When love is not enough

This post has nothing to do with fashion, so feel free to disregard it if you're not interested in my random ramblings about my life.

My 4th year anniversary is a week away and I don't know if my relationship will make it til then. Like most people, I got married madly in love and forever. My husband and I are complete opposites in almost every way, but that use to be a good thing. He was always more calm and patient than I was, and he had a way of making everything ok. I met him almost 10 years ago when my life was in shambles. Slowly he helped me trust myself and be more confident. He's always made me feel beautiful, but over the years things have changed. There were few clues before our marriage, but any minor flaws he exhibited I figured were worth dealing with since he was in every other way, perfect.

I don't know if he's changed or I've changed, but something is different. We still love each other, but lately it just seems that we can't make it work anymore. His patience is mostly gone and his minor flaws seem to have taken over his entire being. I can pretty much pin point the day things changed. A few months after our wedding his grandfather went missing on the day we were supposed to go out and have a picnic. He left to go look for his grandfather and they did find him, but he was terminally ill and a couple of months later he died. He took it extremely hard, and I don't think he felt that I understood what he was going through, and I always felt that he shut me out. The same thing happened when my niece passed away, and I needed him. He didn't make the trip with me and I was left alone to grieve. I didn't complain because I knew he had to work, but still, I felt alone at one of the saddest moments in my life.

Looking back, I think there are a lot of these little things that have added up to us distancing ourselves from each other. It's like neither of us wanted to make the effort anymore. We pretty much stopped celebrating holidays and we always blamed money, dogs, time, etc for not being able to spend time together. The truth is, we're both to blame because we let a good thing go bad. This isn't the first time that we go through this, but he always wanted to make it work, and recently I think he's started to give up. I talked to him and told him that I wasn't happy because I gave up everything to come back home and be with him, and he doesn't seem to think I want to do anything. Anytime I bring up our issues he tries to blame it on everything but himself. He's pretty much a workaholic, but I can't complain because he provides for me and gives me everything I want, except his time.

What really did it this time is actually quite stupid. We've been kind of arguing for a few days, and yesterday as we were in the car driving home, we heard this guy on the radio say he would never give up his video games. We both laughed and I asked him if that was true for him too. And you know what he said? "Well, of course I'd give up my PS3 if we had kids, but I wouldn't give it up for you." That was all I needed to hear. I just knew that he had no intention of ever changing. I reminded him that when we got married I told him I didn't want to marry someone who played video games, and he left everything at home when we got married. For more than two years he didn't have video games, but then I felt bad that all his friends had a game system and he always felt left out, so I told him to buy one. He always told me that if I ever wanted him to stop playing he would, but he conveniently forgot that.

So when we got home, I told him that I had had enough, and I just couldn't live with someone half-assing our relationship. Then that led to a huge fight about how I'm controlling and I make all the decisions about everything and I never take his opinion into consideration. In all my dramatic anger, I started bringing down everything I'd ever put up and breaking things (yes, I know I go overboard) because I was just so upset that he would say that to me. Here I was thinking I'm decorating our home and he's complaining that I don't take him into consideration when I buy sheets. There was so much going on that we just got it all out. I told him that I felt like he loved his PS3 more than us (dogs and I) and that he always ignored us when he was playing and that he didn't consider us a family. He was upset because I said I'd never have children with him. It went on and on, until he said, "fine, just divorce me then."

I'm usually the one who talks about divorce and he's the one who always wants to work it out, so I was shocked and hurt, and I just started crying and told him that if that was the case there was no point in me being home anymore so I'd leave. As I was packing he asked me to forgive him because he didn't mean it. By that point I was just too upset and angry to care. After much pleading, I told him that I would stay and I'd leave in the morning. Plus, it was 4am and I didn't have anywhere to go. Today when we woke up, again he started pleading with me and said he posted his PS3 for sale and that he would do anything to be with me. Honestly, I don't know what to make of all of this. I still love him and I know he loves me too, but like I told him, sometimes that's not enough. What's worse, I don't even know if I really want to work it out anymore. I feel so hurt and I don't know what could make it better.

Right now I'm home and I'm trying to make sense of what's happened and I'm trying to decide what to do. When we got married we both really meant forever. I guess the problem for him is that he can't come to terms with being away from me. It's like breaking up is not an option for him. And for me, I don't know. I've never really meant it when I've told him we should break up, but I'm almost at that point now, and I feel like he is too, but he doesn't want to admit it.

I feel emotionally drained and confused. I don't have a problem with starting over, but I've always considered him the love of my life and I can't even imagine my life without him. So I don't know what's going to happen. He keeps pleading with me to give him a chance and to start over, but I don't know if that's even possible. How can we both erase all the horrible things we've said to each other. I don't want to end up like my parents either. They live together, but that's it. That's not what I want, actually I don't eve know what I want at this point.

Anyway, so that's what's going on. I'm very hesitant to even post this, but I don't feel comfortable sharing this with my family, but I needed to get it out somehow. If you've actually read all of this, thank you so much for "listening".

Source: http://txlovelifeandfashion.blogspot.com/2010/08/when-love-is-not-enough.html