I have been married for 10 (!) years and while much of that time has been complicated by the steamer trunks of baggage we both brought to the relationship, it contained a lot of love and laughter initially.
We used to really love spending every minute of free time together... walking the dog, driving in blizzards to watch the snow, lying in bed talking, day trips somewhere fun, chasing firetrucks just to see where they were headed, leaving cards for the other to find (one found in the cat food bin comes immediately to mind), reading passages aloud we found that amused us ... ya'll know. The I'm-madly-in-love-with-the-person-I-married Syndrome. It lasted a good while and tasted delicious.
During the last five or so years of our marriage, things between us started to disintegrate. Sometimes you just can't see the destruction in increments. You have to turn around after the devastation and gain the Big Picture perspective; why, yes, look at that. I can't believe I didn't see that plane coming right at our building. did you, dear?
The husband was pursuing the wife for a 'real' relationship, and I was defensive, controlling, passive/aggressive, just in complete denial about what a good marriage needed to be/looked like. Long nasty childhood, blah blah (see here). I pushed and pushed and pushed him away emotionally - and subtly disrespected him and what was important to him.
And, in a retaliation of sorts, he turned off the physical relationship with me and stayed up late every night. Never coming to bed with me at the same time anymore (we became seemingly opposite male/female stereotypes of physical needs). He subtly stopped showing love and what was important to me.
These issues were the two big stalemates in our marriage. More bricks laid in the wall between us. We are all charged with a sacred assignment in Marriage: to build a wall around us to the outside, and windows open to each other. The opposite was now taking place. We were smashing our spousal windows and mixing mortar to fill them. And opening windows in our outside walls.
Can you see what's next? Of course you can. You have the gift of hindsight and now I do, too.
I'll leave you with a little Tori Amos to chew on:
Baker Baker, baking a cake make me a day make me whole again and i wonder what's in a day what's in your cake this time?
i guess you heard he's gone to L.A. he says that behind my eyes i'm hiding and he tells me i pushed him away that my heart's been hard to find
here there must be something here there must be something here here
Baker Baker, can you explain if truly his heart was made of icing and i wonder how mine could taste maybe we could change his mind
i know you're late for your next parade you came to make sure that i'm not running well i ran from him in all kinds of ways guess it was his turn this time
time thought i'd make friends with time thought we'd be flying maybe not this time
Baker Baker, baking a cake make me a day make me whole again
