Another OMG Moment

Only minutes after posting my blog about communication, my husband called to try and discuss some things to help me make sense of why we are where we are.

He asked where we should start, and I said that I needed to understand what happened and why. He started off by saying that he never wanted to hurt me, so I immediately think it's because I am no longer the thin beauty queen I used to be (I never held that title, but I wasn't bad to look at).

While he was overseas he says he had time to think about his life, and he decided that he was just settling, and that he didn't want to settle anymore. Did he mean he was settling for a lifestyle he didn't want (this wasn't my choice of lifestyles), or was he settling for a fat wife? Now, mind you, this is the first time I'm hearing this. At no point in the last two years has he said this to me. I had absolutely no indication that he was this unhappy. I didn't even have an indication that he was unhappy at all until one month before he came home. 

Then he begins to explaining what our fundamental differences are that he has been talking about but not defining. They are, family (his parents and brother and his brother's family), his career, and raising our daughter (who is now 20 and finished being raised). He is now claiming that he didn't agree with how I handled some situations while she was in high school, but he never once, at any point in time, lead me to believe that he disagreed or disapproved. As a matter of fact, he was the one who said she had the behavior of a sociopath, but that has slipped his mind, and he is now saying that she is perfectly normal.

Okay, his parents and I never got along, and they were always a thorn in my side. They treated me like the nursemaid, someone they had to tolerate in order to see their son and first born grandchild, and they were very unkind. My husband never stood up to them and corrected the situation, so their behavior never changed. I believe he thinks I am to blame because I never accepted them.

His career. I will admit that I was not a good military wife. I didn't like it, and wasn't usually crazy about the people, but I played the game in the beginning. I would ask him if he wanted me to participate in things and he would say, "I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do." He always made it seem unimportant, that he didn't want to participate either. He's now claiming that I was unwilling to socialize with his coworkers. He started naming people that he claims he wanted to socialize with, but I never wanted to be with - - they were people that we DID socialized with - - a lot, and some of them I considered friends. We ate out with them and went to their homes for dinner and they to ours. I have to think that he is talking about people that he worked with at the Pentagon where he was shuffled off to after he lost his job as a commander. I agree, I did not want to socialize with those people, but he spent time with them and they did things together that he liked to do.

Raising our daughter, well that is something that I was left alone to do on many occasions. When he was home, and had the opportunity to spend time with her, he didn't initiated anything, and when I asked him to do things with her, he would, but would get mad at her if she couldn't or wouldn't do it to his standards.

Later, as she grew up, the thing they did together was watch movies and memorize the dialog. He very rarely suggested anything for them to do. A few years ago my daughter wanted to have a father, daughter day, and she arranged for them to go to the driving range. He went, but didn't have fun and ruined her planned outing. The two things that he did do with her, in recent years, was to take her for sailing lessons which they did together, and he took her to New England to look at colleges. I think those may be the only true bonding times they had together.

He recently told me that he didn't believe I was going to get a business up and running because I was all talk and no action. This floored me. I couldn't believe he was saying this. I am the most determined woman he will ever meet. Tonight I asked him to explain what he meant. It turns out, I didn't lose weight and go to the gym as I said I would, and I didn't get a business started. Well, I did go to the gym when we were first married and I went to the gym after my daughter was born, and I got into the best shape of my life. In return, he had a yearlong affair (the relationship continued for many years after, but I don't believe it was physical - - only because they weren't in the same city.). After that it was always hard to get back into a routine, and I honestly had trouble getting motivated because I didn't have a reason to go. I gained weight after trying to stop smoking, and then finally stopping for good. I also developed a breathing problem that has never been resolved, and I packed on the pounds. He never had the courage to tell me I was fat, and he never went out of his way to help me.

As far as a business, I did have a business when we lived in New Mexico, and I had a steady little group of clients - - then we moved - - again! I'm guessing he is referring to starting a photography business, which wasn't anything that was even thought about until a couple of years ago, and at that time, I wasn't ready to sell my services. I was still learning what I was doing. He may also be talking about real estate. I took the class and got my license, but I decided I didn't want to do that, but I finished the class and passed the test. I think that's an accomplishment!

There are things in life that people talk about wanting to do, but things get in the way, life gets in the way, and those things either don't happen or they are put on the back burner. That doesn't make someone a failure, it means that it may not have been time, or it wasn't a true dream. Something that I found that my husband was unable to do was to shift from one thing to another. If something was discussed or planned, he couldn't alter those plans. He wasn't able to be flexible. Spontaneity made him uncomfortable, but I seem to remember that that was something he once appreciated in me. 

Then the final thing that drove him away was that we didn't have any common interests. I asked him to tell me what he wanted me to do with him that I didn't do - - he didn't have an answer. I asked him if he wanted someone to jog with him (I didn't jog when I could jog.) He said no. I told him that I would have done anything with him that he asked other than jogging and going to museums with his parents. He said he didn't think I would have, BUT he never bothered to ask. I have no idea what he wanted me to do that we didn't do. He did say about a year ago that I didn't like doing things like kayaking, but I do like that sort of thing, and we did it a couple of times. What he didn't understand, and still refuses to understand is that when you are overweight, getting into a tippy little boat is not very comfortable. It was another way for him to justify his decision to leave. I was uncomfortable so, therefore, I didn't want to do it - - incorrect!

So in closing, he told me that he had to leave or he was going to die. What do you say to that, other than, if it was sooooo bad, why would you not say something to your partner to let them know how miserable you are, and why wouldn't you make any kind of effort to try to correct things before they got to that point. I don't think I got a response to those questions. 

He told me how hard it was for him to leave, even though he spent six months taking care to finish projects and get everything in order. As soon as he finished his projects he announced he wanted a separation and then acted like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. I was no longer present in his life - - that's when I rather aggressively asked him to leave. He grabbed some things, went out the door, and never looked back.

My conclusion: He got a taste of freedom while he was overseas. It was the first time in his life he had been on his own and he liked it. He didn't want to come home to an overweight, middle aged wife, so he had to rewriting our history to justify his decision to walk away from a life that once was, and the promise of a life to be. I got the dirty work, getting him to this point, raising our daughter, making the endless moves, and now someone else can step in, or has already stepped in to reap the benefits. It has been his MO, to run away without looking back, so I shouldn't be surprised that he's done it again.

If he can sleep without a guilty conscience, then more power to him, but he has shown me in more ways than one that he is extremely shallow, he is incapable of a deep relationship, and it scared him to think that it was just going to be the two of us once he retired.

I didn't get all the answers that I needed, but I have a better understanding now and I'm hoping that's what I needed to let go.