More of what I did

One of my many preoccupations is the wondering of why our relationship spiralled the way it did. Honestly, I'm not sure I see the problem beyond a feeling... a sensation of disconnect between me and my wife.

Eyes burn when you put bleach in them.

Maybe it's best that I do see my side of things. No one else is going to. So, we trace everything back to the beginning and we may, maybe, see a common element: the LDS church.

This statement is not made out of malice, and I want the reader to continue reading in order to get the full gist of what I'm saying. I love my wife, and I regard the LDS church as being a part of what she is. That culture was central when she was growing up, and I certainly don't want to take her childhood away.

Charlie takes a long look at his walls and shelves: games and movies.

But I've rarely felt comfortable in that kind of setting. When I first attended it felt completely optional. If I didn't go it... well, that never came up. Once I started attending, I kept going. I could share it with my wife.

Incidentally, the phrase "not ready for it" is insulting and hurtful.

But we didn't really talk about it. The faith and why people in general might disagree. My wife seemed inclined to believe that any truly intelligent person would eventually see it. She actually said this on a few occassions, but it's not really Tito to what I'm talking about. So, unless I opposed my wife, not the church, nothing contradicted the LDS church in our household.

And so it went for about seven years, with my wife becoming more involved in something I just wasn't willing to absorb. I get many of the cultural aspects (Jell-o, for instance, is regarded as a salad: weird), but the actual religion... not so much. So we were both drawing away from each other because we were not involved and not talking.

My wife has, during all of this, a clear social outlet: a regular group of human beings that she can commune with and feel like herself.

I had been discouraged from leaving home because, hey, we have kids and I need to be either working on my homework or taking care of the house. Any social contact I had was not regular and didn't last.

I'm going to take a moment to complain about something. I have people that I've known for longer than two minutes that I suggested could babysit our children. Hell, one of our neighbors I knew for something like two years before I suggested that they might babysit (they'd volunteered), but it always was a "no". Now, my wife could know someone all of about a week in the LDS church and they had the Charles Atlas seal of approval.

Hair pulling time.

Anyway, I look for things that show a problem we both had. I think it's healthiest to look at the relationship holistically.