Try, try and try again

Abraham Lincoln said, "Whatever you are, make sure you are a good one" and in an effort to step up to the wearing of my somewhat dusty housewifely hat, I made a light lunch for my husband and I to enjoy without our children. During the course of this interlude of domestic bliss my husband looked up from his lunch and, observing my watering eyes, enquired if I had had an allergic reaction to something.

I explained that I had been choking.

However, despite sitting inches away from me across our table, he had been so lost in thought he completey missed my distress and there was a look of incredulous surprise across his face as it dawned on him he had, despite his proximaty, no recollection of what had happened to me.
Basking in the security of the past weeks "warmer glow", I decided, with some misgivings, to use the opportunity to tell him this "moment of absence" was not an isolated incident.

I was totally unprepared for what followed.

Whereas I saw my kindly and carefully voiced disclosure as a way of opening a dialogue from which we might find our way back, my husband saw it as an accusation which required defending.  No amount of explaining  the frequency of these "absent episodes" was not a judgement but merely an observation, would deter him from his argument.  Despite the fact he had acquired, for himself, proof they were a reality, he could not accept his opinion on their frequency was simply invalid.  I thought our objective should be not to query their existence, but to lovingly discuss how best for us both to live with them.

Overwhelmingly tired of the life I could see stetching ahead for me yet desperate to ensure my children do not grow up without a father, I visualised the coming years with a husband constantly in denial of all circumstances and all attributes which displeased him. I was destined be struggling silently to provide family stabilty at the cost of any personal expectations of happiness and retired to bed early with a very heavy heart.

Waking early, I crept out of bed to make a start on my plans for a future without him, only to notice his clothes on the floor discarded from the night before.  They lay carefully and childishly folded in a pile which was too small for their volume and I knew this unsolicited task had been undertaken in an effort to seek my approval.  With my resolve still intact, I made my way to the bedroom door imagining it to be the portal between me and the rest of my life.  My husband stirred with the noise of  my opening the latch the and it was then I heard his muffled words,

"Come back to bed so I can make you a cup of tea".

"Alright then", was my well practised reply,"if you are sure you don't mind"

Whatever I am, be it lover of my family, lover of my husband or just a lover of tea,  I have always endeavoured, like Abraham Lincoln suggests "to be a good one".  I have tried to do the right thing and in this instance I am sure of one thing and one thing only, I am definitely good at trying again and again and again.

Not for all the tea in China

The single trait I have struggled to deal with throughout the duration of our financial demise was my husband's apparent lack of remorse.  No amount of explaining how heart breaking it was for me to discover where he had led us prompted any form of apology. He watched every hair on my head and body fallout from the stress and said nothing. If anything it made him more detached.

Periodically accusing me of distancing myself from a situation which was as much of my making his, I lived in hope he might one day behave differently. After all it is not easy to explain to someone how and when to show compassion if they have always found it difficult to engage with their feelings. It's even more tricky if you are the proposed recipient. However, it's nigh on impossible if the individual concerned believes the part he played in our financial is insignificant when compared to all other contributing factors.

Befroe our financial demise I had no idea my husband was incapable of accepting responsibility for even the smallest indiscretion, nor did I know he regards every question, however innocuous, as criticism.  It has come to light he is only comfortable with making statements and when doing this he calls it conversation. Sadly, these days I say much less and anticipate very little from him. Our marriage hangs by a thread, glued together by our debt and our children but not much more. I know one day neither of these will be with us and then, I suspect, our marriage will be over unless, of course, something changes.

I have no idea if my husband has similar thoughts as he would prefer to argue and be derogatory rather than evoke any feelings in himself. He says he has no idea what to do to make amends and as he would not know where to start he chooses not to think about it.  In the past year, however, there has emerged one small positive sign. It is the only sign I have he wishes to have me in his life. In all other ways I could be a housekeeper/nanny or even just another adult in a house share. This sign has come in the form of a constant stream of tea.  It appears, through this vehicle alone, he feels able to demonstrate a little warmth for me and so I now find myself the recipient of many, many, mugs of tea.

Tea flows in abundance towards me day in day out despite is not being a tea drink himself. I find it in a flask at my bedside if he leaves before I awake and it can arrive in quantities of four or five cups before breakfast time if he is at home. It waits outside my shower or sits next to my computer. It can even be found in the car if I am to embark on journey. It is constant and comforting in an way that gives distance to the contentious issues which surround our seventeen year marriage. It is this small gesture, and this gesture alone which gives me hope that one day there might be more to our relationship than debt and the giving of tea. Not for all the tea in China will I give up on him while there is still a chance our marriage might once again be whole.

In the meantime I have settled for his plentiful offerings of hot milky tea.