I'm sure every stay-at-home mom feels lonely from time to time. I think it's probably part of the ebb and flow of life. But I am in one doozy of a situation right now and just need someone.
Because of many factors, partly because we've been married for over 10 years, partly because we have 5 kids, partly because of breaches in trust, my husband and I are no longer emotionally connected. There was a time that we were best friends - I could go to him with anything and we could solve it together. We didn't even care if a problem actually had a solution per se as long as we were in it together it made everything easier.
Now, things are different.
It started when I reacted negatively to a new hobby he had. I thought he was spending too much time doing it and I thought it was putting him in such a rotten mood for something that he wanted to spend all his time doing. It was blogging. He gained an online community full of people similar enough to himself that it was magnetic. He fit in so well, and had a load of new friends and readers who gave him praise and affirmation.
Over the years, mainly out of jealousy of the new attention he was getting, I told him I didn't like how much he was turning away from me and turning toward the online world, especially at the time, one female in particular, who was complaining to him about her marriage and she seemed quite clingy to him for emotional support.
He agreed to back off from the girl a lot and from the online-ness overall a bit to make me more comfortable. But as things do, things changed. He was given special assignments and pressures for additional output by the blog administrator, so he rose to that challenge and did it.
Meanwhile, in his career, he was fired from his job (it had nothing to do with his blog world) and he fell into a significant depression.
A few months later, there was an online depression round-table where people from all walks of life came together with an openness and understanding that they had all been diagnosed with depression at one time or another. There was a woman in that group who was quite impressed that my husband said things that her husband would never say and they began to talk. Quite a bit. This is the same woman referred to in the last post, lots of texts, lots of conversation, he thought he was being a friend, they fell in love.
And see, I can understand somewhat why he turned off his emotions and his ability to be affected by my emotions. When I found out about them, I lost my foundation. I feel apart. I had a mental breakdown. I demanded things that he didn't like. I said things I didn't mean. I was a mess.
We are still in the trenches. Our relationship still hasn't recovered. He still stands by his blog and online community with the close female friendships and all. Something did change last week though, he started going to therapy on his own. I am trying not to get overly optimistic about this though.
I really hope this helps. I am in need of someone to talk to, about my emotions. Someone who I can be vulnerable to. Someone who can hold me on a day like today that is just hard. I turn to the Lord right now, dish it all out to him, but there's just something about having someone hold you. I don't know how much longer I can wait.
I just feel lonely.
