Rollercoaster

I went back and read my posts on this blog from the beginning and realized that the most important thing I have been missing since I stopped blogging was the chance to study myself and my motives and actions. Things have been difficult over the last six months or so, greatly in part to Illness '09. I left out a lot of that too, but what turned out to be a flare of my lupus really took me down a notch or two. It managed to put a huge strain on my marriage which was really doing well for the first time since we said "I do". Up until Patrick and I had our talk on Monday we were really back to that place where divorce was inevitable and I was just riding it out until Cade and I moved to Nashville. In my head, which I wasn't getting out of with my writing, I had villianized Patrick again. I wasn't looking internally and holding myself accountable for our problems.

Patrick and I have definitely taken some steps back since our brief encounter with a great marriage. He is working a lot, which is great because that means his photography is really flourishing, but it also means that Cade and I are left alone. When that happens we tend to turn to each other and become a team...us against Daddy. It gets to where Patrick is an intruder into our happy lives and when he is home he just messes up our rhythm. I begin to think that I could do this better by myself without his interference and when I add to that thought process the fact that there is still no intimacy in our marriage it seems like a good idea to bail on it. There are a lot of reasons why a split between us would be a good idea.

But one thing keeps coming back. I like this guy and I really like our family as a unit...when he is around. I see us travelling the world together, the three of us. Adventurers. A team. We've been playing Wii together each night and having so much fun. Patrick makes me laugh. Patrick loves his son. The misery that would be thrust upon this unit by a divorce seems so tragic when I look at how well we do as a team. This threesome is solid.

As for the two of us...that is the problem. He loves me, I know that. He is not in love with me and there is a huge difference. I love him...I like him, but I'm not in love with him. There are no kisses. There is no passion, and sex hasn't been revisited since that little go of things I made this past summer. Can I give up my sexuality for what's best for our family? Well, I have so far. Who knows?

I do know this...for now, I am leaving well enough alone. I noticed by reading these posts in sequence how obvious my bipolar disorder was. I would go from inspired to depressed over and over again over the course of the few months that I wrote. I am currently in a period of inspiration where I feel like I could take on the world and want nothing more that to make everything around me better. But when that period of depression comes back (tomorrow, next week, next month) the first thing I will want to bail on is my marriage because it is the thing I can consistently pinpoint as a discouragement. How do I protect us all from that roller coaster of emotions that my chemistry won't let me avoid?