And now for something totally different

I can't remember if I have mentioned this before, but I do have some unusual dreams. Every so often I have an extremely vivid dream of someone else's life. I don't know who or why, but in the dream, I am someone totally different. Nothing in the dream is familiar to my regular life. 1000% of it is unrelated to me. Only once was it dramatic, where I saw a crime committed (Alison DuBois kinda moment) but I never saw anything in the news to make me believe I was accessing something happening.

So anyway last night's was very different. I was an 17 year old girl. My family had over a dozen kids and we had all been adopted. There was a brother that I thought of as my twin, even though we were not blood relatives, we were just the same age. We were the oldest of all the kids and like in many large families, we helped out a lot with our siblings.

Our father was a doctor and honestly I don't remember the mother in the dream. I do remember some red headed brothers who were very mischevious. Dad had been transferred to a new hospital, one that was largely empty. The only patients were all in comas and so there wasn't too much worry about all of us kids in disturbing the patients. We moved into the hospital and the girls had one ward and the boys had another. My "twin" managed an exam room of his own but I slept with my sisters.

Apparently I must have been ill or somehow very fragile. I know at one point, I found an abandoned waterfall garden and I fell into the water. My twin brother carried me in and there was a great deal of fussing, which seemed comfortable, like I was used to the fuss.

Oh and an important note, Dad looked Thomas Gibson. Not exactly like him but that kind of good looking. Again, nothing like my real life. ;-)

There were several other fragments of the life, very detailed, very full bodied memories which have stuck with me even after these hours of being awake. And another interesting thing is that this dream all occurred with these high level of details in just a couple of hours. I didn't sleep much last night so I can pretty much pin point the exact hours I had this dream. This is common when I have these types of dreams.

Someday I would love to have a good explanation for these. But for now, it is kind of fun to live someone else's life, even if just for a couple of hours. I didn't grab any names in this one, but often I do, at least first names. Never enough to say where they happen or even when. Just a piece of someone else's life. I just hope that whoever it is isn't getting my life in exchange. That just wouldn't be fair.

One of those little things

So maybe it was last year that J told me that he slept better with my pillow. Something about how I scrunch it up and how it smelled like my shampoo, etc. It was a very sweet little moment and stood in my memory because he doesn't say sappy things like that.

Ok so now let's move forward to the more recent past. A couple of months ago, J got territorial about which pillows go on which side of the bed, to the point he wrote our names on the pillows. It drove me a little nuts and I did notice that suddenly my pillow wasn't as comfortable, etc. Hmmm, wonder how that happens. But I decided to not make a big issue out of it.

So yesterday I washed our sheets, working on decontaminating our house a little and when we were making the bed, I subtly pointed out how my pillow had both his and mine names on it. Then I reminded him how he commented on liking my pillow so much and how over time, it had become his pillow. He switched them back.

Little things.

Valentine's Day card from Hell

Here is what J wrote.

I know right now we are having problems and we don't know how it will end. All we can do is have hope. I do appreciate everything you do and I do love you. I do feel that but to what level I just don't know. Maybe if we can work this out, it will make us stronger in the end. If not then we know we tried. I still want to tell you I love you but at the same time not mislead you.

Just remember I do love you but love cannot fix everything. If it could then we would not be here we are right now. I would have fixed it a long time ago. Just remember it takes time for things to fail and to get fixed. And we both need time to think and see what happens.

BTW I did not get your gift as the kids were sick and we need to understand what's going on.

Isn't that the sentiment every woman wants to hear on Valentine's Day?

Today

So I sent him an email (not sure if he has read it yet but that besides the point) that I was going to give him his space. I'm not initiating sex, love, affection, etc. If he wants to initiate I will be a very willing participant but I'm not going to smother him while he is trying to figure out what he wants. And maybe, he will start to see what kind of life he is picking if he doesn't have me always reaching out to scratch his back or to give a foot rub without being asked. I don't think he realizes all the little things I have always done for him without being asked to. I'm not shutting him out but I'm not going to demean myself telling him I love him and offering affection when he isn't sure what he feels.

Yes I have been crying a lot last night and today. I came home and of course I'm unlucky enough to have one of those faces that swells up with the first tear so he knew I had been crying. I didn't say anything about all that we have discussed, just kept the conversation on things like how KB is doing (she has been running a fever today) or about Trevor going to the concert to see the girl across the street play her band instrument. As he was leaving he looked like he is really feeling bad because he knows that he is the reason I'm so sad right now. That's fine, I'm not going to pretend that I'm ok with this limbo. I don't want him to think that he can just wait out making a decision. I want to work with him on making a relationship work but at the same time I'm not going to be a doormat either.

The beginning of the end?

Well things have been rocky for a while with me & J. We have had a couple of heart to heart talks about trying to salvage our marriage. I have been making a full scale attempt to make things better but he hasn't and he admits he is having a hard time trying.

Basically I told him tonight that he needs to figure out what he wants. I'm tired of trying to be a wife if he isn't going to try to be a husband. He's angry with all of us half the time he is around and when he is around, he pretty much wants to sleep. But nothing we do around here makes him happy. He doesn't like anything and everyone is tired of being yelled at.

He's good friends with women at work. The other morning I woke up to find him in the kitchen talking on the phone with one. He talks to them on the phone and I wouldn't be surprised that he texts them. He admits he would have problems if I was talking to men like he talks to women but yet he doesn't want to give up his friends. It does bother me that he is more willing to talk to them than he is to me. But yet I do understand the need to talk with friends. He says without them he would have been gone.

And he admits he isn't sure that he does love me. I know I love him but I'm reaching the point where I know that I can't continue the pretense of this all. He had been talking about getting me a Valentine's Day gift and I told him not to waste the time or money until he knows that he loves me, that right now it is a cruel insult to me. He even refused sex the other day because he feels like it is wrong while he is trying to figure out what he wants.

While I want this to work out, I guess I need to prepare myself for the possibility of how I'm going to raise 3 kids on my own. But let me say that it hurts deeply to hear someone you have been married to for 22 years to say the words that he isn't sure that he loves you any more.