Resentment
Hi sisters...guess I have been very needy lately...I just keep coming here to pour out my heart, where I am safe, where I am understood...then before you know it my heart is full again and I am back. So...here is what is on my mind...it isn't pretty. I know the statistics on marriages failing after the loss of a child...I don't want it to happen to me, but I am starting to have these feelings, resentments...
My husband has always been very career orientated...he won't admit to it, but he has always put work first, before me, before Cassi, before our families...he would interject at this point that his career was necessary for the survival of us, which is true, but he completely put his career first. It's just the truth. Looking back...all of the major decisions in our lives, in our marriage, was made by him. When I married him we lived near his family...not what I wanted, but...it was easier to just go along. I wanted a baby...we had Cassi. I was so in love, such bliss, I wanted more children. He did not. I felt a baby needed 2 parents whole heartedly involved...he got a vasectomy. He started having to move around the state because of his job. Each move came with a promotion of course. I refused to move Cassi around. She didn't want to, and my mother had moved me a lot as a child...I put Cassi first, did what I thought was best for her. It was very hard for me in the beginning...then I got used to it being just me and Cassi and I truly loved it. I could have gone on living that way forever, I am just being honest. Then, in her senior year she started having her problems...I would call my husband, crying..."She's so depressed" "I don't know what to do for her"...he would call her, ask her how she was, she would say fine, and he would report back to me that she was okay and I shouldn't worry so much. Maybe if he had never moved for promotions, maybe things would have been different...they grew apart, couldn't talk. Then finally the first time I had to hospitalize her, he panicked, drove 14 hour home...I was like, "I have been dealing with this for months". Then, when she graduated from High School and moved away to college, he wanted me to move away to live with him. I didn't want to, wanted to stay closer to her...but I went along with it, finding out later Cassi felt abandoned...
Now, with the time nearing for his retirement, he wants to move back into our home, the home where we (I) raised Cassi...full of memories, full of heartache...and I don't want to go. I'm not going to go...I can't. I don't understand him, how he can do it, how he can ask me to. I sometimes wonder if he has a heart...
I didn't want to be a statistic...but it may happen.
My husband has always been very career orientated...he won't admit to it, but he has always put work first, before me, before Cassi, before our families...he would interject at this point that his career was necessary for the survival of us, which is true, but he completely put his career first. It's just the truth. Looking back...all of the major decisions in our lives, in our marriage, was made by him. When I married him we lived near his family...not what I wanted, but...it was easier to just go along. I wanted a baby...we had Cassi. I was so in love, such bliss, I wanted more children. He did not. I felt a baby needed 2 parents whole heartedly involved...he got a vasectomy. He started having to move around the state because of his job. Each move came with a promotion of course. I refused to move Cassi around. She didn't want to, and my mother had moved me a lot as a child...I put Cassi first, did what I thought was best for her. It was very hard for me in the beginning...then I got used to it being just me and Cassi and I truly loved it. I could have gone on living that way forever, I am just being honest. Then, in her senior year she started having her problems...I would call my husband, crying..."She's so depressed" "I don't know what to do for her"...he would call her, ask her how she was, she would say fine, and he would report back to me that she was okay and I shouldn't worry so much. Maybe if he had never moved for promotions, maybe things would have been different...they grew apart, couldn't talk. Then finally the first time I had to hospitalize her, he panicked, drove 14 hour home...I was like, "I have been dealing with this for months". Then, when she graduated from High School and moved away to college, he wanted me to move away to live with him. I didn't want to, wanted to stay closer to her...but I went along with it, finding out later Cassi felt abandoned...
Now, with the time nearing for his retirement, he wants to move back into our home, the home where we (I) raised Cassi...full of memories, full of heartache...and I don't want to go. I'm not going to go...I can't. I don't understand him, how he can do it, how he can ask me to. I sometimes wonder if he has a heart...
I didn't want to be a statistic...but it may happen.
Replies
I saw my father put his career before everything, I saw my husband do it as well, now I see my son putting his job before everything else. Men are hard wired in this way. I don\'t know what it would be like moving back into a home filled with so many memories. I can\'t help with that.
As for me, I never had a doubt that my husband, son and I would get through this together. Sure I had resentments. There were days he worked when I thought he should have taken off. I did not have to move around the country though. I can\'t help on that issue.
Each family is different, each couple is different, each individual is different. When Josh died, we all changed. We became closer. Christopher and Dave
got know each other better. Chris and I got to know each other better. Chris \"translated\" men for me so I had more understanding. Dave and I just lived in the same house for awhile, but we never doubted that we would pull through this all together. In August, it will be 5 years without our older son. We have all been surprised at our personal strength and growth.
Your grief is so early and new. Retirement is very stressful too, at least so I am told. (Dave is still working.)
Gina, this has been my experience. It is very different than yours. I hope it helps, at least a little.
Sending love your way,
Leda
Oh Gina. It is so hard to know what the right move is. We all have such different backgrounds and stories. I think that if I were in your shoes, I would see a counselor, together if possible. It may help you come to a decision that you are comfortable with.
