Slippery When Wet

There are times life can be compared to a newly laid sidewalk, so smooth and easy to follow. Then there are times it appears to be as treacherous as a hiking trail through a rocky ravine during a heavy rainfall! These are the times we must tread carefully or risk falling.


I think I could safely compare these past few weeks to that rocky ravine and I’m teetering and soaking wet! My beautiful wife and I have had three arguments this past month. It’s disconcerting because we haven’t really fought at all. I would like to think of my previous relationships as avenues of experience. I’ve learned from my mistakes and my exes’ mistakes, and I’ve learned from the good we had too. I’ve put most of what I’ve learned to use. I’ve learned to compromise and listen. I’ve learned that we as individuals do not have to stay with someone if we are unhappy. This last one is big because I think at times we forget to look at our partners as separate entities as the relationship grows comfortable. We forget this person sleeping next to us does not have to be here and we get careless with gestures and words. We forget to show them how much we respect them, we forget to show them love, and we forget they have needs that must be met. Anyway… the most important lesson I’ve learned was to communicate when angry. Unfortunately, this particular lesson hasn’t seemed to help and this is why….

I’ve met myself in my wife. She is stubborn. When she’s mad she bottles up, but no worries, she’ll let loose when you least suspect it. Then she turns over and doesn’t say a thing. That is exactly what I USED to do. I learned that not responding to rebuttals after you’ve blown tends to make people a little crazy. I now know exactly why people have slammed out of rooms yelling like loons after an argument with me in which I’ve said very little. I always felt so confused when that would happen and wondered what crawled up their butt… now I know.

Luckily after our arguments, we’ve talked things out. We made a deal after our 1st one that we would count to three, roll over, and hold each other. That deal didn’t make it through the second argument. So now, after our third argument, we know that we need to communicate better. I’m not really sure how we’re going to do that… prehaps no bottling up and then letting loose in a fiery word storm for her, and no leaving the room for the rest of the night for me. What else though? What can we do to better manage ourselves when we are less than pleased with each other? Hmmmm… I’ve written her a poem. I am the world’s worst poet, but hey… I keep trying! One day, I’ll write a masterpiece! I said it wasn’t for the blog, but I’ve changed my mind. Here it is…

This is not a blog for others to see.


It’s something for you, written by me.

This is not a love letter. It’s a rhyme.

It’s a message to your heart from mine.

The day I saw your smiling face… I thought to myself “This must be fate.”

It was easy and a lot of fun.

I’m so surprised I didn’t run.

If it’s easy, is it real?

With my heart I made a deal…

If I saw love in your eyes

If I could hear it in your sighs

If there was tenderness in your kiss

And you were the one I knew I’d miss

Then you were the one I knew I’d need

The one I’ve felt in my dreams

I need your love and your trust

You do too, it’s a must

I need your touch, I need your time

I need to know we’ll be fine

Through troubles and a little strife

I’ll always love you, you’re my life.

The challenge... can someone have a lifesaver available please?

This particular blog will be broken up into different topics because I’m feeling a bit scattered today. Too much Starbucks and not enough activity!


The first topic was my morning reality check…

When people ask me what I do, I say “I’m a housewife.” What I want to say to them is “I’m a writer.” I want to write. I love writing… when I can pour my heart into it without worrying about the reactions of others, what I write is actually very good.

On that note I’ll roll into the second topic… I write about life with my partner/wife and our kids… I still go back and forth on what to call her. I know that may seem silly to some, but this is all new to me. With my exes I was never “out,” so they were “friends.” Now, I’m pretty much “out” but still have some adjusting to do as far as saying “My wife,” or “My partner.” I’m always amazed at the ease I see in people when they’re talking about their same-sex partners. I’ll eventually adjust to this, but you’ll see this topic in another blog soon!

Back to writing… my wife! My poor wife feels as though she was blasted in my last blog. She said she read it FIVE times and that she looks like an ass. She was so cute pacing through the bedroom kicking at my workout ball in a little mini fit as I laughed out loud at her. “Why can’t you talk about why I love our lifestyle?” “I love being able to take you on trips,” “I love our house with a river walk in our own backyard!” “I work from home to have more time with you.” “I guess I’m just a man!” This is a small example of her tirade.

