The Road So Far

This is going to be rather a long post I suspect.  I was planning on posting an update about what's happened in the last couple of months, and then last night happened.  And last night had an epic amount of suck, so this is going to be longer than I originally thought.

Before I go any further, just a reminder that I don't use my family's real names on my blog, Twitter, or any other social media anymore.  It's to protect their privacy, but I find their online names fun as well.  Quick run down - Donald is my spouse, Bess is the girl, Lightning is the middle boy, Dare is the youngest boy, and I go by Callasyndra.  I suspect at some point the spawn will get their own social media accounts and so nothing I say about them will ever really translate to anything their friends or cyber stalkers could relate to their actual identity.

Probably the biggest thing to happen lately is that Donald and I are in counseling fucking took long enough I've only been asking for three years  with a very good counselor.  Within the first 25 minutes of the first session the counselor told Donald that his mother was controlling him.  It's amazing how he listens to other people rather than his spouse.  Donald was also told he had an adult to child relationship with mother dearest rather than the adult to adult relationship he should have with her at this point in his life.  There have been lots of eye-opening things to come out of this so far, but I'm not sure how much it's actually going to help the marriage.  The events of last night pretty much put down any of the good that came out of the sessions and quite frankly I'm sick of getting constant criticism when I'm expected to be loving and supportive all the freaking time.

I suppose at this point it would be appropriate to segue into last night's event.  Lightning's birthday was Thursday (he's 8 years old now and is amazingly healthy for having had a heart repair at a week old) and last night I took him and a couple of his friends (along with Dare) to play laser tag.  Lightning had played this once before with a friend of his and loved it, so we bought a few games for the kids to play and called it good.  Except that when we got there both of my kids freaked out.  Dare is terrified of the dark so that wasn't a huge surprise, but I wasn't expecting Lightning to flip out since he'd done this before.  The laser tag place was decorated for Halloween (which I love, but the boys tend to get really scared of spooky figures and spooky music.)  The other two boys didn't want to play laser tag if Lightning wasn't going to, so there I was with an upset kid supposed to be celebrating his birthday.  WTF.  The people who owned the place were fantastic and instead let us trade out a game of laser tag for bumper cars, which all of the kids enjoyed.  After that I took them to McDonald's since we didn't get to do the thing they'd been expecting and that seemed to be a hit as well.

Things were going fairly well and we were on the way home when I called Donald to let him know to reheat the pizza.  He tells me over the phone that we're going to have to talk about Lightning's birthday and 'his neuroses' because apparently in his opinion I'd managed to fuck up the kids' night.  Except that I have a functioning brain and pretty much saved the whole thing.  So I said he could totally be in charge of planning Lightning's birthday crap from now on.  He didn't like that idea either.  In all honesty I don't know what the hell he wants, but it really feels like he just wants me to do what he tells me to do.  Yeah that's not happening thank you very much for a functioning brain and the realization that people do not treat you this way unless they have problems.

So the dropping off of the children happened and then we went home.  Bess was waiting at the front door for me saying in quite the dramatic teenage voice "I was just going to text and ask when you were coming home."  Donald then jumped all over her for being demanding (which she was a bit, but I know she doesn't like spending much time with Donald because she feels like all he does is yell at her.)  I'm exhausted and hungry by this time (hypoglycemia is a bitch) so I go into the kitchen to eat something.  Bess and I are sitting at the table eating when I tell Donald he should really just take care of the rest of the birthday planning for Lightning.  At that point it probably would have made life easier for me if he'd just gone with it, but he didn't because "I don't think we should talk about this in front of Bess."  (Lightning has a long and varied history of freaking the hell out over things that probably wouldn't bother anyone else.  This is not a new issue.)  I honestly don't remember what all happened after that except by the end of it I was in tears.  And the one thing blaring through my brain at that point was I NEED A FUCKING DIVORCE.

So I'm going to bring up in our next counseling session that night because one of the big things the counselor has pointed out besides the mother issues is that Donald is very critical.  All the time.  And doesn't even realized he's that way.


Took a bit of time to breathe, process, and go to another counseling session before finishing up this gigantor post.  Still really irritated about the criticism, but we did talk about that in session.  Other things that are happening right now include still having problems with my PCM who for whatever reason doesn't believe I have a pain issue.  My physical therapist has noted in her progress reports that my pain isn't so much helped by physical therapy.  The last appointment with my PCM was Oct. 16 when she signed paperwork for me to get an at home TENS unit (woohoo for pain relief) but then neglected to put in the medical code for said pain relief so now I'm waiting on her.  Again.  And she didn't put in the new referral I needed for physical therapy.  It's time to change PCM's, but I need to check in with my physical therapist and see if she wants me to wait until the new referral goes through first.  It's a big PITA when people don't believe you're hurting because you're still functioning.  I just don't get it - aren't doctors given training on people with high pain tolerances?

Anyhow, we are now at the point in marriage counseling where Donald and I talk about how much we want sex/intimacy in our lives.  And the thing is....I just don't.  I don't want sex at all.  Haven't for some time and mostly think it's because of the trauma from childhood that I STILL can't fully remember.  The really very nice and experienced counselor offered to talk to me privately about the trauma I mentioned very briefly and I just may take him up on that.  Because I've been wanting to talk to someone who knows what the hell they're doing for awhile now.  But the thing is....Donald's all "I'm willing to do whatever is necessary to help you through this" and I just....don't know how to feel about that.  Because our relationship has never been focused on my needs.  So that's gonna take some time to deal with as well.

Lastly, yes this post was named after Supernatural, which Bess and I have been watching on Netflix.  We just got to see the 200th episode aptly titled Fan Fiction and oh my.  It was so very worth a rewatch.  This particular road's far from over and I don't know where it's going to go, but I'm hoping there's going to be a light at the end of that road.  Gotta work on me for a while and see how that goes.  Then I can decide on whether or not the marriage is worth all the work.