Marital Ice

I have concluded that my husband and I in fact have an icy marriage right now.

This is a complicated nest of problems, and I am sure that I cannot possibly write a diplomatic or objective account of things seeing as I am blinded by my bias and only know my experience of the situation. God-willing I will try and tell things as objectively as I can...

Our relationship has not been in good shape really since 2003 when I had a nervous breakdown, got suicidal and was involuntarily hospitalized for 24 hours.

We had difficulties before this happened; mainly, whenever I would get upset about something and start my depressed-girl crying routine, he'd ice over. This still happens, and is a hudge part of our discord, in my opinion. ...and of course I can help by trying to not scream and yell. I can't see myself ever stopping from crying when I'm upset, though.

Ok so this is how it goes. He totally shuts down towards me. He slams the door in my face sometimes, he frequently calls me "crazy", and talks down to me/ treats me like I am beneath him. He is very condescending, self-righteous, and shows no empathy, mercy, or compassion towards me when I am obviously disturbed. He once threw a cup of (cold, thank God) coffee on me and my first child when he was about 5 months old when he was angry at me. I should've known then to get out and fast, eah? I don't know....

It used to be that he would discuss things with me later when I wasn't crying anymore. Then it turned into I had to write it on paper for him to read it, and he answered me on paper. Then he stopped answering me on paper. Now this has escalated to a point where he refuses to have a discussion with me about anything, verbally or on paper. No discussion, no compromise, no give and take. He's told me "if you don't like something I'm doing, then divorce me, no compromise". My way or the highway....

WTF? This is not a relationship.

I told him if he won't live up to he committment he made to me when he married me, then he should divorce me. That's such a pussy thing to do, to try and drive me to divorce him! I told him to be a man and either live up to what he committed to or else be a man and divorce me! I even called him a pussy once in this context. Yes, I called him a name, but he pushed me way over the edge.

Another hudge problem, that I face, is that he is constantly sleeping all day and up at night. This has been ever since we got married. He even did it in Qatar when he was supposed to be watching the kids (I was working) and we employed a maid, whom he had labeled as dangerous with the children, someone we shouldn't leave them unsupervised with!

I understand if it's the day after he worked all night; that is only fair. But what about when it's his 3rd day off in a row, and I wake up at 6:30 am only to find he's been up all night, is drunk, and just now going to bed? This is totally unfair to me. He has 4 days off a week and spends at least half of the day sleeping. I think I could tolerate this to some extent if it did not involve any alcohol, and if it wasn't the only problem - but it's not. ...And he behaved this way even when he didn't have a job where he worked nights! That was the real kicker for me. I thought for so long that he was just off schedule because of the working at night. I even believed him when he said he needed to have maintenance sleep, ie sleep at least some of the same hours of the day that he's off as when he's working, to keep his ciradian rhythms in order. Well, we sure found out that wasn't the case while living in Qatar now didn't we! He was normally up all night and sleeping in the day while we lived in Qatar. I frequently had to have the maid wake him up at 10 am, because he was late picking me up from work to come home and nurse the baby.

I have now concluded that he doesn't have one shred of respect for me. He has consistently treated me more and more condescendingly since my psychotic break in 2003. He guised it under the appearance of wanting to "help me" there in the beginning. He created this "code word" in 2005, with the idea that he would say the code word when he deemed I was "escalating", ie. becoming out of hand, which now I would say is any time I get emotional he wants me to shut it off like a spicket of water. His code word was "camel stick",( this word's function was to conjure up the image of the domineering Arabic husband who would beat his disrespectful wife with a camel stick).

Now he refuses to interact with me on any level if I have a conflict I want to bring to the table. He refuses to even read my notes. I started writing things down on paper because he asked me to, he said he would respond to me in turn in writing but never has. He treats me like I'm just a psychotic crazy person who is delusional, out of touch with reality, someone who just wants to cause trouble, etc.

Yesterday he called me, in anger, a "mental retard". It was over something silly, I made an honest mistake, I started parking in the grass, not seeing that right in front of me was the sign that said "no parking in the grass". He wasn't joking, he said it with full seriousness and anger and frustration in his voice and it really hurts me to be treated this way.

Then later in the evening he got unusually angry with me because I bought a sandwich and didn't see that it had pork in it. Well, I read the label but in fine print it read that it had pork in it but I sure couldn't see it. It also had in hudge letters at the top of the package, "hot chicken fast". Who would know that a sandwich labeled like that wasn't chicken, but pork? It was totally an honest mistake.
He basically proceeded to have an angry way out of acceptable tone of frustration towards me...almost as though he was one step away from accusing me of buying it on purpose. He was way overly wrathful over my mistake, I really didn't deserve to be treated this way. I got heated and we started arguing, of course in front of the kids...I don't want to argue in front of them, but it just sort of happened, (he accused me of intentionally bringing them into it. Yikes!) I'm not doing much intentional these days just trying to survive. I am totally just in the moment, my frustration and hurt from him are so deep and long that I can't really plan my reactions or actions towards him much any more. The tension is just too high.

Florence Y'all

We've recently moved back to the states. We're in Florence, KY, which is famous for it's bizarre water tower.

This is a bedroom community to Cincinnati, Ohio.

