What Am I Doing?

With every day that passes, I am growing more and more aware of something, and I fear it is so horrifying to even think about, I'm actually scared to admit it.

I don't love my husband any more.

The ramifications of just this one sentence are immense, and so far I have been carrying this sentiment around, feeling its weight on my shoulders, crushing my head and spine until the other day I actually stopped what I was doing and screamed my head off. I could no longer stand to hear Him and Daughter yelling at each other for something so trivial and pointless that I can't even remember what it was. Just the sound of his voice, winding Daughter up, constantly pick, pick, picking at her until she was sobbing made me want to punch him or a wall or anything.

These days, it seems the instant you get a whiff of displeasure in a marriage, it's off to counselling or to the divorce courts to get rid or upgrade to Spouse 2.0. But not so long ago, not loving your husband was not something you whined about. I'm pretty sure couples used to just get on with it and possibly learn to tolerate each other, but secretly be a bit relieved when your spouse kicked the bucket.

I feel like that when he leaves the house. It's relief and release and freedom that I can be myself for a few hours while he is out at work. But then the dread kicks in when he's due back, and when he's home I find myself tiptoeing around, being a lesser, muted version of me; not saying what I really think, not watching what I really want to watch on the TV, and generally behaving a bit like a Stepford Wife, albeit with a fatter arse, saggier tits and terrible hair.

My parents divorced when I was about ten so my idea of marriage may be skewed, but I honestly thought that a marriage was not about subduing yourself, but about being championed by your spouse for being who you are. After all, they married you, yes? You know what your spouse is like; that's why you married them after all.

I am wondering whether so many marriages fail these days because people are getting married with a hope that they can change all the things they dislike about their spouse once the confetti settles. I walked into my marriage knowing my husband had problems with alcohol, knowing he was a lazy slob who'd happily leave clothes, pots, food cartons and empty bottles strewn all over the house like he was still a student and knowing he couldn't maintain an erection. He knew I suffered from manic depression, knew I favoured writing over hoovering and knew I had trouble with my sex drive. So these things weren't a surprise, as we'd lived together for five years before getting hitched. So, unlike marriages decades ago when the couples lived apart until after marriage, we didn't go into this blind.

So why did we get hitched? I'd say several of our issues would be deal breakers for many. I find myself thinking this several times a day.

Firstly - and this is a selfish one on my part - I wanted The Day. I wanted the dress, the party, the venue the dancing, the food and the family and friends all there. I know a marriage is more than just the day, but I haven't been married before (close, but no cigar).

But apart from that, I suppose the usual things apply - I wanted security for myself and Daughter. It seemed the logical next step after living together and that old adage that "you either get married or split up" wasn't far from the truth. Did we marry because we were too lazy and scared to go our separate ways? I worked it out, you know. About a year before we got engaged, I sat down and costed it out - were we financial better off together or apart?

As it turns out, the latter was true in my case. I could have cut my losses and moved out with my daughter, and we'd have been financially richer (the Tax Credits would have shot up and household bills and rent would have been much smaller).

I find myself wondering now why I didn't take that more courageous of options and split up. And I think the crux of the argument is I thought that Daughter would be better off with a "normal" family unit. She's surrounded by friends who have "Normal" too and I've fought for so long to make her life as stable and happy as I can, carrying around with me the stigma of "single parent" for so long, perhaps I've forgotten that one happy single parent might actually be better than two miserable ones.

So: what now?

Number 35 - In Which History Is Stoned.

Such a pretty leaf...

When I was 17, I fell in love properly for the first time. He was the older brother of one of my friends and I can still remember the full-on chest palpitations and butterflies kicking the crap out of my tummy.

He was 4 years older than me: broody, intelligent and utterly fucked up. Of course I was going to fall for him.

In the summer before I turned 17, we had a water fight - me, my friend Emma, her brother Nick and a few other girls. It was hot, we were bored and it seemed like fun. 

Nick and I ended up in the bathroom: inside the bath, fully clothed, me in his lap, kissing, under a hot shower. Oh my. 

Emma blew a gasket and refused to speak to us for the rest of the evening. The morning after was awkward. By the time the summer ended and my birthday arrived in October, we were dating, or "going out" with each other. The first time we had sex was in front of the telly, with the gas fire on, in his front room, just after the first ever National Lottery had been drawn (we didn't win.) I remember the sex being fairly good. Later, it got great - he was the first boy to go down on me and the first to give me an orgasm. Which was nice. 

I fell into an all-consuming, couldn't-breathe-without-him kind of love. I worshipped the ground he walked on, watched the post for his letters (he was in his last year of Uni in Wales) and would cry if there wasn't a letter, and be hysterically happy if there was. 

He was also the first boy to shag around behind my back (whilst he was in his final year at Uni), give me a raging STD (can't remember which but it itched and burned) and break my heart. 

Do you remember your first "real" love? I can think about him now and still get a funny feeling in my tummy. Some of it is a teeny-tiny bit of "how dare you cheat on me and give me a disease!' rage, but most of it is remembering how wonderful first love felt. 

I remember driving from Bangor Uni to his family's home in the Dales in his beat-up car after he graduated. We sang songs from cassettes all the way over, and stopped near a waterfall to have outdoor sex. 

We held hands as we walked down to the river, dodging puddles and talking nonsense. 

We shared a single bed in his tiny room, in his parents' little stone retirement cottage in a tiny picturesque village in Wensleydale. 

We curled up by the open fire in the snug, and he introduced me to whisky and ginger.

What wasn't so good, but what I readily accepted at the time, was how large and expensive his cannabis habit was. Looking back, I can see it was a major issue. If I hadn't found out about the cheating, the reckless frittering of money on weed would've been a red flag. I tried it a couple of times and it was okay, but honestly nothing to write home about. (Which I didn't incidentally, when I caught the train to Wales to stay with him in his last week at Uni.)

But, when he forgot my 18th birthday and hurriedly bought me a crappy stuffed teddy and a jar of humbugs from the local shop in the village where he lived with his parents, that kind of gave me a hint as to where his money was going. And it wasn't on me.

I was quite jaded for a while after we split up. I was not in a good place for a while afterwards and went on a bit of a one-night-stand shagfest, declaring that I wasn't going to allow myself to get close to anyone ever again. My first year in University was a lesson in how to get branded a massive slag.  My Dad had cheated, my first real boyfriend had cheated. Was this how life was? Did all men cheat? 

No, as it turned out. Not all of them. But I had a long way to go before I could recognise true love from childish infatuation. I'm still not entirely sure I'm quite there yet.

Interestingly, my sister came across Nick on Facebook a while ago and mentioned him. I did a little Facebook stalking, as you do. I was sad to see that he is still single. I'd hoped that he would be happy and settled, maybe with a family, but he isn't. He's single, unemployed, and also suffering from a deep and chronic depression. He always laughed in the face of cannabis addiction and its dangers. 

It was harmless, he said. 

He could quit at any time, he said. 

It had no long term problems, he said. 

But, based on my quick perusal of his page, I'd say that it hasn't done him any favours either.