I always thought that marriage was easy. I'm not talking about before I actually was married, when people tend to have a fairy-tale view of life in wedded domestic bliss. No, I am talking about in the almost three years that I have been married, I have often thought "this isn't so hard!" We have the right stuff - love, happiness, stability, common goals, and we have our health. Marriage is easy. Even something as tricky as the struggle with infertility isn't enough to knock us off of our foundation.
Isn't it always at those moments that you are feeling most secure that something comes along to knock you clear off your pedestal?
I haven't been blogging much because I haven't had much to say. Which isn't true, I have tons to say but I shouldn't. I
mentioned before that my husband and I are having a problem that I really ought not blog about, out of fairness to him. However, I am going out of my fucking mind so I figured maybe I can blog ABOUT it without getting into specifics. If anything, to give me something to do except cry every five minutes.
The interesting thing about marriage is that, when one person in that marriage makes a mistake, both people pay the price. It is quite a unique situation to be in, one in fact that I can't remember ever being in before. I am beating around the bush to say that my husband made a mistake, and now we are both paying for it.
Let me stop right there to say this: I am not perfect. I make mistakes ALL THE TIME. I have made many a mistake that has affected the two of us in many ways, and he has always supported me, never questioned me, never even batted an eyelash at my fumbles. But, that being said, these errors in judgement of mine were truly nothing more than stumbling blocks along the way - nothing too major.
On the other hand, my husband never makes mistakes. He is so careful; he is such a perfectionist; in fact he is borderline anal when it comes to almost everything. I have been spoiled and accostomed to him not screwing anything up. So this is new territory for me.
And let me also say that his mistake is anything but a stumbling block. It is a colossal fuck-up in every sense.
When he first informed me of the situation about two weeks ago, I was absolutely stunned. Stunned. I wanted every detail; I wanted to know how this could possibly have happened and furthermore, what did it mean in the grand scheme of our lives? Was this going to change things for us?
"Perhaps," was his answer. "But I don't think so, I am optimistic that I can fix it."
So I held my breath and continued on with my busy, already stressed out life.
A week later, he approached me again with an update to the problem, which to my surprise had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. I again inquired, what does this mean for us? For our future? Was this going to change things for us?
"Probably," was his answer, a mere seven days later.
"Does it change...EVERYTHING?" I asked.
"Possibly," he sadly answered.
And my mind began to race. "What about IVF? What about trying to have a baby? What about the new house we are building? What about our FUTURE? What about our LIVES??" I wanted to scream all of these things to him at the top of my lungs. Because these things are all currently in jeopardy, because of him. Because of his mistake.
But I didn't scream these things at him. As much as I wanted to lash out at him with a tirade of "what abouts?", I did not. As angry as I was with him, I didn't yell at him. I didn't scream at him.
Because he made a mistake. A MISTAKE.
I am mad as hell at him, because my future which was laid out so nicely before me a mere two weeks ago is totally up in the air now, because of him. Why should I have to worry about my entire future when I did nothing wrong? Nothing changed on my end, and my life is being potentially taken away from me. He is the one who screwed up - why am I being punished?
Because we're married - that's why.
His problems = my problems. His mistakes = my mistakes. His punishments = my punishments. And it sucks.
But this is marriage. This is what they mean when they say "or for worse." Right now we're living a very vivid "for worse" and I am coming to terms with it.
Getting angry at Anthony won't do any good. As upset as I am, he made a MISTAKE. Nothing happened intentionally. He certainly didn't set out to cause this chaos.
And believe me, no one in the world feels worse than he does. I can't even imagine the torture he is putting himself through. He is so sad, is so stressed, and is so full of regret. He tells me over and over and over how sorry he is, and he says he can't believe that with everything we already had going on that he has now added this stress to my life.
My problem is now, trying to figure out how to handle all of this. I am not doing a good job. I am sad. I am mad. And I am not supporting him the way he really needs to be supported right now because I myself am such a basketcase. I don't want him to feel like I am rejecting him or that I am never going to get over this. But I need time, and I need space, and I need to breathe.
No matter what our future looks like - babies, no babies, new house, no house - I still know that I want it to be with him. And I told him as much. I hope he heard me the first time, because I am still going to need a little time to recover from everything.
Bottom line, too, we still don't have a resolution to his mistake; this thing hasn't fully played itself out yet. But we aren't kidding ourselves - a good outcome does not look possible at this point.
Our marriage to this point has been very easy. Suddenly, it is very, very hard.
But I love him so much. He loves me so much.
Whatever is in our future, however this thing plays out, as long as we end up together on the other side then everything will be okay.
