want out of life. Feeling lonely with without many team friends or even family who cares anymore. It's nice for my Facebook to light up with all of the people wishing me happy birthday, but I know that 90% of those people wouldn't pick up the phone or write an email or text to wish me one and wouldn't even know it's my birthday except Facebook tells them.

I'm lonely. I don't even know what feels good to do anymore that's not tainted by something or other. I'd like to do yoga for a while or play my guitar or read or play video games, but there is that voice that says that I am being irresponsible and wasting time, and I am not good enough at those things, and too much of a failure, and too overweight, etc. I want to feel loved - emotionally and physically. I feel incredibly shitty because my wife acts loving to me but I need more than what she has to offer. I need friends that care about and understand the real me.

[fifthsonata]

Birthdays are a definite reminder that life is too short to suffer through what can be changed. You won't get those years back. Why let fear ruin the years to come?

I hope you have a good day, weary.

[weary]

Thanks. It was mostly OK.

[weary]

Tired. Depressed. Irritated. Angry.

Why would anyone want to stay with someone who acts the way she does? What the hell is wrong with me?

Her rage, her depression, her fear and anxiety run her life. And I let them run mine too. I am afraid of her. I am afraid for her. I can detach for a while, withdraw but it doesn't last. If I push back or if she is afraid I will leave, then it all gets laser focused on me.

But then, hours later, or the next day, she is "normal". Calm, funny, sweet. But she is not functioning well and I am sick and tired of picking up the slack and of

But I can't even say these things clearly to her. I get afraid to articulate the specific reasons for my distress and what I need for her to do, because she talks me in circles and somehow convinces me that I'm wrong or unreasonable. I don't know how to set boundaries or make her accountable for her behaviors. When I try, whether I am upset or calm and rational, it either triggers even deeper depths of anger or self-hating depression in her. I'm tired of walking on eggshells.

She fell apart at 10:15 last night and I didn't get to bed until nearly 1 am after listening to her and trying to comfort her. She's not a child and I'm not her parent. She fucks things up and then feels bad about it, and that makes it harder for me to express how it hurts me and affects me because she already is angry/depressed about it, so it's like I'm kicking her when she's down. Being patient doesn't work. Getting angry doesn't work. Setting ultimatums doesn't work. I feel so fucking useless, worthless, hopeless, ineffectual.

[manuel_moe_g]

I wish you could have rest from your burden, weary. Please take care, be self-loving in spite of it all, please

[weary]

So tired. So frustrated. I am up at 6 am after having been awake for the past two hours, and I didn't go to bed at 1 am.

I don't know even how to talk about how I'm feeling anymore. To myself, to my therapist (on the rare occasions that I actually get an appointment), to the few friends that I feel like I can open up to, and least of all to my wife. I have been trying really hard to articulate things to her lately, but it is hard to communicate how much I have let myself be hurt by her behaviors and how much I need her to change. I feel guilty and ashamed. I feel like I shouldn't feel that way about her and her behaviors and her problems.

I am so angry and feel so hopeless and helpless right now. I want to cry. I have a long day at work ahead and I am not prepared for some of the things that I have to do, and I will have to go through the day on only 3 hours sleep and carrying all of this emotional baggage.

I need to figure out how to respect myself and my needs more otherwise there is no chance of getting her to respect them more. It is not fair for her to expect me to comfort her at the cost of my own comfort, to meet her needs at the cost of my needs, to try to make her happy at the cost of my happiness. I blame myself for making the choices to do those things and for failing to communicate how much I am giving up of myself to do those things. But she expects them now. She thinks that's what marriage, loving someone, whatever is about. It makes me so frustrated when I hear her really trying to connect with me and act like she genuinely is concerned about me and wants to help me and asks me what she can do, when the answer is that she needs to stop acting fucking crazy to help me. But obviously I can't say that.

