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.