This is going to be an honest and open and ugly post. I wont make anything look or seem pretty about what I am about to say. So if honesty and raw openness is not something you want to read today, I suggest you stop here and move on.
You would think that over time the "new" Michael would just become the "normal" Michael to me, and that I would get used to his little ticks and problems and they wouldn't bother me so much anymore.
But that isn't the case. Instead, the longer he has them and the more I am around it - the more frustrating and agitating they become.
I don't look at him and see who he is now, I still look at him as the guy that I married 6 years ago. And that guy didn't do these things, look like this, act like this, behave like this. So it makes me angry. That is NOT him, he is NOT supposed to be doing that, saying that, acting like that, twitching like that. Just STOP already, and be my husband.
Its like a grater on my skin. Over the past three years every time he twitches or has a tick, or does one of his other many annoying symptoms of whatever is wrong with him... its like rubbing that grater on my skin. And each time it rubs it makes that wound a little more sore. So after three years and his symptoms increasing to not just once a month but now all day every day... I am raw and bleeding.
And I can't get away to heal a little. I can't leave the kids with him, I can't leave him for more than a day, and I dont have anyone here to help. So here I sit while he grates at me over and over and over and over.
And when I do try and do something for myself for a little self healing - it only makes it worse. Because he ruins it! Not intentionally, which I do realize, but it doesn't make it hurt less.
Example: I went last week to get a haircut and a pedicure. I hadn't had a pedicure since my sisters wedding in September 2012, and my hair hadn't been cut in a few months. I decided to bring Mike along so he could tend to the kids sitting there instead of me trying to pick up the dropped sippy cup, or fix the frozen iPad game, ect ect, while in the middle of my hair cut. I took a deep breath and took them all and planned to heal myself just a little that day. Instead, as soon as we got there - Mike starts doing his little angry and agitated huffing and puffing. I asked him "could you please just stay chill for me so I can just get my hair cut", and I just got a glare in return. Half way through my hair cut he stands up stomps around, huffing and puffing, and declares "I am hot, we need to go home now." I tell him "Mike just take your jacket off, we will go home when I am done." He replies "But I have a shirt on underneath, I will still be hot! Want me to just take all my clothes off here?!" And he flops himself back down on the chair and opens up his tablet (that he never leaves home without) and hides behind it still huffing and puffing in frustration and hopping around in his chair in agitation and nervousness - and in defiance doesn't event take his jacket off. He may as well have just cut me open and poured salt into the wound - because it would have felt the same physically as I felt emotionally right then. So instead of healing, I had salt poured into my open wounds. It hurt. And what made me even more upset than him not caring about letting me have a little time to heal - was that my kids are sitting there watching him behave like this, and they are learning that this is acceptable behavior.
I know it isn't fair of me to be angry at him. I know his intentions are not to make me miserable. And that is why I am still here. And I am still here because when I look at him I don't see this new Michael, I still see the guy I married - but that does make all his problems that much worse in my eyes.
I just hope and wish and pray and pray that when we get home and I have family around I will be able to have those free times for self healing, and that being around him wont be grating on raw wounds all the time anymore.
I know he won't get better and I have accepted that. Now we just need to get to a place where I can live with that.
