From Singles to Doubles

We're going to start couples counseling again. We've been going individually with John going once a week and me going every other week. Not much was happening. I'm talking about snakes more than I ever did, but I still freak out every time I see one, so I guess something happened, but that had nothing to do with my marriage.

Since I've been journaling much more regularly, I should probably go back and look at when I'm upset, and when I'm happy. I'd like to see if there are patterns to it. Maybe I can blame all our troubles on my period. Wouldn't that be nice? I doubt it though. I don't know that there will be a pattern at all. I think it all depends on how much conflict we have and what comes up to accentuate our differences and shortcomings.

Personally, I feel like I'm moving right along. I have a career path. I have a plan. I'm feeling better about myself and getting more done, which go hand in hand. I still haven't lost any real weight, but I'm working on that. I am getting better at controlling my anger and learning productive ways to deal with it. I'm not miraculously better, but I'm making progress.

John feels like he's making progress too, and he is. I just think it's a lot slower than mine. As I told our counselor yesterday, "John moves at his own pace." She noticed it too, and that's one of the reasons she thinks couples counseling would be more beneficial. I guess I serve as a catalyst of sorts. As usual, I make him move.

I always feel a little out of sorts after counseling. It could be the unhappy emotions getting swirled up into the mix of my life, causing dark ribbons of discontent to surface, like when your hot chocolate has been sitting too long, and you move the spoon. Counseling for me is moving the spoon. We don't stir vigorously or clink the spoon back and forth on the cup. We just circle it around once or twice, then I'm left with it. I either let it settle back down, or I keep stirring.

Yesterday, I think I kept stirring. John went to his appointment, and we ate dinner. I asked him how it went, just to get a feel for things, and he answered with the usual, "Fine." I don't think he's ever said anything else. It's always "fine," even when he later tells me that his cup got stirred a lot, and it's been sitting there settling a whole lot longer than mine has. He doesn't like hot chocolate, and he doesn't like to stir it up. That's where I come in, because now that we're sharing our lives together, we take little sips off of each other's cups, and his is kind of bland.

It could be said that as long as he's happy with the way things are, why does it matter? It matters because he chose to be with me. He knew I was emotional from the moment we met. I didn't act the collected, even-tempered girl. He didn't act the sensitive, expressive guy either. We both went for things in each other that we didn't have in ourselves, and as is often the case, that came back to bite us. But now that we're together, and we love each other the way we do, we want to find a way to make these differences work without the high of our initial infatuation.

Oh, we're well beyond the old infatuation stage. We still won't go to the bathroom in front of each other though. In fact, we maintain quite a few manners that many married couples let go by the wayside. I'm glad we agree on these things. The day he asks me to pick zits is the day I divorce him on the spot. There is no intentional farting in the company of others in our house either. It's not like a rule or anything, and it's probably not a whole lot of fun, but that's just how it worked out. It makes the accidental farts that much more hilarious too.

I descended from talking about the grand subject of my marriage to farting. Sometimes I amaze myself with my thought process. Now all I'm thinking about is our annoying habits. We are far from the epitome of etiquette in our house. Despite the lack of wanton farting, we're still slobs.

I don't know how I get back to the subject of counseling after that. Let's pretend none of that was written. I could delete it altogether, but that wouldn't be a true representation of me. This is how I think. This is what John deals with. Pity him.

It might seem like no wonder that John avoids dealing with things. I go off on these tirades, feeling like the world is coming to an end. What can he do with that? Ignoring it certainly doesn't work, but that's what he's chosen to do until now. In a way, his avoidance was comforting, because if he doesn't deal with it, how can I? We'd hit turbulence every so often when I boiled over, but between those times, it was pretty smooth. Now I get stirred up not only from hitting my own limits at home but also by talking about these things in counseling.

Yesterday, not only did I have counseling do that for me, but I talked with Kay too. She called to rant about her own husband, and I found myself fuming about mine even more. John's emotional distancing and lack of follow-through were weighing heavily on me. So when I happened to go check the county web site to see if our property assessment was raised and saw John's name as the sole owner of the house while all our neighbors had both in the couple, I was more hurt, because I was sensitive.

When we bought the house, he did his usual thing and did what was easiest. That meant not involving me. I told him at least three different times that I wanted to be on there, but he insisted that the sale would go much more smoothly if I wasn't. He wasn't going to change it, and that's all there was to it. He says I didn't convey my feelings well enough or stress how important it was to me. I think I did, and he interpreted it rather than taking it at face value. I think I would have had to throw a tantrum for him to be unable to translate what I meant into what he wanted it to mean. He didn't want the hassle of adding me onto the mortgage, because he thought my lack of income would be a detriment, regardless of the fact my credit is better than his. Our county's web site allows anyone to check people's property values and information, and every single couple I checked had both people on there, even all the ones with stay at home moms. How did they get on their loans? Why is my mom on the mortgage for my parents' house when she hasn't worked outside the home since 1969? The simple fact is he didn't want the inconvenience of having me involved, and on something as big as our house, that really hurts.

That issue turned into more as we talked, because that's the way things always go with us. Most often, John offers this reason or that for why he does things, and it just takes off from there. Last night, the subject was mainly about John not listening to me, because that's really the reason why the house thing went the way it did. He heard me say I wanted to be a part of it, but he didn't listen. Had he done that, he would have understood how important it was to me.

I'm also bothered by the fact that he just didn't care that I was on there, but that's another facet we didn't discuss. It also goes much deeper, but I could go on and on about any of these things and all too often do. Thinking it over is constructive. My tendency to dwell on it is not. John's tendency to ignore it is not.

John suggested we talk about this next week. I would like to, but we will have to be careful not to bring up his family, or the session always ends up going off on that tangent. John also has to make sure he doesn't babble incessantly like he has a habit of doing in there. It amazes me that he can go in there and talk so much, but he barely speaks a word at home. The counselor can't figure that one out either. He's such a mystery.

It's that mystery added with his stubbornness that brings us both back to counseling together next week. He needs prodding, and I don't really need individual work. So maybe this will get us moving forward again instead of stagnating where we are.