i just want to be loved

i want to feel love. i want to feel supported

dj constantly says he wants to support me and be there for me and to meet my needs. but it’s just talk. he simply can’t walk the walk. i feel like he would be he just can’t or won’t. there is this big thing holding him back.

everytime things get tricky he stops being by my side and starts criticizing me and what i am saying. he attacks and argues and it becomes this adversarial court room drama. if i explain how hard it is he just tells me that i am using too many “you” statements. he deflects any chance of me trying to explain to him how antagonistic he is by arguing that i am exagerating which is one of Gottman’s four horseman of the apocolypse. i feel he puts up one road block after the next to keep from having a real conversation and really facing some not pretty truths.

but then again, maybe i am exagerating. maybe he is a dear sweet man who is supportive of me and loves me – but i am too demanding, too needy. maybe i do lecture him too much with my perspective. maybe i am too difficult. maybe i just need to deal with how hard life is and how hard marriage is and how hard being a parent is and a step parent. and stop wailing about it. where did i get the idea that i could be happier? i mean – am i going to get a divorce and find someone better? and anyway – how could i think about leaving when there are children are involved? isn’t that just being selfish? there’s an army of people ready to rail against me if i get divorced for selfishly thinking that i could be happier.

i type all that. and it sounds silly. but these are things i have heard from dj/mh. they are also things i fear are actually quite true.

i just don’t understand how to find happiness within my marriage. how to accept it for what it is and it’s limitations. it’s hard to maintain this balance between separation and connection.

i wish someone could take care of me. i want someone to swoop in and make everything okay. i dreamed of that happening the whole time i grew up. i wished someone would come and take me away from my father. from the misery of being abused for so many years. and finally – i had to take myself out of it. and here i am again – i just want someone to tell me – you are married to an asshole. you can’t see it because your self-esteem is so buried and you are so incapable of realizing how much you can be loved. mh is cruel to you far too much of the time. and although he is wrestling with his own demons and doesn’t mean to hurt you – he hurts you all the same and the damage is done and keeps repeating. and there is no reason for you to stay in harm’s way. you stay in hopes that things will get better but meanwhile he attacks you, criticizes you, and shows you just how ugly someone can be with another person without raising a hand. you stay because you see the good in him and you hope and you pray that things will change – that he will figure it out and not hurt you – but he denies that he even says mean things to you. he is in denial of how much he hurts you.

i know that if i leave it has to be my own decision. that no one can help me to know if i am doing the right thing or not. leaving would be giving up hope that things could get better. it would be a very painful tearing apart of something that does have value on some levels. and leaving would be so terrifying. loneliness. isolation. having to work hard to just barely make ends meet. but can i really stay with dj/mh because it’s better than poverty and loneliness?

truthfully – there is still more to this relationship that just maintaining a step above poverty and loneliness. but often it feels like it barely rises above and sometimes is much worse than poverty and loneliness.