I tried to be fair in that blog. I stated that I feel as if I’m overreacting at times. I gave her the fact that her after-hour emails and texts don’t take up a ton of time. The thing is… I still feel the way I feel. While I’m working on these feelings, she needs to understand what quality time means to me. She said she was going to start her own blog called “The Other Side of the Fence-The “Husbands” Perspective.” I told her that would be just wonderful, “One more thing to take time away from us.” I thought this would send her into a fetal position (this is yet another blog) but it didn’t. I’m so proud of her! This, by the way, is our bantering. We do quite a bit of that… we’re always teasing and bantering back and forth, while also getting points across. Much more fun than truly arguing!

So, my “husband”… you are as far from being a man as one can be… Seriously? You aren’t called PP for nothing... Pretty Princess! Luckily you’ve lost the Pillow Princess title, but you are a princess nonetheless. I challenge you to write your blog “The Other Side of the Fence.” I mean, what can you truly say about your completely devoted wife? “She cooks dinners for us every night” “She makes sure I have fresh flowers every week.” Sounds pretty boring to me… but if you want dueling blogs, then I am ALL for it! Bring it darlin’!! ;)

A warped view perhaps?

Thanks for following me Shiela and of course, my loyal baby! Here is yet another blog...

Hmmm… how do I like this font? We shall see. This particular passage may turn out to be a huge mess due to my need to drug myself with the hope of perhaps getting some sleep. I was pretty wiped out for about oh, maybe an hour. Didn’t last long… it never does when you can’t turn off your thoughts. No worries… my drugging wasn’t illegal… just Tylenol PM. I was tempted to add a glass of wine but thought better of it. I’m sure that’s the direction I’m heading in though. I have a dilemma… well, a few dilemmas, and I honestly don’t know how on earth I’m going to handle things. I can tell you that anything I’ve done thus far hasn’t really helped.

Let me see… I know no one likes to read a huge amount of babbling, so I’ll try to detail without the detail. I’ve already discussed the ex and my flashbacks caused by his recent purchase of a gun(two guns now), so I believe I’ll begin here…

I’m a housewife… you’ll get the background story on that later, but what you do need to know is that I am a housewife to a woman. This doesn’t mean my issues are different from a typical housewife. My partner owns her own business which takes her time and energy. I’m sure when I’m feeling as I do at this moment, that I too consume her energy. She may beg to differ as far as work goes, but when someone is “constantly” checking emails, and is in “constant” contact with a business partner be it through IM, email or otherwise, it can get frustrating. I suppose I should preface this with my idea of constant before I get into trouble. If we’re sitting and watching movies, or out and about after business hours and the emails and texts are being checked, I consider this a constant. That’s called constant distraction. I do try hard to ignore it and it's not like it takes a lot of time... two maybe three minutes at the most. If I complain she’ll just do it when she isn’t around me or she’ll feel pressured and pulled. I don’t want to do that to her, but I admit it goes all over me as of late and I do feel like I’m overreacting at times.

I know that I have major jealousy issues as far as the business partner. I won’t go into great detail as to why I feel this intense jealousy, but I will say that I’m trying hard to extinguish it, if only to feel good inside again. I suppose with me not being familiar with business ownership, I find it hard to accept the fact that my partner travels with another woman, tries to have “alone time” with her, and may add an extra day or two onto trips in order to get that time. They do things other than plan business ventures… they have fun which I know she deserves because she works hard and I know it’s her right as a business owner. I just don’t know how to phrase this… I guess it’s that she shares experiences with her business partner that I would love to share with her. Plus I feel like a kid when I go up to bed to leave them alone for talk time. Hell, I go to bed with the kids. Bleh! It’s not like I’m a competitor trying to steal the business or a kid who will constantly interrupt. I’ll be told the business partner misses “her friend,” and the time they had together before I came along. So I guess my jealousy stems from the experiences they’ve shared and will share, the fact that she feels the empathy and the need to give alone time by having me going to bed when the kids do, and that they share something big and are building something together. I know that her job is important to her on a very personal level because it’s hers and I know it’s important to our lifestyle which she loves and doesn’t want to lose, but when we started out, she made sure she wasn’t working after a certain time… and it wasn’t expected that I would leave the room so two other adults could talk or work.

