Matching Miseries

So I had some good talks with Dean over the weekend, which is why I wanted to write on Friday, while the misery was still hot.

The koan I'm working on now is, why does my husband's satisfaction have a direct proportion to my unhappiness. When I'm looking at the situation, I realize that it's thinking about him happy at work, in a social environment, with an abundance of companionship (including female companionship).. that's what makes me flip out. The ugly truth that brings up more questions is why I would be happier if he was more miserable.

It's horrible to have to admit something like that.

The answer is that we chose to have a larger family together. With Sam, he was older, almost ready for kindergarten, and there really would have been enough time and money for me to work at a job I enjoyed. Instead we decided to have a baby and ... I knew we wouldn't split the responsibility evenly... but I didn't realize it would be this unbalanced. I spend 4 hours each day (longer on Friday) really pretty miserable and bored with the kids. Sam is all over the place, Cara is crying and time just stops. I hold the baby, listen to Sam humming, stare at the wall and panick at the thought of how many years of this lie ahead. I have nothing but time to imagine my husband having an outstanding time at work (I imagine it somewhere between a coffee shop and a disco, with cubicles) and wonder why I ever agreed to raising another young child.

But trying to work towards some kind of solution, I feel I have to try to tackle some of my unhappiness issues first, and hope the jealousy, and this turning away from my husband, gets a little better in the process. Because that's what's wrong, I'm unhappy and I blame him since there's no one else around.

Becuase I feel sometimes like I cut a bad deal. Like when I was in sales and I would go to low on the pricing.

The more immediate solution is getting out of the house more, like now. He can babysit.

So we start there. Between the anti-depressants, getting out more and working on my Chicago Public Radio stuff and other audio projects, I try to shift my cultural spot just one notch to the left.

k