When it all seems too much...

Last Thursday, my husband had a hell of a day at work. He texted me at 1 o'clock to tell me he was headed to a nearby town to do an investigation on the death of a toddler, and he came home in a terrible state. Apparently the crime scene had impacted him in ways he wasn't prepared for, and he brought home his emotional scars. We talked on the couch about what he'd seen and how it left him feeling about society at large. That seems to be the biggest thing. His line of work often leaves him feeling hopeless about people and about the justice system. We ended up going to bed, tired and needing just to find comfort in each other, which we did.

The next day, he told me he just needed a day to do nothing, and I obliged. He needed to heal, and I was fully on board. Neither of us had to work, since it was Veteran's Day, so we went to lunch with my parents and spent the rest of the day watching movies and drinking beer, which would have been okay, if we hadn't started talking. Late that night, we ended up in an argument.

I have no idea how it started, but, as usual, it was born of a late night conversation that lasted too long and went awry. After the raw openness and closeness of the night before, I was emotionally weak already. But, I wasn't out of my mind, and I didn't say anything I didn't mean. Nothing was new under the sun, and his complaints just reverberated and echoed to the point of making me feel like I was in a drum, and someone was beating the casing all around me. He talked about how he didn't feel desired. I, once again, told him I didn't know how he wanted me to make him feel desired. I'm fully aware of the problem; I'm just clueless on the solution...because every time I try, I miss the mark by like 10,000 miles and am left confused and frustrated. He won't be specific, either. He says he feels like I should know. Because I did when we met. I usually respond to this by saying he can't base our entire marriage on the first year we were together, because all new relationships are full of fire and passion...precisely because they are new! I'm not saying that marriages can't have passion. But I do not feel it will ever be as intense as when the relationship was born.

We continued to talk about how our sex drives differ and how our sexual needs are vastly different. He explained how he believed he could fulfill my needs, but that I was unwilling to try to meet his needs and that I do for him what I want done for me, rather than doing for him what he wants most. This is where it all went downhill. Our voices rose, and I began to feel like we were just talking in circles, so I ended it. He felt slighted and went to sleep on the couch. I went to bed feeling emotionally exhausted and woke up with a minor head cold that blossomed into a full-blown cold by the end of the day.

When things become overwhelming, sometimes the body has a way of stepping in. My immune system took a nosedive. I was depressed. I was tired. All I wanted to do was go back to bed and ignore the world. But, he wanted to talk. And so we did. He was calmer...more rational. I was quiet...and defeated.

He apologized for our fight, and we had an "adult" talk about it. The problem is, the emotional damage had already been done. And, as any person who suffers from depression knows, once you've begun to cycle down, it can be very hard to reverse.

Mother Nature also has a way of jumping in on it. The moon. I have a tendency to be at my emotional weakest at the full moon. And this weekend we saw the super moon...the closest the moon has been to Earth since 1948. It appeared larger than life. Just like everything that was going wrong with my marriage.

Most of Sunday, I spent puttering around the house, trying to just stay out of my husband's way. Everything made me cry; I felt brittle and bruised. And Monday, I woke up at 4 a.m., knowing full well that going to work was out of the question. My cold was flying its flag at full glory, and I hadn't slept well in three nights.

I stayed home and slept most of yesterday. I woke up to my husband finishing up several jobs I've been waiting for him to do for weeks. We quietly existed in each other's company. He picked up our son from school and came home with tea and honey and whiskey so I could make our special "cold remedy." It was thoughtful. But, I could tell he was emotionally fried, as well.

We didn't talk about it. We just watched TV and went to bed. But, I couldn't sleep. And here I am at 5:45 in the morning, gearing up to go to an all-day workshop that I wish I could skip because I still feel like crap.

But, I'm going to show up. Like I always do.

Imperfectly yours,