One Hopes

Sometimes I feel empty in my relationship.

This week has accentuated those feelings.

I feel like we’re travelling such different paths at the moment.

He is working a Cashie Job for his cousin Brad. Which is great for us because it’s an extra wad of cash that we would not have counted on otherwise, and both our Reggos are due in May. He has already said the money will go towards the Reggos.

He is an amazing man. To be working longer hours to pay the Reggos of all things? And he has done it gladly.

Mind you, he DOES absolutely enjoy what he does. I think he’d do it even if he wasn’t getting paid. He THRIVES on what he does.

I won’t mind spending some of the money on a treat. Not because treats are affordable these days, but because he absolutely deserves it.

The longer hours however, has meant that his attention span isn’t very long, and sooner than later he is snoring away. I watch TV with him, even though there’s other much more interesting things that I could be doing for myself. And soon enough he is asleep. I try to go through the Birth Plan with him, urge him to please stay awake, we have a little argument, I finally start going through all the details, and soon enough he is asleep. I give up, put the books down, and fall asleep myself.

He is overworked. And I guess I am too, in a sense. Bubba is getting much too heavy to cart around. But it’s not just the bubba, it’s the way my body has changed so much. My pelvis just cannot handle too much walking, as neither can my hips. My back, a whole other story too.

We go to bed and we just fall asleep. There’s no cuddling to be had. He’s been getting into bed earlier than me, which is a swap of events. And I can only sleep on my left side, which means I am facing away from him the entire night. The few times I make an effort to cuddle up to him, he ends up breaking into a sweat and I have to pull away. Not to mention that spooning with a big belly in the way isn’t all that achievable anyway…

Sometimes I wish he would spoon ME… but he doesn’t. He doesn’t really touch me, or caress me. I think it’s because he doesn’t know what to do anymore. My body is so different, and so sensitive in places it’s never been sensitive before, that perhaps he’s chosen the easier path of not really trying. And this makes me sad.

I need him to touch me *tears*

I don’t care for sexual touch – though I wouldn’t push it away if it became that… But I just need to be touched…

He cuddles and caresses me in the mornings, after he’s showered and dressed and had breakfast – ready to head out the door… He nuzzles his face against mine, and strokes my hair, and tells me I’m beautiful and that I’m his Bebe, and that he loves me… I’m half asleep, and eventually I wake up, by which time he is saying he has to go…

I need more.

He hasn’t been talking to Bubba much lately. He was talking to her constantly for awhile there, and stroking the belly. But he hasn’t. I don’t push it on him. It’s HIS relationship with her. Not mine.

He explained to her the other day that he’s just been busy, with other things on his mind, but that it doesn’t mean he loves her any less. He explained to her that it won’t be like that once she’s with us because he won’t be able to ignore her presence, and he’ll want to pick her up and cuddle her all the time.

But his lack of communication with her started before this week…

I think I miss his talking to her because when he does, and he’s softly leaning his head against the belly, I stroke my fingers through his hair, and I feel that at that moment we are all bonding as the little FAMILY that we are…

I miss him.

I miss just BEING … together. I miss being Me….

I am not me… I am in pseudo-land… Sporting a body I do not recognise… worrying about things that are foreign to me, that I know nothing about… living a life that isn’t mine but inevitably has to become mine…

I have been "lady of the house"… preparing our meals… learning to look at food a whole different way… learning to look at our NECESSITIES a whole different way…. I am domesticated.

I just want to be Me again. Do I get to be Me again? Where these kinds of things are of lesser value?

Probably not…

Last night as we watched TV I asked him if we could please spend this Sunday together? (He will be going into work to continue working on Brad’s boat on the Saturday). He said nonchalantly, "If you want…"

In near-9yrs of being together, he should KNOW that I DESPISE that response. If you give me that response, you may as well have shat all over my suggestion. I thought quietly that perhaps spending time together per se, isn’t so important to him, as it is to me. And I thought about how SAD this is because I KNOW that when Bubba’s here, there will be no time for "us" time… and he will realise only too late that he passed up many many opportunities before this stage in our lives… He will learn to appreciate, only too late, that our time together NOW.. was truly valuable. I have tried to express the importance of time together… but it REALLY isn’t important to him ! He is happy to spend our time together watching TV… or just hanging about the house doing our individual chores.. THAT , to him, is "being together"…. *sigh*

There was a Cruise commercial on. $799 for 7 nights through P&O. They always have really awesome specials on. I told him that we should go on a Cruise one day. He replied dismissively, "Hm yeah". I confronted him about this. I said, "You really don’t BELIEVE in holidays, do you Babe?" He questioned what I meant. I said that whenever I mention us taking holidays, his response is as though he doesn’t believe we could ever ACHIEVE it. He then pretended that his tiredness got to him, and with a yawn he eventually responded with, "I dunno…"

I was angry for a minute, and then I just didn’t have the energy for it. I just let it go. I thought sadly.. and concluded for the umpteenth time in our near-9yrs of relationship, that he simply does not share the passion with me, and does not share the vision with me…

I thought sadly about the fact that I near-left him because of these reasons.. (well, many reasons at the time..) but these are not reasons to LEAVE now… Merely reason to understand and accept that he is DIFFERENT to me.. and that if I want to achieve anything in our lives, it will CONTINUE to be thanks to MY efforts… Because if it were up to him… Well, I’d hate to know where we would be if it were up to him. We’d probably still be in Townsville, to be honest.

And when you love someone, you accept their good and their bad. And that’s one of his bad – a lack of belief and enthusiasm in things outside the "going to work and coming home from work" drill.

Anyhow… I just hope that once Bubba is born and I can establish a routine with her, and have her enmeshed in my life, in our lives…. That things might start going back to normal in a few months…..

One hopes.