How?

I'm not sure what to write about. I have so many feelings that I have been holding in for months, but not sure I want them out there in cyber space. I don't even advertise this blog to "friends' , because as usual, I close myself off from people I know. I guess, I've had enough "friends" let me down over the years, I am just not up to going through the same again. My faith in girlfriends is gone.

I know a lot of what I am about to write is completely irrational. I know this. But I need to start working this out, and I need to tackle these things in my mind one by one.

I am going to break a promise to my husband. When I asked him to stop reading my blog, I promised I wouldn't talk about him. But everything I am feeling all relates 100% back to him. Like I said in previous posts, the more I bottle the emotions, the more they seem to multiply and boil over to the surface. I am not sure if I will hit publish, but I at least need to express some of what I am feeling. I feel like it's so awful, I can't admit it to anyone. I am afraid of what my husband would think of me if he knew what I was really feeling. Would he hate me? leave me? Resent me even more? *shudders*

My greatest fear has come to pass. My husband does not want to continue trying to have another child and I am devastated. I feel like all the hope and joy I had in life has been sucked right out of me, and I feel like I'm in a panic, like I don't know what to do next. The denial of "this can't be happening" has got it's hold and I feel desperate. But just like when you suffer any loss, there is nothing you can do. You just have to let it happen to you, and fight off the helplessness as best you can.

I am so angry at him. For months, ever since my last loss, he has been stringing me along, giving my false hope. Maybe not intentionally, but it's true none the less. Right after the loss, I felt totally abandoned by him. On paper, I blame it on the gluten issues he was having, and how they caused his brain fog as he put it. But in my heart I know. What I was feeling wasn't important enough to him. I cried myself to sleep night after night while he avoided me, watching television in the family room. I remembered being amazed at how uninvolved he was, when my world was falling apart. I felt like I was living with a stranger. I needed him to mourn the loss, to understand my pain, to show me he was there for me. But I knew deep in my heart, if I was honest, that he was relieved, and that mades me even more angry. Hpw could he be relieved when I was in such agony? I feel like if I were important to him, he would care just because it was important to me. I am beginning to feel that what I want in life is really only important to me, and therefore important to no one. They might was well not exist.

Since the miscarriage, he has flip flopped back and forth sending me complete mixed signals. He agrees to TTC, then changes his mind, then agrees again. I feel like I've been mourning for years instead of months. Each month would bring a new hope and then, a new let down - I'd have to start the grieving all over again. But not completely because I wasn't pregnant. But because I felt abandoned all over again, left in out in the wind to dry as it were. Then we would be back to trying and I'd have hope again...until the next time I was ovulating... then the cycle (no pun intended) would start all over again. I (very slowly unfortunately) learned not to say anything at all about my cycles, or he would completely shut down and avoid me more, sometimes for a day or two.

He doesn't seem to understand that I am no longer grieving the miscarriage, I am grieving/not grieving/grieving/not grieving not being able to try for that 4th one. It's like any progress I make is completely undone every time he changes his mind. My nerves and emotions are so raw and on edge now, I feel on the verge of break down. And I am on my own. I have felt so alone now, for so many months, that I am actually wondering about my future. Will it get worse? Once the kids are grown and gone, am I destined to live my life this way, alone with my own thoughts?

I know in my head that this is irrational thinking. My husband loves me and I love him. In fact, this morning in a women's discussion group I took part in, I heard several women complain about their husbands and their short comings, and amazingly, having to spend time with them, when they'd rather have alone time or time to do chores that need to get done. I thought to myself, are you people nuts? I can't wait til my husband comes home, and I love just being with him. I can't imagine ever not wanting to be around my husband, or being frustrated with him for wanting to spend time as a family. I felt sorry for those women.

But my heart feels something different. I used to feel rock solid in my marriage and my place in this lovely little family. There is now that doubt as to what I think he feels for me. Maybe we aren't rock strong like we used to be. Our marriage has changed. Month after month, I took that awful medication. I've punished myself in so many ways, and he let me. And when the crucial time of the month came up, something else would too. A cold, or a sore back...or whatever.

The fury I felt at those moments...and the hurt. I was sacrificing every thing, putting myself through hell and he let me. He let me. How could he let me go through with all this when he had no intention of holding up his end of the bargain? He not only let me down, teased me with a dream I could never have, he let me go through all that for nothing, made me beg. Instead of letting the wound heal, it's been like ripping out your stitches and resewing them over and over again. For months. How can I *not* question my value to him?

My sister is getting married in a couple of weeks and I am so jealous I could spit. I look at her and the innocence of her fledging little marriage-to-be. I want to go back to that place in our relationship where I felt like my husband adored me, like he would never hurt me, when he loved being with me. I know I adore him, and would do anything for him. But more and more I am feeling like I am just a burden to him. My role in his life is no longer lover and best friend, but rather, mother to his children,

Man that hurts.

I've been holding back on this question in my mind because I didn't want to deal with the truth behind it. But I knew, eventually, it would all boil down to this; would *he* will resent me for wanting to have that 4th child or would *I* resent him for taking it away from me?

Talk about a rock and a hard place...

So it ends with I resent him, AND he probably resents me....and the death of my dream, and a limping marriage. There it is, the truth I have been tucking away and tucking away trying to avoid. I always said I didn't want to look back and have regrets, but that is what I have now. I had at least three more opportunities to try before it was time to give up and accept God's will. There was a part of me that I really thought one of these cycles would work. Now, I will always look back and wonder, what if? or maybe if only...

I resent him because he doesn't love me enough to do this for me. And it shakes me to my core. My security is this world is now gone. It's not just losing this unborn child, it's knowing that once again, I am alone in this world, just like when I was single.

I know, I know, it's irrational. He can't help what he feels, if he doesn't want another child, he doesn't. He can't help feeling what he feels anymore than I can help how I feel. I am no better than he. He's angry at me for feeling all this, for not letting go, but I am just as angry at him for his lack of compassion, or what I am perceiving of his lack of regard for how I feel.

So now I am faced with two dilemmas....first I have to figure out how to let go of wanting this other child (if you are a praying person, please please please pray that God takes this desire from me) and then I have to figure out how to forgive my husband for hurting me.

I do love him, and I want to have a long long life with him. I want to fix our marriage. I don't want to live with bitterness and resentment. I have to figure out how to get from point A to point B though and I honestly don't have a clue on how to do that. Right now, I am in such pain, all I can focus on is putting one foot in front of the other. I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want to go out, I don't want to talk to anyone who knows we were trying because I don't want to have to tell them it's over. I don't even want to hear the words come out of my mouth. I just want to escape someplace where I don't have to feel this and I can avoid all semblance of this place where I have found myself.

But that's not how it works is it?

The only way through grief and pain is through it. I am holding onto it with such a death grip because if I let go, then my dream is really over. How does one actually let go of such a precious dream? I honest to God don't want to let go, - it just hurts like hell.

As for the other question, it just so happens that my husband will not be home for the next 4 nights so I have plenty of "alone time." to think about it how I can forgive him. Can I just will it to happen? I am afraid my inclination is to just stuff down everything I am feeling and just provide for my family.

Like I said, I'm a slow learner sometimes.