Running Errands

For over an hour we were driving around in the car on a Saturday. It was actually one where she didn't have homework and could come along, with conditions of course. She couldn't eat where I wanted to since she is on a diet again... Ugh! On top of that, the conversation with her pen pals was more interesting than me anyway.

I finally get the courage to speak up. I tell her it would be nice to have a relationship where I had a friend who was interested in me. I told her how ridiculous it was that for over an hour we didn't speak to one another. I also mentioned at home she goes into the bedroom by herself and doesn't interact with any of us. I awaited her response, hoping this time she would get my point and things might start to get better.

It would not be as she projected back on to me everything I just told her. As I have gotten braver and shared my feelings of emptiness in our marriage, this is always the response. It is like she steals my emotions like a black hole sucks in light. There is no being heard by a narcissist, or an apology. Hell, they never do anything wrong in their mind and you are just a puppet in a warped reality in their head.

The eve of my 20th anniversary

We had grown apart over the last 2 years. The home daycare and the church change were very stressful on our marriage. Actually, we joined a gym and started working out together. I was feeling really good about the state of our marriage as we were close again. Then one night a week before our 20th anniversary, my wife tells me that she wouldn't date me if we were both single. I was heartbroken, and I  realized I was not dealing with a healthy individual.

This was the same day she received a job offer so she could quit doing the home daycare. Of course it would be a large pay cut, but she was going to go back to school. There is one constant in our marriage, I am the responsible adult. There was no way to have an adult discussion about this emotional black eye and she went to bed that night and slept like a baby while I stayed up and fumed.

I realized as I sat in the dark that night that there never was a relationship where I was loved by her. I projected my neediness to the situation and got just scraps. Three years later, the slap to the face still stings as I try to keep it together for the kids sake. The weak grip I have is starting to let go.

Narcissistic Evangelical Wives

I was out shopping with my wife today and was reminded of the narcissism that was the norm at my old Southern Baptist church. I noticed 2 couples from our old church there talking and it served as a stark reminder. The women were chatting it up, while their husbands stood there waiting for the conversation to be over. This gave me a window into my past, when we would encounter people my wife deemed valuable enough to engage in superficial conversation. While during the whole exchange I wanted to be elsewhere, doing something  productive.

I tired of the shallowness and the beliefs attached to that world and hoped there would be a happy ending. However, it was not to be. The shallow relationships my wife craved were sought elsewhere once the church relationships dried up. I correctly saw that the church was in the way of having a close marital relationship, but I didn't realize there would be no focus on that by her.

I basically removed the main source of her supply and there would be hell to pay for it. I lead our family to a healthier Lutheran church and for the first time became involved at church as an adult. All of the efforts I put forth as a spiritual leader were rebuffed and it was made impossible to continue my involvement there. After some soul searching, I realized my faith is dead after the years of struggle to believe.

The wife has had a mid-life crisis after leaving the church and has tried to recapture her youth. There are penpals she chats with endlessly while I sit there like a bump on a log. Or the sororityesque group she has joined to further engage her narcissistic tendencies. Most recently, she has gone on an extreme diet to be come a body builder. All of this weight loss has been acheived just in time for her to go out of town for a month to work at a company where one of her pen pals work.

A normal husband that hasn't been beaten down would protest all of this and not allow the month out of town. From the bottom of my heart, I am breathing a sigh of relief. Do I sit at home for a month and eagerly await her return.? Or do I go out and have some fun and find a couple of opposite sex penpals of my own.

I thought I made  a move to better our family to leave the old church and maybe I did. The thing I learned from this was, my marriage was never healthy and maybe I have outgrown it. I no longer feel inadequate and like I have to save my significant other. I want someone who is open with me and is on the same intellectual level.

Don't  know where to go from here, but something will be changing soon I can tell.