Not What I Expected

The visit with my friend went ok.  I guess I had expected her to be the same even though I'm not.  When we first  met, she had been married close to 15 years and was still insanely in love with him.  Deployment was beyond difficult for her.

The woman I hung out with, was not that same person.  She was angry, distant and almost indifferent to her marriage.  She didn't open up immediately but after I shared about my situation....... which was very difficult........... she began to talk about hers.

It was as if we were on two very different sides: me the insecure wife who wanted desperately to hang on to my marriage and her, accused (falsely) of having affairs and completely disinterested in her husbands needs.  She told me she cant stand for him to touch her and his insecurities do more to drive her away than his mood swings and bouts of "crazy".  She casually mentions that he brought up divorce and she told him, "Go ahead, but you better find somewhere else to go because I'm not fucking leaving."  I cannot even fathom saying something like that!  But I was impressed she could.

After awhile, I asked her if she thought they would make it.  She paused and then said, "Yea, we will just be that old couple that fights all the time."

I was not encouraged.  They had many years on us and this is what deployment did to them. But I have thought a lot about her situation; the differences and similarities to my own.  I think there is a lot I can learn from her.  Mainly, just how much I can drive him to hate me by being insecure.  It is not like I didn't know this already... but it is something else to hear it from one of my friends.  I felt like my husband had probably told his friends the same shit about me that she was saying about her husband............. shit, he may even be saying it to her!


And there I go again with the paranoid bullshit!

I got a call from Not Alone today.  They set me up with a counselor, my appointment is next Friday.  I am weary, as it is very difficult for me to talk about any of this with even my closest friends.  But I am hoping to find the awesome person I used to be.  I hope she is still there........somewhere.