We made an effort to spend some time together yesterday and today, but I can’t shake the feeling that it’s just for show. That he’s putting up a front to try and keep me happy enough to not press and not ask questions.
It’s hard not to be worried or paranoid when he’s always checking his phone or always on his laptop. Even when I’m in the room, he won’t acknowledge me unless I talk to him first. It never used to be this way. He used to smile when I entered the room, like he was genuinely glad to see me. Now, he doesn’t even look up and if I do try to talk to him, it’s like I’m disturbing or interrupting him in the middle of something. We can’t even have dinner together without him checking his phone, constantly texting someone.
I haven’t asked him directly if there’s someone else, I’m too afraid to, but it feels like there is. If not on a physical level, then at least an emotional one. He says he loves me, but his actions don’t match up with it. There’s no affection in him anymore, only dutiful obligation.
Can really blame him, though? It’s been seven years since I was diagnosed with my auto-immune conditions and he’s had to bear the burden of that in terms of helping me on a daily basis and the emotional weight that must cause. Because of my pain we aren’t as intimate as we used to be. He’s had to bear the brunt of so much. I regret that he has to and I feel guilty a lot of the time for it. Like I said before, this is never the life I wanted for us.
He won’t talk to me, but he’s never been very good at talking throughout our whole marriage. He’s decided for himself that he might need therapy, I’ve considered maybe we need couples therapy, too, but it comes down to being able to afford it all. All I really want is to have the man I love back in my life, to feel like he loves me and still values our relationship. Right now, I feel like a burden, like he’d rather bury our relationship and forget it, to focus on happier things, rather than deal with me, my illness, and everything that goes with it.
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