There is Nothing Better out There

I have been married for 15 years this August and have lived with my husband for 17 1/2 years. I do not know where he ends and I begin.  This is a trite little way of describing the indescribable connection that forms when you have lived with, had children (4) with, slept with (sexually and simply, well, slept) and shared money with the same person for so long.  We have lived in 4 apartments and 4 houses.  We have had horrendous arguments about preparing, packing, planning and executing our moves.  We have picked paint colors, felt belittled by the disapproval of the other over the colors we liked and didn't like, bickered and challenged each other to paint properly, prep correctly, and cover the floors thoroughly.  Countless times, he and I have stood surveying a room and negotiated how the furniture should be arranged - sometimes complimenting the other, sometimes expressing gratitude for a great idea and sometimes hating the others guts for simply refusing to put the sofa in the "right" spot.

We have taught each other how to cook, how to sing, to dance, to write in cursive, in architectural script, to draw in perspective, to use a screw gun and to sew.  There were times, months or weeks, when I was more powerful, more together, more emotionally fit and there were times when he was the strong one, the one who kept everything from falling apart.  There were long periods of general disharmony, where resentment prevailed and compassion and understanding came only after emotionally violent arguments.  There were periods in which nothing in the world felt better than being folded into his chest.  The smell of my husband's body is tantamount to home.  I have imagined him gone from my life (death, divorce, done it all fantasy wise) and I can almost make myself cry just thinking about missing his scent - or perchance catching it on an old shirt or a pillow case. 

I have been so resentful, so hateful in fact, of my husband and the way he controls, dictates, orders around and imposes his boundaries and standards on me and yet I have folded myself around his ways. I have become ever conscious of them.  There is no time I leave the bed unmade all day (always rushing to make it at 4:30 before he gets home from work) without thinking of him and how much he hates an unmade bed.  I do not prepare a meal or even a snack and not wonder what he would think of it or judge the tastiness based on his taste buds, his likes and dislikes.  I have quite a few items of clothing that I can barely bring myself to wear because he once said something only mildly disparaging about them - and conversely, everything I own that he has complimented me on, I remember too.

There is no movie, no book, no radio program, no news article, that I do not filter through his perception as well as my own.  I often feel as though he is perched on my shoulder, overseeing everything I do - he is right there with my mother who is watching as well.  Sounds bleak but it is not - I don't think so anyway... I actually think it is relatively normal to be so enmeshed with one's partner of so long.  There is a reason we finish each others thoughts or bring up the same subject at the same time - we are entangled, linked, biochemically as well as through our shared history.

Sometimes I, (and I know he does this too though he is not the kind of guy who would mention it out loud) wonder what it would be like to be single or to be married to a totally different kind of person - someone who did everything my way.  Someone who liked more of the things I do - someone who wasn't so allergic to poison oak that he is kind of a drag to camp with - stuff like that.  But I have watched divorce up close and from a distance.  I have seen women leave for new men and men leave for other women.  I have seen the total wreckage, chaos and cacophony of pain that comes of it.  I know now from these observations, that new love fades, that it is all just a projection anyway.  There is nothing better out there.  I know that.  So I muddle though, rage at, embrace and adore, giggle, bitch, complain and float inside this marriage.