love is a battlefield

I think this blog is about to get a little too personal, but it is, after all, supposed to be not only cathartic, but practice for the real deal so here goes.

So I have been feeling a little off lately. OK, no. That's a lie. I've been feeling fed up and sick and tired and just plain DONE. I've even been pondering, for the last week or so, a change in my marital status. I don't think I really thought the "D" word, but I did ponder separation, and the logistics of that kind of decision.

Let's rewind. Let me take you back 14 years ago when I, a young single mom working as a waitress married a ridiculously good looking young Marine. We thought we could survive off of love, BAH and Taco Bell. And we did. We moved to Texas, bought a house, had two more beautiful kids and life was working. For a while. But then it wasn't. We lost our jobs, had to sell our house and nearly lost our minds. But we managed to get through it together. Was it love? Stubbornness? Craziness?

And for that last few years, we've been reintroducing ourselves to each other every time Derek returns home from another deployment. I would be lying again if I said that the every-other-year separation doesn't take it's toll. Because it does. With each deployment I became more self sufficient, and while some people may think that is an oxymoron for a Housewife, it's unforgivingly true.Sometimes, when you're the only one here to get things done, you get used to not depending on another person for help. Not even the person you promised to be a partner in life with. No one is at fault here, it's just the nature of the beast. And the beast doesn't give two shits about how it effects your marriage.

So here we are, back to me contemplating this thing called marriage. See, 14 years later, I'm far too smart, or learned, or worldly to believe that you can count on love to make it work, because I do love my husband and the thought of living my life without him in it is paralyzing. But I guess my unhappiness stems from not knowing what role we actually play in each others lives anymore. We're hardly partners. Are we friends with benefits? Are we in some sort of marital limbo, where we go through the motions, but we don't actually progress or evolve? Would we be better not together than we are together? And I guess my biggest question is; are my doubts normal?

BIG SIGH... 14 years is going to produce peaks and valleys, and we've always weathered the storms together. At the end of the day, I know divorce isn't an option. I don't want it to be, and even if I have contemplated it,I would never uproot my kids, nor would I ever want Derek to be a weekend dad.
And I love him. Godammit I love that man with my whole heart and regardless of how hard it is to be with him sometimes, it's always twice as hard to be without him.

I just laughed out loud, realizing, you can survive on love. I'm doing it right now. And I have my Blog to prove it.