Separation Day: Seven

Today is one week since I was told to move out so we could work on our marriage apart. How have thing gone? Well I hate it, I really hate it. I miss my wife and my boys. I miss cooking supper for them and just being there for them. We have a therapy session today. Don't really know how that is going to go. I hope it goes well but I don't know. I can't say that I expect it to because none of them so far have gone too well. My wife seems to be doing better. She is eating and not staying sick at her stomach and the fever blisters are gone so she is doing better. I on the other hand am a hot mess. I can't eat, sleep, or think straight. All my time is consumed hoping that my wife will let me come back. But I have decided that she is going to do what she is going to do. The decision is hers to make. I am willing to try, but she has to be willing too. I hope for the best. I don't like the way things are now but if she is happy now who am I to argue. Maybe given enough time she will see that I am genuine in my pursuit of change and that will change her mind. I realize the error of my ways, and I am working hard to integrate those change into my life. I am getting to see the boys all I want though. I kept them all day Saturday and my sister took them back late in the evening. I know my wife enjoys this time because she got so very little of it in the past. Maybe tomorrow will go good. I hope.

Separation: Day 5

Today was one of the hardest days. Today we had a welcome home/bridal /new home shower. My wife always done these events up big. She would have been right in the middle of everything and would have been up late last night getting everything ready. She thinks of my brother as one of her own. My dad died when he was nine and he liked to come and stay at the house a lot until he got up into high school. Anyway she didn't come to this and so I got to see first hand how it felt not to have your partner there. It sucked. It sucked big time. I never knew how it felt. Now I do. I couldn't be happy for my brother, I could only have my own little pity party. The boys got to come and they had a good time. My oldest cruised the room like an old man stopping and talking to every group like he had known them for years. This boys truly never meets a stranger. My youngest found the stage and strayed few time from running back and forth wide open. But all the while I am sitting there wallering in my own self loathing and can't get motivated to do anything. I helped cook and once that was done I was done. I only talked to those who talked to me. I couldn't get my mind off of how it would have been different if my wife would have been there. If she would have been there I would have gotten constant hugs and kisses and she would have checked up on me to make sure I was ok. But she was with her mom. That is what I told everyone because I couldn't bare to tell them the truth. The truth being that my marriage is in trouble and everything I do seems to be the wrong thing. I could have had constant love and attention today but instead I got stale, sanitized texts with little or no feeling. I sent her a text earlier and said that I remembered the last time we had been there was at her company Christmas party about 10 or 11 years ago, and that I now knew how she felt going places without me, and that I was sorry. She sent me back a text saying Thank you. We have a therapy session scheduled for Tuesday and I just know in my bones it's not going to go good. We have only been a part for five days but it seems like weeks to me. I miss her so much. I miss her smile, her laugh, the twinkle in her eyes when she does something mischievous, her warm embrace, and her kisses most of all. Now she won't let me kiss her at all. She will turn her head and I am left with a cheek. A cold (kiss this if you must give me a kiss) cheek. I can not for the life of me remember treating her anyway to deserve this. But here I am and I hope it gets better because I am due for something good to happen. Something, just anything.

Separation: Day One

I could not be a person that travels all the time. I hate being away from home. You take so many things for granite. My bed is too small and I sink in the middle. My bed at home is firm and has plenty of room for my large frame. The shower is way too small and I have already had to call and get permission to come over and take showers until I can fix the problem. So this was my first day without my wife and kids and life sucks!! I broke down today when I called my boys and told them good night. My oldest is going with my brother to his new house and I won't get to see him till the weekend. I won't even get to see him before he leaves because I have to go to the doctor. My youngest didn't even want to talk to me when I called tonight, I thought I was going to have to go without talking to him. He ended up talking to me and telling me I was #1 and that he loved me all the way to heaven. I remember the first time my wife and I were separated (we were just dating) she went on a long trip and I was miserable. I was working at a steakhouse and every night before I left I would sit down and write her these long letters on place mats. I had a routine...I had to sit at the same table, same chair, and use the same pin. I didn't want anything to jinx me. I would write and tell her how my day went, how work went and how school was going. I had a lot going on back then, really I have always had a lot going on. But then I would go into how much I missed her and how I was suffering from a disease called Jillitis. I would then go into details about how the disease was progressing and what my symptoms was. I did this for like seven days and when she came home she had these long letters. I remember later she told me she didn't know what to think about all the letters when she came back because my love was just so intense and she hadn't quit got there yet. For her while she was on the plane I wrote a long letter and made her a mixed tape (before CD burners) that coincided with the letter. My love for her has not changed since that day. If not it is only more. I think I forgot how to put that love into words over time. I always tell her I love her, and I make sure that she doesn't want for anything it's just I wasn't always there for her emotionally. I think over time I just took it for granite that she knew she could come and talk to me anytime about anything including if it was about me. Which she did talk to me about problems that I had but somehow it just never sunk in. I think I was open to any conversation as long as it wasn't about me. I just know that day one sucked and day two doesn't look any better. Maybe something will give.

Separation: The Final Frontier

Well it doesn't seem that my warp speed change seemed to help anything. I think the speed at which I changed only brought about suspicions that I could have been doing better all along. Every time I would point to the things that I was changing she would counter with, "you could have been doing that all along." So now I have been ousted, not my idea, and told that we could work on our marriage from afar. I don't really know how that works. She doesn't either but it sounds good to her that I won't be around to "push" her. So now I am to concentrate on me. Learn how to live like there is no tomorrow, carpe diem, grab the bull by the horns, all this without my wife and kids. My own little cheering section has gone silent. The boys took the news of the separation real hard. Ethan (my five year old) started to choke and went outside and threw up all of his supper. Nathaniel (my nine year old) just got up and walked out. They both came back in and gave me hugs and told me they loved me. If ever there was motivation to change that would be it.

A Time To Change

I have been given a challenge. Change or life as you know it will change for you. The change I have been told is for me and me only and maybe once the change is complete then life can resume... maybe. I used to be the guy on the phone late at night with a girl spilling the beans on life and how I thought they could fix their problems. I was the guy that was always the "brother" or "teddy bear". But somehow and some way I got away from that. I don't remember when exactly and I don't remember why I just know for some reason that side of me closed up shop. I just know that I didn't know that side of me had closed down. I don't remember a going out of business sale. I never meant to swap sides. I never meant to be the guy they griped about instead of the the guy they came to. I no doubt still have those qualities within me, they just have to have the dust knocked off of them. I have to listen instead of comment. I have to understand how the other person is feeling and why they are feeling that way. That used to be second nature to me. I could just tell by the look in a person's eyes how they felt and what they needed to hear. Can this be remedied? Of course it can but it is going to take some soul searching and backtracking. So like Superman I must go into the phonebooth one man and emerge another. The new man will be the "old" new me...the me I know I once was and still can be.

Help

A man is not supposed to ask for help. He is not supposed to need help or display any sign of weakness. I am here to say that in somethings in life I am helpless. There are times in my life that I need the help of others and it does me good to admit that. Today I talked to a sweet woman who soothed my aching heart for just a little bit. You know how when you "boil" something out with peroxide that the soreness goes away. Well today my heart had a little peroxide poured on it. The soreness will eventually come back but for a fleeting moment I felt good. For the first time in a while I spoke with someone who didn't stare at me with contempt, who didn't roll their eyes, who didn't grit their teeth while their face is contorted in anger. This was just the beginging of the helping cycle, the bottom rung. First I admitted I have a problem and then this problem can be solved.