will we ever really get along?

So my thought is that we won't.

It's odd to fall totally in love with someone. You want to do everything to make that person happy. As it turns out, even if you tell them about your faults, the other person never believes. My spouse and I both chose to keep personal details personal. After all, who would want to ruin a great relationship by introducing things that would spoil everything? Not me. I was recently out of a emotional and hard won relationship. I was trying to be the best ME I could be. That's certainly the way to attract a mate at 20. And I was feeling like I was running out of time. How strange in our day that I was feeling like an old maid at 20. I clearly had a different kind of influences than most of my contemporaries.

I was also a product of a strange divorce. I could recount my mom's desperate attempt to lure my dad back in. Little did she know he already had a mistress, and he never really wanted kids. So I was the product of a marriage gone bad in stages. I fixed her hair before she went out, and I listened to her cry herself to sleep when my dad went to sleep in another room.

I also was a victim of her ridicule during the same time. I was a preteen. I had social anxiety. I masked it with overly charismatic behavior. My mom continually said she would look for drugs. She continually accused me of things that I never would have thought of doing. I was a victim of the paranoia that she was directing at my dad.

I'm like the family martyr. Hated by all. Sacrifice to many. I was so smart, that I could be self sufficient. I could bear the burden of the adults, and the rejection by the same adults. I was used when I was useful and cast off when I had an opinion.

So, I entered into a marriage trying to be perfect. I did tell the prospective spouse that I was emotional, volatile, and prone to throw things. Sadly, we were madly in love for whatever reason.

I can't say that I have ever been happy with our marriage, but my unhappiness has grown from surface to fundamental concerns.

We have 4 kids. I have stayed home for 3 years. Been pregnant and breastfeeding for nearly 3 additional years. My husband has had the college credits for multiple degrees, but he never completes them. It's probably my fault for marrying a 30 year old man when I was 21, but I was in love. I still am in love with him as he exists outside responsibility.

How do I continue to love the bitter, frustrated man that has resulted from th reality of marriage, jobs, and 4 children. And how can I continue to like my life when the person I was so in love with does not?

It must be the summer

I tend to become disheartened as the winter turns to spring. I feel like I have given everything to fundraisers, my kids' beginning school days, PTA committees, my class back to school night and parents of my new students. I spend my time trying to make the new school year an amazing and exciting experience for my 4 kids, 1 husband, 25 students and 50+/- parents. I say that because one student may have 4 parents or only 1 parent. Sometimes a stuedne t has 2 half time parents or 1 foster parent or 4 parents that operate for 1/2 year each. What can a person do to meet the need sof all these children and all these families? The answer is nothing significant. Without God, not one of these families will be able to do their best. So, I must keep each family in my hopes and prayers while focusing on the 6 people that mean the most to me.

What happens to MY family each spring, and each fall? I can tell you. By winter and spring, my husband and I are ready to trade each other in. How can you spend all day trying to help kids from 25 or 125 families, then come home and have the energy to help your own. You start to think you have so much that your kids are well off without your effort. So you try to relax and block out reality. Take a break, you say to yourself. You deserve it. That works until you hear the other parents talking about advanced math and the University Brass Symposium that their 7th grader just joined.

Shit!! Now you have supremely gifted and talented students that are able to succeed on their own, but they are being superseded by the children of hyperactive parents. I had no idea I could request an extra-special schedule that defies middle school expectations. Now I have been proven to be an inferior parent.

And while all this weighs heavy on my mind, the main concern I have is me spousal relationship. My husband and I can no longer get along. It's ironic to marry a person who has the same professional passion, but has an outdated family perspective. I married a man who defied all stereotypes. He had a degree and a job. He was making a living. He gave it all up and asked his parents for money to learn to be a teacher. We met in teacher classes, but he seemed like he wasn't serious. WHile he had disdain for the coursework, he was serious about his goal. more to come

husband? really?

do you ever just not want to be with this person? like, not even in the same room? i go to the couch. sometimes i just don't even want to sleep in the same bed. and we have $200 couches from ikea. i love ikea, but i am making a sacrifice.

i am making a sacrifice just typing about it b/c i took ap courses in high school when i should have taken typing and some vo-tech. go figure. so now i am a (smart) teacher - which takes almost no schooling (even though they require it... no child left behind). and i can't type. but my husband can b/c he went to a school with no advanced courses and graduated in the 80s. but i am off topic.

i want to be in my nice comfy bed. i sleep poorly at all times, but worst of all in the summer. so a bed is a boon. but how can I? i try to let him know what i am upset about. he doesn't empathize, so he ignores. umm, can't sleep with that and risk waking up to an undeserving morning service (while i am still groggy and unaware). can't even risk a midnight snuggle lest the conflict is suddenly resolved without a deeper exploration of my feelings. so, to the ikea couch i must go.

truth be told, with a couple of glasses of wine, it's not that bad. but shouldn't he be the one on the couch and not the one slumbering away while i am ruminating on his transgressions???