I wish you peace and love,
Marlene
Some of what you had to say reminds me of Andy, April\'s Dad. But it wasn\'t his career he put \"first\" (even though he worked, and still does, very hard and made sufficient money to keep my life from being a living hell), it was his emotional unavailability. I seem to have a lifetime of husbands (3), and friends, who were EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE. Why? Because both my parents were. Through years of psychotherapy, from age 20 to age 39, I worked through this problem and I still didn\'t beat it, I still engaged a person who was emotionally unavailable because he portrayed himself as the exact opposite. He would not call April, once we moved, because she couldn\'t talk on the phone, she couldn\'t hold normal conversations after about age 17, she was too sick. He never even emailed her, even after I told him he NEEDED TO DO IT because SHE NEEDED TO SEE IT. It was all too \"unrewarding\" for him. Mind you, at age six, he lost his mother in childbirth. From that point on, he and his sister were \"farmed out\" to other relatives (separately) until his father met and married a woman straight from hell (if you ask me). She treated these two children like dogs and did a huge amount of damage. So he carries a heavy burden and, unlike me, he has not spent 20 years on and off in psychotherapy to rid himself of the garbage of his childhood. So: somewhere in my head I still blame him for my daughter\'s condition, because I spent my entire pregnancy dealing with his anger and resistance and refusal of this new life. Perhaps the stress I was under heavily contributed even though I took such exquisite care of myself during pregnancy. He was never there for, or for me. And now he is punishing himself for it, but I cannot absolve him. I do not, on the other hand, overtly blame him.
Your husband is who he is. You saw that a long time ago. I won\'t judge him, I wouldn\'t dare to even if I knew him well, because I am fraught with flaws myself, as are we all. But: your marriage is not quite the coupling of a damsel in distress with a white knight: whose marriage is, really? You have issues, and the most serious of them is that he wants to move back into that house AND YOU CANNOT DO THIS.
It\'s a bad time to suggest marriage counseling because what YOU need is grief counseling, what YOU need is to find your \"new\" self and follow your own path. He must find his own \"help\". I know I could never have lived in that house I moved to in 2003 again; I moved out five months after my daughter left this world. The house sat there, empty, with a caretaker I paid, taxes, fuel oil bills, landscaping, for three years until it sold. Twice I had to go there, both times with people strong in faith. And the house I so loved, like a pet, on Long Island, where April came \"home\" from the hospital, where she grew up: I loved that house so much but if someone were to offer it to me for free I couldn\'t go near it.
Do not relinquish your own health and emotional stability, ever again. Easy to say, hard to do. Yes, the statistics for marriages surviving the death of a child (even by natural means, serious illness) are not good; the sort of trauma you are enduring makes that even more difficult. My advice: find a good counselor for YOURSELF. Begin to re-discover YOURSELF. Stand up for your own convictions if you have to. Forgive him his inability to live up to your expectations. I\'ve never met ONE MAN who could do that. Gloria Steinem once said, \"I have BECOME the man I always wanted to marry\", and that is true of me, also. This is a very bad time to make any decision regarding the rest of your life: where you live, with whom you live, your marital relationship. Do nothing except go forward one day at a time and survive: judge him not, he is not doing anything deliberately to hurt or undermine you, he is following his own mind and heart to the best of his ability. I\'m not a marriage counselor. I realized a long time ago that no man is ever going to tell me what to do, where to go, when or how. I grew up surrounded by strong women, without partners. When I tried to find love, I tried in all the wrong ways. Ultimately, the love I found, the one that satisfied the need, the hole in my soul, was my only child. Do you know how many marriages fail once a child is born? That\'s how many women have been led astray by society, by conditioning, against all common sense, to think we can find a \"hero\" when the only \"hero\" is OURSELVES.
Sweetie, if I\'m reading your life story correctly, you haven\'t been a couple for years. Perhaps it\'s just time to sever legally what had been severed emotionally years ago. I don\'t know that any of this is related to Cassie. Perhaps you grew apart so many years ago, and now your just facing the reality of your independent growth as individuals. You want different things. No harm, no foul, no resentment. Just move on.
Cassi fulfilled me...she was my best friend...as long as I had ner, really, noyhing else mattered...now...well, I don\'t have her...and I\'m feeling alone.
Hi Gina - I can so identify with \"feeling alone\" - my mother & my daughter were EVERYTHING to me and with both of them gone - nothing else really matters, not even my husband (Jennifer\'s step-dad). Life continues on for others (husbands) and sadly to say, OUR LIFE HAS STOPPED and the NEW LIFE that we will have, has not taken form yet. We are in limbo, emotionally unstable and so we look at others and begin the process of tearing them down.......Your emotional stability is very important. Listen to your gut - DO NOT MOVE INTO THAT HOUSE.....I believe that will be the end of your marriage because you won\'t be able to live there.
I hope and pray he can understand that but as Jill said - it is a harsh reality when we realize no-one can be our HERO, our KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR....
This is your time to heal ! This is your time to figure out YOU. Listen to your gut - it doesn\'t lie. Standing WITH YOU in whatever choices you make. Vicki
Your truth and voice must be heard and if you cannot bear the thought of moving back into the house then you do not have to do it. Perhaps this is your first time to truly step into what YOU need and when we switch things up in our relationships sometimes they are not met with the kinds of acceptance that we had hoped for. It\'s all okay and you do have control over where you choose to live and this is the last big stressor that you are needing to have to worry about when you are steeped in grief.
Give yourself time and you will know what your next step needs to look like and always allow your heart to be your North Star. It is your barometer and compass back to yourself and that is what this path IS. Each of us trying in our way and in our time to find ourselves once again.
Loving care dearest Gina and keep sharing, writing and knowing that your heart and feelings are held very tenderly here.
XO Joanie
Relationships are hard...marriages are hard...change is hard...loss is hard...it all is so hard. But you do not have to make any decisions right now. Your marriage could be over...but it also could be a time when you RE-connect. Take your time...think of what you want...and what is best for you...it will surface...listen to your inner voice...love and gentle hugs..Karen
One day at a time. Talking about things big and small takes great trust; which you have to build up over time. Hoping that you can do whatever is best for you. Love, Kathy