Tugging at My Ring

It's late. I should be sleeping.

I was tired. I was beginning to slip off into a fitful sleep, but Brenda started talking. She started with apologies. Soft, gentle words to comfort me.

We have been talking about divorce all afternoon.

There was a point, while I was driving back to Canby, when I was tugging on my wedding ring, beginning to pull it off and say that I just didn't believe we could make it... and she said that maybe she could learn to be happy in our home.

I let go of the ring. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

Stopped by work to pick up my van. I told her I'd be home in a little while, and stopped by a local bar to have a whiskey with ginger ale and bitters.

Brenda had her mom over for dinner. It had been planned.

After dinner, I put on my pajamas, crawled into bed, closed my eyes, prayed for almost an hour.

We watched a movie.

I went to the restroom during the movie. Took my ring off my left hand, moved it to my right. i looked at it for a little while. Slipped it back on my left and rejoined her in the bedroom, taking the DVD payer off pause and finished watching a depressing movie about injustice in Africa.

When the lights went out she started whispering the kind words, words of hope, of how things may work out. The words turned to her frustrations. And the words drifted toward threats of how I have to be different...

I told her I wasn't in the mood to hear her complaints about the past again.

She has gone to sleep in the living room and I am tapping at this keyboard once again, having trouble sleeping.

I understand what is going on.

When we went to pick up my van I had told her I needed an answer.

I at least needed an answer about when I would have an answer. I told her I could wait a week, maybe even a month, but I cannot hold on to "maybe's" any longer. We need to decide if we are going to try to save our marriage.

I think she wants to, and she doesn't.

I think she is incapable of making that decision.

I think she will waiver atop this fence until I make the decision.

And it is a hard decision.

I love her.

I want a real marriage.

I want to be loved.

I do not want a marriage where we pretend to be OK.

I'm just trying to do the right thing here. I don't believe in divorce. I love my wife, despite how she has hurt me.

But, for the very reasons I don't believe in dovorce, I believe in marriage, a real marriage.

We have reserved a hotel room at the beach for Monday night. Spring Break next week. We need to talk about this.

You know, I have tried to be a good man. I have tried to live with integrity, honesty. I know that I have made mistakes and I want to be the best person I can be. I have tried to assess my own failures and take responsibility for who I am, what I do.

One would think that such qualities would make me someone a woman could love.

Somehow, that isn't enough for my wife to love me the way a wife should. Before things got tense she said that she thought maybe she could learn to love me alike that again.

These half promises, these hints of what I want, balanced against the constant threat of losing her... it is too hard.

So... somehow we have managed to stay in limbo. The threats of divorce and the promises of reconciliation flow to and fron almost on an hourly basis.

I'm going to take another Xanax and another sleeping pill. I'm in no frame of mind to ponder this any longer tonight.

Lord have mercy.

Post Script

I staye up too late last night. almost 1:00. Reading.

She slipped into bed just after I had hit the snooze button the the alarm at 500 a.m.

I pulled her into my arms.

"I think we can try to save our marriage. I think we can work it out," she said.

I'm not so sure,"I mumbled, "but I want to do what is right. But we can try. It means a lot of work. "

"I do love you," she said.

"Well, thats's a start."

I'm so tired, I'm wobbling when I walk. I staggered around the cemetrery this morning. Tring to pray. The owl has been silent for weeks.

I was sort of looking forwad to the new challenges in running my home alone, the work that would cosume my thinking hours. Instead... I see a mountain bbefore me I need to climb.
An old spiritual comes to mind...

Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it

The way may not be easy
You didn't say that it would be
But when my tribulations get too light
We turn to stay away from thee

Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it

Who cares we bring on to you
You told us that we could
But you have also tried and help them self
And I believe that we should

Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it

Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it

The way may not be easy
You didn't say that it would be
But when my tribulations get too light
We turn to stay away from thee

Lord don’t move that mountain
And give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it
Lead me Lord around it
Lead me Lord around it

Lord, guide me. Tell me what You would have me do, and
i will do it.