Twilight

I feel like I have entered the Twilight Zone lately (and for you younger readers, that is nowhere near Forks, ok?)

Friday night went smoothly, with Mo joining a work friend for a baseball game while I caught up on some backl episodes of "Mad Men." He was home by nine, and off to bed we went. It was all "I love you's" and sweet kisses until either Fat Girl or Big Boy moved the wrong way and sliced a nail down my sunburned back.

I admit it, I yelled. And it wasn't particularly nice. But I yelled at he DOGS, people. So I was kind of taken aback when Mo started yelling at ME. It started innocently enough, with a "What's your problem?" but quickly turned into mutual "Fuck off"'s, of which I am not proud.

The thing is, something in me snapped. I was not going to sit silently while Mo called names, and so I returned each negative comment with one of my own. It was the most ridiculous game of back and forth I have seen since grade school. (You're an ass. No, you're an ass. And so on.)

Like I said, not my proudest moment. Still, I didn't expect Mo to come out and proclaim his desire for a divorce, given that moments before he was professing his undying love. And yet, that's exactly what he did. Multiple times. I knew he didn't mean it, and I tried telling him that, but he had backed himself into a corner. So I did what any self-respecting woman would do, called my best friend and went out and got drunk.

Or rather, that's what I should have done. Instead, I committed the ultimate marriage foul and I called my mommy. At midnight. And showed up on her doorstep bawling soon after.

I thank the stars that my mother is so forgiving. She loves me beyond reason, and I know she can't stand to see me and Mo fighting. She tries valiantly to support me without demonizing him. She knows I very well may decide to stay with him, and so she is careful not to cut that bond. Still, she has an outsiders perspective and I know that she knows Mo's Issues are not likely to change. I imagine it is incredibly difficult for her to watch me struggle, and yet to keep her opinions to herself and let me live my own life.

To cut a long story short, I vented for a couple hours then drove home. Mo was apologetic, as I knew he would be. We both said we didn't mean it, and we went to sleep. There were a few murmured apologies again the next morning, but for the most part we went about our weekend (including dinner with my parents Saturday night) as though nothing had happened. Like I said, Twlight Zone, folks.

I am not quite sure how I feel about this. I am trying desperately to establish boundaries and teach Mo how to disagree without it devolving into he mess it currently devolves into. I am not a therapist, nor any expert on these things. My primary methods of handling conflict involve either avoidance or direct confrontation, neither of which usually get me far. (And please, for the love of god, stop suggesting counseling. He won't go, and I have trouble finding one who either doesn't insist I leave him, or whose Christian subservience outlook depresses me. I know good counselors exist, I just haven't had much luck here in Podunk finding one. In truth, y'all are much more qualified than most I have seen.)

Still, it feels --odd?-- to be proclaiming divorce in one moment and love in another. That's not how marriages end, is it? Or maybe it is, and I am fooling myself into thinking that the possibility for a family is less than remote.

I did have an interesting conversation with my sister about it on Saturday. I told her that I was contemplating not telling anyone if we cycled again. That I felt a little bit judged, since all was not rosy on the marriage front. Who are we to be making a baby, after all?

Her response floored me. She told me that since she can remember, our whole lives, I have wanted children. That nothing in my life was more important to me, ever. It was my dream since we were toddlers. And she thinks that, no matter what happens with Mo, that is a dream I should still pursue. Maybe we will end up a happy family, maybe not. But she thinks I will be happier with children than without, no matter what.

I actually reached across he sushi bar and hugged my "hands off" sister at that point, because I felt like she actually got it. That thing I can't quite put into words, that reason why I keep trying to make things work out. Because my dream is not a fulfilling, adventurous marriage with a romantic partner. My dream is messy and squirmy and exhausting, but in the end completely worth it. I want children, first and foremost. And that's not a dream I can put off indefinitely.

Families are messy, and marriage even more so. I blog about it so that you all know that you're not the only ones. Sure, there are the annoyingly perfect couples out there (they are also the ones who get pregnant on their first IVF :-D), but we aren't them. Judge all you want, but I can contemplate a new life and an IVF cycle at the same time. Neither one is guaranteed to make me happy, but in the end? I've got to know that I did everything I could.

And so do you.