I do so need some time right now too. But… okay get ready (this too is an issue a typical couple will deal with), my partner feels that her working from home has added to our time together. Yes, I see her daily when she isn’t out of town… I’m so very happy she’s here and wouldn’t trade it for anything, but how is this time together? Yes, we have dinner together with the kids and sit and watch our favorite shows, which is another thing I wouldn’t trade. I just want some one on one time… talk time, doing things time and I just want to shed myself of this jealousy… if it makes her crazy, I wonder if she can imagine what it does to me…

I do trust her... I know I need to let go of past experiences in order to feel good. Good and bad experiences. Meaning, when I could, I traveled with two of my exes when they were working. That would be filed under good expereinces. I won't get into the bad experiences, but just know I can reflect back and really get my thoughts running in every direction possible! Relationship suicide... So, I'm working on this and writing certainly helps. Maybe when I have followers, I'll get some advice!

A scene from the rearview mirror

It was never my intention to begin my blog in this manner. I initially had the idea of a cutesy little introduction that would eventually lead us along a straight and narrow path. That being said, I suppose we should get something straight right now… I’m not really into cutesy, and I wouldn’t know straight and narrow if it if it were drawn out for me on a map. It’s kind of like the little GPS dot that allows you to see where you’re located on the map and the line that shows where you should be… I’m usually never on the line!

Anyway…

Spousal abuse/family violence is still under-reported and misunderstood. Many people have their own definition of what abuse is, and who is affected. Many don’t think about it at all unless they read about it in the news. Unfortunately, by the time it gets that far it’s way too late to help the victim or victims. Then opinions are formed. People are thinking or saying things like “Why didn’t she speak up sooner?” or “She would have left if it were really that bad.” The fact is a woman (or man) will attempt to leave an abusive spouse many times before the final break. Because abuse isn’t limited to physical actions, the abused spouse/partner will believe the emotional turmoil they are going through is deserved. They will be made to think they aren’t capable of making it without the abusive spouse, or they will be threatened.

The past:

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP…. Heart pounding fear. I can feel it in my ears. It’s so loud I can’t hear anything else, and I really need to hear what’s going on around me. I need to know if he’s coming down the hall looking for me. Ughhhhh… I can picture him stalking the hallway in his bare-feet, opening each door and looking inside. I’m not in a place that can be seen from the door. He will have to come in if he wants to find me. He likes this game… he thinks it’s funny. I don’t. I left him sleeping on the couch about an hour ago… praying he would stay there. Praying he wouldn’t wake up and that I could sleep in peace. That didn’t happen. I just wanted to be left alone. I managed to jump up from the bed, but seriously, where do I go to get away? Where do I go in my pajamas, with my kids sleeping down this same hallway? With one sleeping in the very room I’m sitting in right now… I’m trying to pull myself together, trying to listen for footsteps or for the door to open. After years of this, I’m past the point of crying, and he’s past the point of feeling guilty. Now he feels justified… now I’m in more danger than ever before. No one knows… it’s embarrassing. I’m smarter than this. If I call the police, it would only make things worse the next time, and the next time… so I never call. The room is dark and I can hear the sound of my sleeping child in the bed. The hall light shines under the door in a most unwelcoming beacon. I hear them now… the footsteps. He opens the doors, and then closes them. “Where are you?” Then, “Come on, come back to bed.” He opens the door to the room I’m in and the soft light casts a harsh beam through the black of the room. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it straight down my arms. I’m sitting with my back to the wall, my knees folded up. Like a child who feels like she can’t be seen if she closes her eyes, I bury my head in my knees.

This heart-pounding fear will never leave me. Seven years later, there are nights I will still unwillingly revisit this scenario in my dreams. It’s not a fear of being hurt, but a fear for my life. My life is so far removed from that now, and I am so thankful, yet, just when I get to the point of feeling completely safe… I find out he’s bought a gun.