Self-preservation

When the hubs was away for two weeks recently, I went into a hyper-self-preservation mode. Other than making it to work, I pretty much minimised social contact with family and friends, apart from what was already in the regular schedule (i.e. family dinners and church). Not so much because I wanted to avoid people, but more like I wanted to reduce the likelihood of being around babies, and mothers with babies.

Well, I love my nephews – they are the absolute cutest. And I do genuinely enjoy my time with them. But not so much with the adults. Not that they have done anything to me, but there is a certain uneasiness (in me) whenever we are all under one roof…

When we are all together, with my nephews – the sons of my brothers, I’m always thinking – YES, everyone has kids except US. I AM A BARREN WOMAN. THE barren woman of the family. I am the only non-parent here.

Of course, my rational voice is like, don’t be silly, NO ONE is thinking about you. But my irrational voice, obviously the louder one, is like – they are TOTALLY thinking about you that way. I bet they want to know just WHY we are still not there yet.

I love my family and being with them, but during this unending period, there is just a lot of energy that goes into suppressing and ignoring my irrational voice, and making sure I am outwardly happy happy happy.

It’s just energy that I want to preserve for myself when my pillar of support is not at home.

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And the hubs is really really someone I do not deserve. He’s just a big ball of goodness (other than the times I find him irritating, haha).

He was leaving for a two-week overseas engagement, but the first day would have been spent in-camp at a local site. They were only flying overseas on the second day.

On the early dawn of the first day, I was in a fragile mood. Because he was busy packing the night before, we didn’t get to spend much time together before I went to bed. I was also just generally in a bad place re: TTC issues. And since we knew that the day he left was CD14, I didn’t even bother with Clomid this cycle (“taking a break”). Also, I’m generally a worst-case-scenario kind of person, so I was like, what if something happened and he was gone forever!? What would I do?!

That morning, as we embraced and he prayed, I was tearful. He was taken back by my tears, but had to go.

That same day, I went to work and stayed late to finish stuff. No one at home waiting for me anyway, right? I went home, grabbed some chow on the way, and as I opened the door, I noticed a light near the door switched on. I thought, okay maybe I had accidentally flipped the switch when I left this morning, even though I was pretty sure I didn’t. As I stepped in further, I felt a presence, saw an outline of someone sitting at our couch, and panicked… until I realised it was the hubs!

What a surprise 🙂 He’d found a way to come back home for that night, before leaving again the next morning. I was truly happy, and we had a really good evening. He said he would have done the same even if he didn’t have to leave me while I was in tears. I am just so grateful. When he left the next morning, I didn’t cry, I felt more at peace.

Anyway, he came home safely yesterday, so life is back to ‘normal’. 🙂

Broken.

My heart is broken. For once, this has nothing to do with babies, and that is why I am more reluctant and fearful than usual to talk about this. I don’t think many will understand or even agree with my point of view.

As a Christian, I have an issue with watching shows containing graphical nudity. As a Christian woman and wife, this is a bigger issue for me. In fact, I cannot imagine any wife would be okay with her husband setting his eyes upon another woman’s naked body!

To be sure, even I have compromised, by offering that the husband and I work out a system in watching a certain TV show together – such that only the said scenes would be somehow filtered out from the husband’s sight.

Imagine my disappointment and heartbreak when I find out he has gone ahead to watch three episodes on his own. (Thank you, Netflix.) His excuse when caught? Just wanted to find out what it was about. And added, but I don’t think I will continue.

What, yay? Great? No apologies. No acknowledgement of wrong.

I know, I know. At this point I must sound like an overbearing wife hell-bent on living a holy life or something. Yes, even I admit that my feelings are rather exaggerated – I really feel like caught my husband in an affair!

The issue here is the underlying sense of betrayal. I never said, No we cannot ever watch this show. In fact that would not have been out of character, since I had practically banned GoT. No, I actually compromised and I did that very calmly, even pleadingly. I did really wanted to watch that show too! All I asked was that he respected me as his wife, and watch it together as long as he didn’t actually see the uncensored scenes. Was that such an impossible and difficult request?

And when I asked what he was thinking when he decided to press play? I just wanted to find out what it was about. Great.

Sure, on the surface, this probably appears to be something trivial. But on the deeper level, in my heart, I feel betrayed and disregarded as his wife. To make matters worse, he will soon be going on a week-long overseas trip and I fear that my words and pleas of a wife have fallen on deaf ears. Empty promises. Formless assurances.

I have been feeling disconnected for a while now. I guess this incident only cements that feeling even more.