Growing pains...

At least, they certainly feel that way. It's been a bit of a rough adjustment with me going back to school and I wish I could say that John has been supportive but he hasn't really. He won't admit it but I think he feels threatened. I'm not at home to do as much as I used to. I'm either in school or working on homework. There's a lot of homework which is to be expected for college classes. These are not easy classes either. Well, my writing and math class so far have been pretty easy but my networking class, not so much. There's a ton of information to read and remember and the reading is all done online. Since the internet bill wasn't paid before John and the girls left for the Feast, I was without internet at home the entire time he was gone. That, along with the fact that he went to begin with, taking his entire last paycheck and failing to pay any bills at all; missing my birthday and wedding anniversary during that week and not even really calling me because he forgot the charger, left me feeling just a smidge resentful along with hurt, angry, and even a little depressed.

Fortunately, my 34th birthday wasn't a total washout. My sister and I saw my mom the day before and then took a trip down to Chicago to visit family we hadn't seen in over 20 years. That was nice. We did some shopping, went out to eat, had yummy desserts, looked at old pictures from years ago. It was a good time.

But right now, I wonder what the future holds for my marriage. I wonder if we're going to make it through this transition. I'm working on a degree in a field that has a lot of potential for me after nine years of not really do much at all other than being home with the kids. While I don't regret having that time with my girls, it's a big change for me and for all of us. The dynamics are slowly changing. The way things have been isn't working. It never really did but it took me a long time to challenge that. I felt that being home was necessary, that being home no matter the cost was the most important thing. But really, the costs are getting to be too high. There's simply not enough income coming in and I didn't see that changing anytime soon. If anything, it had gotten worse. All I was seeing was a never ending repeat of the same problems over and over again and enough was enough.

So, I'm growing and changing and developing my own goals which means I'm no longer just going along with what John wants. At least, that's not the only option out there. And I don't know if our goals line up anymore (or really if they ever did in the first place). There are times they definitely don't seem to, especially in as far as our religious beliefs and in our priorities for ourselves and our family. I struggle with communicating with him. Nothing seems to come out right and I end up yelling just to get him to listen (he doesn't really but I'm so frustrated by then, I don't really care). There's never any time for us to just talk and more and more it just seems like we're living separate lives.

We're married and we're living together but there really isn't all that much closeness. While he doesn't see anything wrong with this (so long as he's able to do what he wants to do ultimately), I'm not happy with where our relationship is at. And while I've been working on myself and on being happy and content without relying on him to make me happy, I can't help but see more and more of a deficit to our relationship. He feels more like a third child than a husband and yet he more or less makes all of the decisions without even talking to me. It just doesn't feel like much of a marriage.

But I'm keeping on and working on what I need to work on because what else can I do? It all takes time and it takes me being able to be independent. In a sense, it's almost like going through the teen and young adult years again only instead of leaving my parents to live on my own, I may end up leaving my husband.

About halfway through my first trimester...

...at SCHOOL I mean! Definitely not having another baby! The program I'm in follows the trimester schedule and week 7 starts tomorrow. It's been challenging in some ways and not so much in others which, for a first trimester, is probably a good thing. I have two classes that are specifically geared toward my program and two classes that are for general education requirements. Those two are most definitely my easy classes even though one is math which surprises me as math isn't always my strong subject. Then I have a computer class that goes heavily into the inner workings of a computer. That's been going pretty well too. The challenging class is the one that's VERY specific for my degree. It's my networking class. I'm doing decently in it, probably around a B but there's a lot of information to remember and it's been going fast which doesn't give me a lot of time to really hammer the information in my head. I'm hoping that as times goes on, it will stick more. Either that or I may have to make a change in majors...

Balancing everything has been quite the challenge too. John is still working overnights but I have two days where I have classes at 8am. One of them follows his overnight shift. He's done at seven and class is at 8. This hasn't always worked so I've hired my brother's fiancee to watch the girls in the morning so that I don't have to worry about whether or not I'm going to get to class on time. This became necessary after John forgot I had class one morning. At least, that's what he said. Hard to know sometimes if it was really that (though he is rather absentminded) or if it's more his way of trying to gain control of the situation. Hard to say. He can't complain too much right now. It's my financial aid that helped us get rent caught up so he could attend the feast that's a requirement for his religion that starts this week. He had set aside money for it but then spent it and has taken his most recent check to use for the trip. That wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't been able to pay the rent. Or, he would have gone anyway and then we would have run the risk of being evicted but hey, at least his god would be satisfied by the great sacrifice he made.

I might be a tad bitter about this feast thing. Doesn't help that he'll be gone on what will be not only my birthday but also our 11 year wedding anniversary. But it's not the first time his holy days has taken precedence over our relationship even though we wouldn't have even been married if he hadn't forgone his religious beliefs for some time in the first place. Fortunately, my younger sister has come to the rescue and we have a number of plans for next weekend. Which is good because otherwise, my 34th birthday would have been kind of sucky.