Note: This was longer than intended and goes off on a tangent or two including things probably better suited for JoJo's thread...
Is DH my best friend or is someone else? Yes.
Nice answer huh?
Most of the time I can talk to DH about anything [though I generally steer clear of fic], though he doesn't 'get' things like PMS or physical changes because of pregnancies or whatever. He has NO IDEA how bad the PPD got after the last two babies. Oh, he knows it's there, but he doesn't know how bad it was. He's a mental health professional and sees horrible things and deals with depressed and otherwise troubled kids all day and then teaches four classes on top of that. He's gone all day M-TH [though he picks the kids up for church on M and we all go to church on W] and by the time he gets home we're both tired. He does so much and I don't want to burden him with my problems on top of everything else. COULD I tell him? Yes, but I've chosen not to. Pretty much everything else, I do. He loves me and I know that.
The PPD got really bad a few weeks ago and one of the things he said to me was what finally got through even though he didn't know. I was able to start making myself take my meds regularly again and the difference is incredible. Even though I hadn't told him, he knew something was going on - though I still don't think he knows the depth of it - he chalked most of it up to exhaustion because of DS being up so much at night - and he was able to help pull me out of it. I still have a ways to go but it's much better. And I most likely will tell him the depths of it some day, but not today.
There's a couple of girl friends I can also talk to about just about anything - with the 'off limits' topics being slightly different with each one - politics with one, religion with another, etc. My problem lately has been that they all have something 'bigger' going on - one's DH left after an affair leaving them with NO monetary support; another is working full time, trying to finish grad school and internships and getting married next month; another has more serious marriage problems - whatever it is is always 'bigger' and more important. A couple other online friends have stood in some of the gaps and for that I'm grateful [you know who you are
]. I still miss my best friends though. It's not their faults - I never said anything and to an extent it was probably the PPD talking. If things had gotten truly bad, even a little worse than they were, I *know* any one of them would have dropped everything for me.
My point? DH is the only one who sees/talks to me day in and day out. We talk on the phone several times a day and if I don't call him, he calls me because it means something's probably wrong. He can tell and even though I never discussed it with him, he knew the right thing to say though I'm not sure he knows it. He is my best friend, hands down. Period. Does that mean I'll always share absolutely everything with him? Probably not but it's not because I CAN'T - does that make sense? It does in my head
. Even though I may not tell him everything - it's not because it's 'off limits' like with my other friends.
{{{BIZARRO}}} I don't know what to tell you, but I hope you can take a good look at the relationship and see if you can find what drew you to it in the first place. Is it worth holding on to and fighting for? Have you both moved on? Are you just having a bad day? It's sounds like some serious evaluation may be called for and it this person truly is 'the one', then surely a way can be found to find middle ground. Can you still have separate interests? Sure. DH cares nothing for fic or sappy romance novels and I'm not a big fan of fantasy sports or online poker, but there's plenty of other things we both enjoy.
Feelings fade. That initial rush of adrenaline where everything's all tingly every time you look at each other does not last [no matter how much we write it into fic]. Are there times it still happens? Definitely. Are there times when four kids and laundry and bills and jobs and petty fights over who drank the last of the caffeine make you want to scream? Heck yeah. And it's the friendship that gets you through those times, because the initial rush just isn't enough. It's not a foundation - kind of like the old kid's song "The wise man built his house on a rock and it stood firm. The foolish man built his house on the sand and it went SPLAT." Friendship is the foundation that gets you through the hard times.
Someone said it in JoJo's thread. Love is a verb. Love is holding someone's hair when they throw up every day during pregnancy, even though it makes you gag to do so. Love is taking a week off work with sick kids, while your spouse is in the hospital with a sick baby, and trying to figure out how you're going to get a sick child to the ER if she doesn't start to breathe better soon. Love is changing the dirty diapers because it makes your pregnant spouse nauseous. Love is cleaning the kitchen without complaining because your spouse is exhausted. Love is taking someone to the ER at 4 in the morning with a kidney stone even though you've had 2 hours of sleep. Love is forgoing things you want so that the budget balances when there's extra doctor bills. Love is literally crying when you see the light inside the one you love fading even though you don't know why and you don't know what to do to help her [I'll let you figure out where that one fits in].
Love is being there and never leaving no matter what**.
It's the friendship that gets you through those times because let me tell you, if there's not something beyond the heady feelings of early infatuation/love it won't last. Can it happen? Can people meet, fall in love, marry quickly and have it last? Yes. We have friends who met and married in 6 weeks. Their 11 year anniversary was last month. But since then they've worked to become best friends so that there is something solid underneath all of that.
Yeah this is longer than expected and may not be relevant or mean anything to anyone and I may come along and edit it later, but there you go...
Carol
**Don't read that to mean abuse etc.
