...trying to be healthy. Atleast healthy in an emotional sense. Rather than do everything at home in the apartment I desire to get out of the place and into public. Allows myself to see people and sunshine or just experience a little life.
I cut my post short from last night as I was interupted by a phone call from a co 12 stepper. It was my first sponser in the program. I hadn't talked to him in probably two or three months. It was great to catch up. Kinda made me wonder if I might want to go back to him as my sponser. Still have to think about that some.
In cutting my thoughts short last night, I am going to start writing about my feelings and thoughts about my marriage and relationship with my wife. We've been married for just over 14 years. And have been in a relationship for 17 or 18 years. Damn near half my life. I'd be lying if I didn't say she was my best friend. She knows me as well as anyone knows me. We've been through a lot of emotional ups and downs through our time together.
As I wrote earlier in my blog, while living in Davis with my wife, working a retail job and absoluting hating going to work, I got a job offer to work with my younger brother in San Jose. I immediately took him up on the offer without consulting my girlfriend (now wife) at all. I told her what I was doing. If she wanted to come along, that would be fine. If not, that would be fine. No emotional scene from me. No emotional plea to her to get her to go. I was honestly hoping she would say no and the relationship would end.
But she said yes and we moved to San Jose. Later that year I proposed to my wife in a sandwich shop. A little before she was getting ready to get on a train to leave San Jose to head to Sacramento, to see her mom. It gave me the freedom to propose and not have to deal with any emotions immediately after the proposal. Part of me gave her a very small engagement ring hoping that she would look at the ring in disgust and not accept my proposal. I didn't call my family and tell them I had just proposed. I looked at the day as just another day. I was left wondering a bit why I proposed. I was wondering why I couldn't just end the relationship if I really didn't want to get married.
We got married on a boat on Lake Tahoe. I enjoyed it very much. Everyone was happy. My Dad came out from Arizona to be there. Her brother came out from Indiana and her sister came out from Texas (which ended up being the last time we saw her). It was a very small affair as I didn't have any friends I could invite. If it was bigger and a church wedding, one side of the aisle would have been completely empty. I wasn't going to let that happen. I couldn't look like some sort of pathetic loser of a person, even though I did feel that way. So I insisted on a small wedding.
As the wedding ring went on my finger I found that I couldn't breath. It was as if my throat was being strangled and I was being suffocated. I was amazed to feel a physical reaction to getting married. During the whole marriage this feeling remain though I was able to disengage myself from it. Every time I would take my wedding ring off I found I felt better. I felt more natural. I would wonder many times how much your body can tell you if you would only listen to it. I would listen to it, hear it and then go on and deny what it was saying. This feeling went on throughout my whole marriage.
The work opportunity with my brother didn't work out as well as I hoped it would. I refused to look at from my brother's perspective and found another job and hurt that relationship for awhile. A few years down the road I was reprimanded at work and decided I needed another change. So we moved to Texas. We've lived in three different states, moving because I needed change. No, I craved change. She went along for the ride, hoping that it would be different. Trying to make me happy. Each time we moved I would get the pleasure of restarting things in my life again. It felt normal, good and kept me optimistic (for awhile, as I would dream of starting something big and exciting in my life).
The drive to Texas was very exciting. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Got to drive through a bunch of land I've never driven through before. My mind was able to just enjoy the drive and wonder about all the history in the landscape. I could just completely escape my reality of moving 2,000 to a place I've never seen, with no job on the landscape. In less than two years, our time in Austin was over. Again, I found myself in a completely negative place emotionally. Only this time, I had some money as my Dad had died and I had a lawsuit settlement. So I told my wife it was time for me to move back to California. San Jose or Sacramento area. Didn't really care. I needed to go. I needed to go immediately. Again, I didn't propose this option to my wife as something to discuss mutually. She could accept or not. Inside I didn't care. She decided to move with me. We headed back to Sacramento area.
By this time I could not deny that I really didn't want to be in this marriage. But I could not figure out how to get out of it. Yes, divorce is an option. Yet I would end up looking bad. I couldn't handle looking bad. I want to look good. I was just hoping that she would get fed up with me and say she wanted to leave. Then we could mutually agree to end the marriage and I could go on my way. Where was the internal strength for me to end a relationship that was not working for me?
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