My depression and low self esteem is hard for me to deal with and makes a lot of things harder, but I try not to burden other people with them. Because of that, I have to cope with them on my own, plus I have to deal with my wife's depression and anxiety and low self esteem. THe thing that she still doesn't understand is the impact that her behaviors have on me. If she messes up and is irresponsible, or if she has a meltdown or a freak out, she might get some relief afterwards from that, but I don't - I suffer from the consequences. So it's like she has transferred her pain and discomfort to me and I never get to acknowledge that. So I sometimes feel like it's 3 against 1 when I am trying to change myself or change a situation for the better - it is me and my willpower against not only my own depression, but against her direct resistance/fear/anxiety and against the fallout from her behavior (how burned out I am from it and/or my compulsive need to try to accommodate it and soothe her pain).

Sleep is a fundamental problem in our relationship. Her fucked up sleep behavior and how it affects mine. And her lateness. And her irresponsibility. I have trouble going to bed on time on my own because of my own issues. But she is a bad influence on that in many ways. And then when she stays up all night or comes to bed at 4 am it disrupts things again. As a result, I am chronically sleep deprived but I still have to get up and go to work because there are consequences if I don't get shit done. She just fucks up her sleep and doesn't do things and gets away with it. Except then she never gets anything done and I am resentful - but somehow to her that's not fair and it's a problem with me, not with her. And she doesn't get work done for school but she gets angry at other people for not accommodating her. It's her choices and her behaviors but she won't take responsibility for them.

When is it OK to say no to someone you love? When is it OK to say I can't take this anymore? When is it OK to say, I'm sorry you're upset, but I can't listen to you or help you when you are expressing it in that way - you need to calm down. When is it OK to say, after this time, I am going to bed, and I need you to SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE SO I CAN SLEEP. Unless it is a physical emergency and you need to be taken to the hospital, it can wait until the morning. And that includes having an angry tantrum or crying loudly elsewhere in the apartment so it fucking wakes me up or keeps me awake. Does that make me an asshole? Does that mean I don't love her?

When is it OK to say if you don't get your shit together I can't stay in this relationship anymore? When is it OK to say I don't want to live with someone who has so little respect for herself or for me that she can't take care of her basic physical needs. Go to bed at night and sleep and wake up in the morning. Take a shower and get dressed. Can you just fucking do that every day? But no - you stay up all night and blame it on your anxiety and depression, and your excuse for never getting things done is your lack of organization and your anxiety and your depression and being tired from your sleep disorder, but THOSE BEHAVIORS CAUSE CHAOS, INCREASE THE ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION and create a self-sustaining cycle. And you constantly complain that things are too hard, that nobody helps you (which really hurts to hear because I do FUCKING SO MUCH FOR YOU), and that you don't know what to do/how to do things, but when people give you suggestions or advice (me, your therapist...) you don't do them and you frequently get angry and defensive and tell people to stop trying to solve your problems or tell you what to do.... so which is it? Are you helpless and you beg people to tell you what to do, or do you have a fucking chip on your shoulder and you don't want help? After a while, it is hard to want to help and support someone who doesn't help herself and who keeps sabotaging herself.

I'm sick of her problems and her inability to ever get anywhere. I want to fix my problems. I am terrified that the summer is almost over and a new school year has begun. There is so much stress around my career right now I want to cry. I needed to have some calm and peace and self-care this summer and get my bearings, but I couldn't because of my wife's bullshit. I needed to fix things with her this summer but couldn't because she was so upset and stressed all the time and flipping out already that I was afraid to push things. And now it's too late. It's always too late. But if I get upset at her, it's bad. If I don't talk about my feelings it's bad. If I talk about them and she doesn't like it, it's bad. If I say I'm upset because nothing ever changes, she gets hurt by that. Well, too fucking bad. I HURT TOO. I deserve better than this. So does she. But it always becomes about the way that I've got to change and I can't depend on anything from her.

