Is That A Tear I See?

The night I decided I needed to start this blog I was laying on a pillow on my husband's lap.  He was sitting on the couch and I put a pillow on his lap and was facing him just talking about the fact that I felt I needed an outlet.  I've kept journals, lots of journals, but somehow writing something and stuffing it in a drawer doesn't feel like I'm dealing.  It feels like more repressing.

I was explaining how I really don't feel any viable outlet for my problems.  We all have problems and I tend to be the person trying to solve everyone else's (see why that Phd would have worked?).  I do share mine with a couple of friends but it's very superficial.  We don't get into it.  Part of that is the fact that they all seem to have problems that far outweigh my petty issues and part is that I just want to figure all of this out on my own.  I want to make sure that whatever decisions I make about my life, I have decided, with no influences.  If I make them I will not question nor regret them.  I tend to go round and round with my ranting but nothing gets closer to resolved.  Of course, we all need to vent so I do appreciate the fact that I have a few friends I can really trust with the crazy and know that they have my best interests at heart and will not betray me.

My husband said he thought it was a good idea.  He told me that he cannot describe me.  He's been off on comp for almost a month now so he's been home all day, every day.  He said no matter what time the phone rings and what problems are on the other end, I answer it and try to listen/help whoever calls.  Then he said if you're not on the phone you are messaging with someone on the computer who's having a bad day trying to help them.  He said he knows that I have always put the kids and him first.  Every decision I've ever made, I decide how it will affect the kids, how it will affect him and then how it will affect me.  He told me he doesn't know how I put everyone, everytime in front of me.

Then he told me that I'm so special.  He said he didn't have the words to describe me but there is something so unique about me...my selflessness, my ability to listen endlessly to the same problems and try to help, my love for everyone in my life is so abundant.  He said he looks at other mothers and thanks God every day that I am the mother of his children, that he loves the way I treat them and the people they are becoming and he knows that is all because of me.  He said I am so patient with him and that I should have left him years ago because he's crazy and a loser and he doesn't deserve me; that I could do so much better and would be so much happier.  He doesn't know why I've put up with him for as long as I have and that there is noone he's ever met like me. 

As he was saying all of this there were two little tears,  one from each eye that trailed down each cheek.  This is the first conversation we have had in years where I feel like we were communicating, really on the same page.  I felt like under the blank robot my husband has become the man I fell in love with still exists.  I saw the exterior start to thaw and the loving sweet guy I adored start to emerge.  My joy was boundless.  He loves me.  He still loves me.  I, of course, did not let this show because our relationship is so dysfunctional at this point that it's like a military strategy every day.  I don't let him see a break in my defenses and he doesn't let me see his.  I have so many defense mechanisms in place at this point, I wasn't sure I could feel anything except for anger and sorrow.  I've worked long and hard to make sure of that.  He tells me he loves me all of the time but they were empty words, words with nothing behind them.  I have expressed that sentiment to him repeatedly.  What comes out of his mouth and his actions are at such odds with eachother that I find it impossible to believe anything.

If just describing me can make him feel such emotion that he would tear up there has got to be hope right?  If we get the rest of our lives in place can we still be that happy couple we were so many years ago?  I'm afraid to let myself feel, I've spent so long putting up the shell to make myself invincible to feeling but I'm so afraid to not let myself try one last time.  If I let myself be honest, without the walls up, I'm pretty sure I'm still crazy about this guy.