Marital woes

14 July 2006 ~ 11:37

Last night I went to see if Mark was coming through to the living room to watch a DVD with me (he was on the computer). He replied very scornfully and sarcastically �Don�t worry I know we have to spend EVERY WAKING HOUR TOGETHER!� I was flabbergasted and could only manage to stutter �There�s no need to be sarcastic.�

Now our arrangement is usually that, because he works nights, Mark sleeps during the day and I get him up at 9pm so we can spend time together before he leaves for work at 10.30pm. (He doesn�t start work until midnight but likes to go in early). So the most we get to spend together on weekdays is 90 minutes, but that is not really the case because he spends time on the computer, making coffee, playing his guitar etc, so I�m lucky if we spend an hour a day together. One hour per day is hardly �every waking hour� is it?

Now Mark getting up early was my idea. I thought it was important for the health of our marriage that we spend a little time together every day. Obviously he doesn�t feel the same. He hates getting up, puts it off, grumbles etc. So I�ve grown to hate waking him, and I�ve decided not to do it anymore.

I think our problems stem from the fact that Mark is a loner who likes his own company. I think he�d be happy to live alone. In fact I�m beginning to think he only moved in with me to save him getting his own place. And he sees me more as a kind of nanny figure to look after him, remind him of things, organise things etc than he does as a wife and life partner. For example, I have to ask him for kisses and cuddles, he rarely wants to cuddle me himself and when I ask for a cuddle from him he hugs me stiffly like he�s a corpse.

Maybe we base our expectations of marriage on our parents� marriages. My parents used to watch TV together, take us kids out to the beach or the woods on weekends etc. Mark�s parents don�t spend time together. His father watches telly in the �TV room� and his mother watches it in her bedroom. They don�t really go out or do stuff together. His mum comes to London to see us on her own; his father goes on weekends to NYC with his friend Al. They are more like two people sharing a house; they don�t show each other affection. I think Mark wants our marriage to be like that, but I�m not happy to live that way. I want us to do things together, be affectionate towards each other.

I find myself turning to my mum more and more. When we three go on holiday together, she�s the one I talk to on the plane. She�s the one I discuss my health problems (the diabetes etc) with. She�s the one who sends me birthday cards from our girls. Mark never asks after my health. He�s a very self-centred creature. He can show affection (bucket loads of it) to his plush dragon Boston, but not to his flesh-and-blood wife. I really don�t know what I�m doing wrong. Reminding him to do stuff like renew his prescription earns me scorn like I�m the big bad ogre for making him do chores he doesn�t want to do, yet if I don�t remind him he tells me off for not doing so and gets really depressed without his meds, and is hell to live with.

Last weekend he told me off for talking to him too much. This time it�s that he doesn�t want to spend time with me. One hour a day, Saturday nights and occasional holidays is the only time we spend together. I don�t think that�s a lot, certainly not enough to get sick of each other. When you think that some couples work together too�.

Anyway it seems like our relationship is terribly one-sided, with me loving him a lot more than he does me. Until yesterday I was proud of the fact that, after almost eight years of marriage, I still love and fancy my husband to pieces. Now I just feel weird for being that way, like it�s not normal to still be madly in love after all this time, because he isn�t with me. In fact I think he was like that towards me for only a few weeks at the beginning of our relationship.

I don�t think I�m the clingy, pathetic woman he makes me out to be. I chatter to him not because I think silences are awkward � I feel entirely comfortable sitting on a bus in silence with him � but because I enjoy his company. I go to my mum�s alone for the weekend. When he moved back to the US for 18 months, I didn�t beg him to get me a visa to come and live with him there; I got on with my life. If I was as desperate
for him as he makes out, would I have done that?

I lived on my own from when I was 19 until I was 34, and I can become independent again. From now on, I�m going to be more like Mark�s mum, and do everything on my own. If I want to see a film, I�ll go alone. I did last weekend (went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man�s Chest), I already go shopping on my own. I can watch TV or DVDs on my own. I can go out with friends. I won�t book any more weekends away. Mark can go to his club on his own and to Boston on his own. We can be an independent couple. Of course a guy at work had a relationship like that with his wife, my sister-in-law did with her husband, and both have now split. But Mark�s parents are still together. I can�t afford to get divorced � I need two incomes to pay the bills � and I don�t think Mark can afford a place of his own either. So we�ll have to make do and just be good friends and flat mates.

It doesn�t mean I have to be happy about it. It�s really not what I hoped for on October 3rd 1998 when he slipped my wedding ring onto my finger. But I guess every girl hopes for a fairytale.

Stored nuts | Future acorns