[manuel_moe_g]

you stay up all night and blame it on your anxiety and depression, and your excuse for never getting things done is your lack of organization and your anxiety and your depression and being tired from your sleep disorder, but THOSE BEHAVIORS CAUSE CHAOS, INCREASE THE ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION and create a self-sustaining cycle

So true.

When is it OK to say...

It is _always_ OK to speak out about feelings. Her bad reactions doesn't make that less true. Denying someone to express feelings is tyrannical.

[weary]

It is _always_ OK to speak out about feelings. Her bad reactions doesn't make that less

It never -feels- OK. Ever. I feel like I am doing something wrong. My feelings, my thoughts, my needs are WRONG and her reaction convinces me of that truth.

Just happened again. I am a fucking coward with no self esteem. That's the problem. It's not her. It's me. Everything is me.

I want her to take her medication the way that it is supposed to be taken. Go to bed at night, wake up in the morning. Sleep the right number of hours and not be wandering around out if bed while under the influence if the medication. And not interfere with my sleep by talking to me while I am trying to go to sleep or making noise to wake me up. Does that seem like an unreasonable set of requests to anyone? I'm scared for her mental and physical health as well as my own, and I am scared for our marriage, because this is an obstacle for her being more productive and functional as a person in ways that I need her to be as a partner if I am going to be comfortable with the way our relationship works. And I can't tolerate these feelings forever.

But it turns around on me. I am the asshole. But she threads the needle and says she's not invalidating my feelings,but she is upset with the way I am expressing them or not. But when she is under the influence of her medication, I have learned not to engage her in a way that can end in a fight because it's even more scary (think fighting with a drunk person rather than a sober one). But I am still annoyed, irritated at her behavior and can't hide it and she picks up on it. Or I just try to completely avoid contact with her. Either way she senses something is wrong and gets scared or upset of anxious... So I can't win. But the point it, IT'S MY FAULT because she's "not doing anything wrong!" The medicine is supposed to knock her out so she sleeps for four hours,but it impairs judgment so if she's out of bed she wanders, and eats, and fights sleep, and before you know it, it's been an hour or two or four since she took it, so she's not getting the sleep and the benefit of the medication, she's doing who knows what to her already jumbled brain chemistry, she is perhaps making poor choices while under the influence (binge eating). I hate it. But I guess, to her, she should be able to do anything that she wants without consequences and I should just have to live with it whether I like it or not,,because she's helpless and if I don't like it than I am just preventing her from being her. She actually compared herself to someone in a wheelchair the other day... And just this morning said that her feeling like "she can't even do anything right in her own home" which is her translation if me having expectations and feelings is the reason that she is so anxious and afraid and functions poorly outside if the home. So in other worlds, her inability for function is partly caused by me expecting her to function and/or being disappointed or upset if she doesn't. Really?

[manuel_moe_g]

How on earth did she get absolute power to define what is wrong and right? I am not suggesting you leave her, but see the possibility that she doesn't control reality.

You are not a coward, you are just falling into habitual responses because you are under great stress.

[weary]

I know she doesn't control reality. But she controls her version of reality, and Iits not comfortable for me a lot of the time. And I have such a lack of confidence and entitlement to my own feelings that it is hard to maintain my grip on my perception if reality when faced with the intensity if hers. At the least, I get very confused and upset and drained.

That being said,it has been an ok weekend since the fight yesterday morning. We talked a bit yesterday and I did a little better than usual in saying what it was feeling (angry) and why without feeling like I had to apologize or justify it. We agree that we need to talk (not fight or dance around) some of these difficult situations and feelings in a more constructive way. I am still really scared of broaching many of these topics because I don't know how to do it in a way that won't come across sounding judgmental or like an asshole. She wants this to be better, too, but sometimes she just seems so oblivious to how she makes things worse. And how much it hurts me.

Thanks for your kind replies, Manuel moe. I know that I tend to sound like a broken record (note to self - do people under 25 even understand what that means?), and a really pathetic whiny broken record at that. Thanks for enduring what I have to say.