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End of July, 2021

 Summer is on the way out (just the vacation part, not the weather) and we are making plans for our children to return to in-person school, even though our state has a law disallowing schools to mandate mask wearing and the children are all too young currently to be vaccinated against Covid-19.  

Hubby and I are still caught up in a cycle of miscommunication, too-high expectations of each other, misunderstandings, and on and on, and it is exhausting.  I'm doing my best to let his unawareness (or un-caring-ness?) of the ways that his actions and words affect me roll off of me and not affect my interactions with our children, or my parents, or my siblings, or my friends...but it is hard, and an uphill battle.  I'm scheduled to see a therapist (new to me, we'll see if she is a good fit) in a couple of weeks, and I'm very hopeful that I will learn some new communication techniques and see our situation more clearly over time.  

I'm scheduled for a medical procedure tomorrow that makes me feel nervous, but probably will end up not being a very big deal.  I'm sure my nervous energy is not helping any of the background energy in our family, either.  

We're spending as much time at the family beach house as we can justify, since our trip to Chile was canceled due to Covid quarantine procedures (no, thank you, I do not want to spend five days in a single hotel room with my three lovely but extremely active children).  I'm sure that my lack of sadness about canceling the trip does not contribute to hubby's loving feelings towards me at the moment....(sarcasm, I hope that is clear). 

We had a lovely week at the beach with two of my good college friends, but, as per usual, hubby and I entered into the "quiet phase" of our communication cycle -- meaning, he all of a sudden is frustrated with me for some reason, which I can sometimes but not usually guess, and won't tell me with words, and then several days later he will act like nothing ever happened.  Is it grief?  Is he mentally done with our marriage?  Is it depression?  Did I actually do something so terrible?  (No, I did not.  I existed with an opinion different than his, and probably made a comment that made him think I don't think he is up to my parenting standards when I was really just trying to look out for one of our kids....things like, "order what you want for the kids, but remember that "the baby" doesn't like egg salad" seem like they wouldn't start an unspoken version of the quiet game, but here we are, a year and a half into a pandemic and 15 years into a marriage. 

Wow, that was a lot more venting than I expected to come out tonight. 


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