Wavering

Warning: This post is private and personal. If you know me or John Dear IRL, please keep this to yourself or refrain from reading this post. Thank you.

Things are not good. No, let me just put it out there. My marriage is not good. It's never been great, but it's been not good for awhile. There have been two times where it has been bad enough for me to say, things have to change or I'm gone. Each time, JD has tried to change, tried to be more of an adult and a partner to me, but the backslide inevitably comes. Bad things come in threes, so this one is it.

JD is a child. He wants a mother, not a wife. If he could crawl up inside me and live there, he would. He's appointed me to be the captain of this ship, but also the cook, the maid and the cruise director. JD is the tourist who doesn't have to lift a finger, but feels that I should grovel at his feet with gratitude should he deign pick up a towel.

Yet at the same time as he yearns to continue his childlike existence, remaining responsibility-free, he has an overarching desire to control me. Me, who like JD, grew up in a situation with a controlling parent where I did not have control over anything. I chafe at his restraints. I am not a caged bird who sings.

About a month ago, I had a revelation during meditation time in my yoga class. I heard a voice inside me that said, "You will never be whole as long as you're with JD." I tried to argue, "No, no, I will work to be as whole as I can be, creating the whole life for myself that I lack in my marriage." But the voice just pronounced, "You will never be whole as long as you're with JD."

This week, we meditated on our deepest desire. Bubbling up within me, "I want to be free."

When I saw Fairy G-dmother this week, she said that our recent joint session really opened her eyes about JD and the fact that he would never, could never change. She said, "Jen, I love you and I will support you whatever you choose to do. But, your life will not be all that it could be if you stay with him. JD will not get better. Your life now will be your life a year from now, five years from now, fifteen years from now. If you choose to stay with JD, we'll work on keeping you as whole as possible and getting the support that you need from others."

Could I leave? Yes, and I would be OK. I worry about JD. How he would handle it. Would he be all right? Plus, I love him. Shouldn't love be enough to conquer all of these foes? I know that it isn't, but shouldn't it?

Would our marriage be falling apart if we didn't have to deal with IF? Maybe yes, maybe no. I'm confident that all of these weaknesses that IF has exposed would eventually come to the surface. Perhaps they would not have shown themselves all at once, in this unending ocean, where I get figuratively smacked by the waves again and again and again. The tantrums. The physical illnesses. The chronic pain. The mental illnesses. The terrible sex life and his weird fetishes. The inability to hold down a job. The infertility. Maybe, if it had happened slowly, and we had been able to live the dream that we had, I wouldn't be thinking the way that I do. That I just can't do this anymore. That I have to leave him. That I have to save myself.

But I want to stay. I want to be with him. If I haven't left by now, after all that we've gone through, why would I leave now?