Here's one that keeps recurring.
I want to go and live overseas for six months. I want to go back to the country where I was born (warm, small, far away from here).
I want my son to learn the language and know a little of where his mother comes from. I want my partner to understand that not all of my ways are about my personality; that some of them are cultural.
It's daunting to think what packing up our lives, flying around the world, finding another house and settling into another country where he doesn't know the language will do to J. I know it will be hard for him to cope.
He can't bear talking about the future, making plans. Accapting a dinner invitation a week away is overwhelming. With regard to this idea, he can't get past what we will do with the cat while we're gone.
Don't get me wrong; I love the cat too. But I'll figure it out for her, and us.
If only I can take a breath deep enough to let the instant negativity wash over me. We won't have enough money. Six months is too long. You're not realistic. What about the cat? I don't want to talk about it. There's too much to sort out. I just want to relax for once.
On the other hand, do I want to carry around the resentment that will surely build if we don't do this? I look around and see how the people I admire are not held back. They have ideas and they try them out. Sometimes the outcome is not what was planned. Nonetheless, they are not standing still, treading water.
Which is what is happening to me, to my life. We get by. I am so sick of just getting by.
Where have your grand plans gone? Have you jumped in anyway, made them happen in spite of the limitations? Are you putting them on hold?
Flo
Flo, this is so tough. Treading water is a pretty exasperating way to think about daily life, especially over the long term, but big changes can also be really daunting even without the huge added challenge of your partner's depression.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I've done this with my family, though not just for 6 months, and while I love change and grand plans and jumping in and all that, I have to recognize that it was incredibly hard on my now 4-year-old (almost 3 when we moved), much more so than I expected. Worth it, because of the "big picture", but at first it felt not like treading water but more like gasping and flailing and struggling quite a lot (seeing my little guy suffer was really so painful).
BUT, of course, your choice sounds like it is about not permanently avoiding things that you want to do for fear of it being too much for J, and not for your son. Thinking about it in terms of your future resentment might be a good way to evaluate how important it is for you. I definitely can understand how much you must want your son to know where you're from, and 6 months is definitely enough even for him to pick up the language.
Tough choices, but I'm excited for you. Even if you put it on hold for a while.
Good luck, Flo.
xox
Thanks so much for your comment MIM. You certainly have done a huge thing yourself. I'm curious to know more about the difficulties faced by your son. I've been presuming that mine will be okay because he's such a gregarious, outgoing personality. But there are probably things that I'm not considering.
ReplyDeleteFlo
I'm sorry that I haven't commented for awhile; my husband has been in another bad depressive episode.
ReplyDeleteThis post struck a chord with me. When I married my husband, we had so many plans: working together on various creative projects, travel abroad, etc.. None of these plans were pie-in-the-sky, they fit the kind of life we'd had individually before marriage, and I though that doing these things together would make them easier and better. Then depression kicked in and now planning anything is hard, hard, hard, if not downright impossible.
I've now become the sole breadwinner for the two of us and his teenage children, so there is no longer enough money to travel with; indeed, there's barely enough to get by on day to day. (I can't think of the last time I was even able to spend even a small amount of money on something for myself, let alone go off to Europe as I used to.) And his depression makes him unable/unwilling to plan anything in advance, or to follow through the simple plans that I try to make anyway. (If I can't even get him out to a gallery opening down the street, how on earth could I get him to Europe?)
I'm beginning to see a very limited life stretching out ahead of me -- no travel, fewer friends (because he doesn't like having people in the house when he's down, and I'm working so hard I rarely go out myself), just getting by from day to day to day, and happiness allowed in our household only on his schedule, determined by his moods and biochemistry; a dark pall hanging over everything all other times.
I think I could handle living a more limited life if our home life was good and if he were still the funny, sweet man I married with whom I could talk endlessly about everything. But when home life is limited to grunts instead of conversation, blank stares instead of affection, and walking on eggshells at all times -- which makes it hard to enjoy the simple pleasures of food and hearth and the company of family -- well, then those limitations begin to feel more and more constricting. I was so careful to marry a man who shared the same dreams, with whom I could live the rich, arts-based life I've lived in the past and wanted to live and expand on in the future. And I find myself married to two men: the depressed husband (a hostile, negative, self-centered, noncommunicative recluse) and the non-depressed husband who emerges from time to time (a sad, shaken, fragile, shame-filled version of the energetic, loving man I married).
I am one of those Uber-Commitment kinds of people for whom marriage is a serious vow indeed. And I never, never thought I'd say this...but I find myself musing on the "should I stay or should I go" question lately. Even to put that into print shocks me.
Do any of you ever think about that too?
It scares me to even be thinking about it. But it also scares me to think of living the rest of my life this way.
I do love my husband. I do love his kids (who are old enough that they will soon be off to college). This isn't about love. It's about survival. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll survive this marriage. I thought I was strong enough to cope with his illness. But after all this time, it's worn me down from month to month to month, and now I'm not so sure.
Hi SNY, I'm so sorry that your husband is going through a bad time at the moment. I understand what you mean about what it feels to put that thought in writing. It's frightening because it brings it into a form of reality and the realms of possibility, outside your own head. And I think you've put it very well in that it becomes not about love but about survival.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment things are going very well for J. He had a short period of depression (about two weeks) but came back out of it so much faster than usual. He's even coming around to the idea of this trip.
I am afraid though of what will happen if we go too far into making it happen and then he gets depressed when it's too late to back out, or when we're in transit.
I hope this period is over very soon for you. I recognise the place you're in.
Flo xx