Apparently Cincinnatians are too racist to live anywhere near black folks, so they head for clan country (Florence, KY; or other clone-ish suburbs draped in grey conformist architecture) to escape even the most remote possibiity that they might actually have a black family as their neighbors.

That however is not our reason for being here; we were set up with a mack-daddy deal in free corporate housing by my dear hubby's place of employment, so it was off to Grey Clone Clanville for us!

Yes indeed, this is the last place we thought we'd find happiness, what with the giant barns-for-houses-that-cost-gawdawful-much-filled-with-folks-who-lobbied-to-keep-the-muslims-out; But alas, we are indeed happy here. My son loves his first-grade class, and I find it very accessible to all that I need.

So never say never. You will definitely then get what you swore you would never have!

Stuck on Step 5

I'm stuck on step five. I keep telling my self really great excuses, like "there's nobody around I can really trust," etc. and so forth.... but it's really a distortion. If I really wanted to do this I could figure it out.

The fact is that I'm scared #$%^-less! It would be great if me overcoming depression could be someone else or my circumstance's fault, ya know?

Oh well...better just bite my finger, close my eyes and get it over with!

Have been waking up for a week now with terrible body aches and feeling of getting too much sleep. Am grouchy, low energy, really hard to get motivated about anything much. Anxiety level is definitely elevated too.

I have been off of the antidepressant now for about a month, maybe a little bit more.

I can really feel that I need to exercise, but it' s sooo difficult to do!

Oh God, please give me the energy and will to do what I know my body needs. Help me to see and truly experience the simple pleasures and delight in the everyday. Amen.

SIMPLE GIFTS

'Tis the gift to be simple,'Tis the gift to be free,'

Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed

To turn, turn, will be our delight,

'Til by turning, turning, we come round right.

Simple Gifts was written by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett, Jr. in 1848. It was first published in The Gift to be Simple: Shaker Rituals and Songs.

Simple Gifts was a work song sung by the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (more commonly called the Shakers), whose last community in America (Hancock Village) died in 1960. It is now a museum.

Dysfunctional family unit

I am having a hard time dealing with my parents. They are bizarre.

They have a history of being really unsupportive of any decisions I make in my life that don’t fit in with who they are. I mean, pathologically unsupportive, to the point that my mother especially can be emotionally abusive and damaging.

Well, right now is one of those times.

The last time they communicated with me was a couple of weeks ago; we Yahoo-ed on messenger, and I asked my mother why she and my father are not spending Christmas with the extended family in Indiana. (the last Christmas I spent in the states, December 2003, I begged them to come spend it with me in Florida, knowing it was my last one in the states for a very long time. I didn't have the money to come to Indiana, and hubby didn't have enough time off work to make it up there. My mother stated at that time that she and my dad were going to "...spend every single Christmas with Grama until she died", that being with her was most important. So, they didin’t come to be with me).

Now every Christmas since I left they have left Indiana, where my Grandmother is still very much alive and well, to spend Christmas in Florida, where I used to live, with their retired friends, not with “the family,” that mother so adamantly stated was more important (than me) 2 years ago.

So, when I asked her why she’s going to florida and not staying with Grama, in Indiana, she said “Well, there’s not anything there for us, we have no children, no reason to be there”. !!!!!!

“No children”….?????? What the hell am I? What kind of mother says she has no children when she is talking to her grown daughter?

A pathological, evil mother, that’s who.

So, sent them a Christmas gift anyhoo in spite of her evil-ness. Haven’t heard anything from them, yay or nay. Sent them this “1,000 golf courses you should play before you die” coffee table book, a golf ball engraver, along with with a book called “Daughters of a different path”, a book about western women who have converted to Islam.

I know they are probably having a difficult time processing the fact that I am muslim, so I sent this book to try and help them process it.

I am really enraged that they are simply not responding. If they are angry or upset or something because I sent this book, why can’t they just tell me that? If not, then why can’t they just send a simple thank you?

What is so difficult about just communicating?

Instead they do nothing, then later at another date I know my mother will say some terribly passive-aggressive, awful comment.

She wants to piss me off and have some hudge confrontation/argument.

Well, I won’t give her the satisfaction!

It really bothers me that apparently they haven’t gotten their internet connection going at their place in Florida. Either they haven’t connected it or they have and they aren’t going to let me know that they have. That is some lame excuse.

I live on the other side of the world and they intentionally don’t hook up their internet, their only way to reasonably communicate with me. What does she want, for me to call in a panic, worried about her because I haven’t heard from her? That’s messed up shit.

Man, I am their only child and they treat me like this? What have I done to deserve them acting like this towards me?

Nothing. I don’t deserve it, and nothing I did or do could possibly cause them to act this way. Nobody deserves to be treated this way by their parents.

It’s shitty, but it’s reality. I can’t control their behavior. They are acting like dysfunctional teenagers. She is acting like a dysfunctional teenager.

She is in control of the computer, not my dad. For all I know she could be lying to my dad and pretending that she’s communicated with me. Ah, but it's a sin for me to commit suspiscion.

Step Four

4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.

Why is this step so monumentally difficult? I know I just have to bite the bullet and jump right in and do it.

As we say in EA, it works if you work it.