Again I Go Unnoticed

I've been married now for about 5 months. I think someone forgot to tell me how hard sharing your life with someone can be. Especially for two very independent people. We took the pre marriage classes and what not; we found no help from them anyway. They were actually really dumb and neither one of us really wanted to be spending our only free afternoons once a week learning about family planning and church ideas about what a marriage is/is not. I'm in no way saying I am regretting getting married, or that I wish I wasn't. This is simply an outlet to vent my frustrations about loving someone who is equally as stubborn and hard headed as I am and talking through solutions about how to handle my feelings.

I grew up without a mother. She died when I was very young. My dad has yet to remarry. I have only seen how a single parent family is run. I married a man who grew up in a very large and loving family with two supportive parents. I think this is the first and largest hurdle that keeps us from marital bliss. I don't know what to do with my empty feelings, or even what roll I'm suppose to play. A councilor I use to talk to told me that this could be viewed as the best thing anyone can have. I have a 'blank page' that we can write our own story on. Okay, that's wonderful and all, but I get these feelings from my other half that I'm suppose to be doing certain things. Even though he says he doesn't expect anything from me, there are things you have seen your whole life that you don't question and expect to be done in a certain fashion, without even being aware you are doing it.

I know I have these biases. My dad made us do our own laundry and pick up after ourselves. We were do take turns doing the dishes and vacuuming. I came into this marriage thinking we would be a team, because that is what my dad emphasised. Teamwork. We were the A-Team (since our last name started with an A{cheesy, I know :) }). My husband disagrees with me on this subject and shuts down instantly when I say anything, But I feel like 90% of the time I am doing household chores. He usually does the dishes, but makes a big fuss out of doing them. I do the laundry, vacuuming, scrubbing, picking up of dishes around the apartment, and picking up the apartment in general on my days off. On his days off, he sits on the computer and plays online video games. This makes me very upset. I'm not sure I am right in feeling upset. He works 40  hrs a week, and when he comes home, he still has to do work related things over the phone. He is almost always overly stressed and very short tempered. I also work 40 hrs a week.

I don't know how to get him to understand how I feel. Every time I try to talk to him or open up, he ends up getting very upset, just shuts down, and plays the victim. I want to be able to sit down and tell him how I feel and have him understand, then listen to him tell me how he sees it, but it just ends up in a big fight. I want to have him understand how upset I feel when I see him sleeping in till 3pm and then jumps on the computer on his non-work hours, while I am running around trying to get bills payed, food on the table, laundry washed, etc. I want him to understand how unnoticed I feel when he spends his non-working hours glued to the computer.

His retort for his computer usage is that it is a stress reliever. I get the need for stress relievers. But is 8-12 hours really necessary? And why can't he spend some time with me? "Well, you are on your computer too. Or you are reading. Or you are watching tv." Yes, all of these responses are true. But every time I try to engage him into a conversation, or leaving the apartment to go something, I get rejected. So what am I left to do then? Tv. Books. Computer. I tell him all the time that I want to do things together. I just get an excuse for a response. I don't know what to do.

I have talked to him about his job being very stressful. He is aware of this and knows how bad it is for how little he gets payed. But yet he won't change anything. He won't go out and look for another job. I think he is afraid of change. My argument is that even if the job payed less, if it was less stress, it would be worth it. To help make our ends meet better financially, I went to get another job. Why does it always have to be me doing things. Now I'm working two jobs for 'US' so we can maybe be above the poverty line this year. To be fair, I LOVE my new job, but why can't he change as well? If I can go out and get a better job, I think he should do the same. I just feel like everything is one sided. And I actually feel like his mother a lot. Which isn't cool and is a complete turn-off.

I feel like everything is on me. I feel like he does nothing. I'm always in charge of everything by default. When I ask for something to get done, it is put off until I get so fed up, I complete the task. "You don't give me enough time to get the things you ask me to do done!" Two weeks is more than enough time. And almost everything I ask him to do is time sensitive. Life if time sensitive. I give him plenty of advanced notice to do things. And it upsets me to find him playing a computer game or taking a 4 hr nap rather than getting what I asked him to do done. I feel disrespected and purposefully ignored. Couldn't you have dropped of the check BEFORE you took a nap? Then I wouldn't be upset.

I just don't know how to communicate with him. And I don't think he knows how to communicate with me. So a lot of the time, I feel alone and distanced from him. It really tears me apart and then I think I lash out to get some sort of attention; Anything from him. And that is wrong. I just don't know what to do. I'm hurt, lost, depressed, confused, alone.


I feel like Dashboard Confessional's 'Again I Go Unnoticed'

So quiet.
Another wasted night.
The television steals the conversation.
Exhale.
Another wasted breath
again it goes unnoticed.

Please tell me you're just feeling tired,
cause if it's more than that I feel that I might break.
Out of touch. Out of time.
Please send me anything but signals that are mixed,
cause I can't read your rolling eyes.
Out of touch. Are we out of time?

Closed lipped.
Another goodnight kiss
is robbed of all it's passion.
Your grip.
Another time is slack
it leaves me feeling empty.

Please tell me you're just feeling tired,
cause if it's more than that I feel that I might break.
Out of touch. Out of time
Please send me anything but signals that are mixed,
cause I can't read your rolling eyes.
Out of touch. Are we out of time?

I'll wait until tomorrow.
Maybe you'll feel better then,
maybe we'll be better then.
So what's another day
when I can't bear these nights of thoughts of going on without you?
This mood of yours is temporary.
It seems worth the wait to see you smile again.
Out of the corner of your eye
won't be the only way you're looking at me then.

So quiet.
Another wasted night
the television steals the conversation.
Exhale.
Another wasted breath
again it goes unnoticed.



I really miss my friends in Ankeny. Being here without any of them to talk to is harder than I can take. I wish I was better at making friends.