My dream

Its a dream. We are in a house and I am folding socks. He is petering about and its still early (8 pm?).  And the next thing I know I am wondering where he is; he has disappeared. I go to look.  He is upstairs, in bed sleeping. As usual, he had not said good night because I am sure he knows I would have said "wait, spend some time with me".  Which my dream self then does.  He ignores me.

I feel so alone, as I had countless times before, alone and defeated.  Please pay attention to me. He does not, until only when he gets angry. Really angry.   I look at his sleeping countenance, passive, ignoring.   I know I am poking the bear if I speak.

I start crying.  "Are you like this with her", dream me asks?  Ignoring, uncaring. I am remembering again what it was like.  And my awake self now, recalls more. His angry face, as he lumbers and awakens himself up to get away from my upset self.  I can not stop myself.   No matter what I am to be alone. Alone staring at his sleeping face, or alone trying to get him to understand that I need more from him...that I don't understand why he is tuning me out.  This is years before the violence began, yet the abuse is there in my memory, like a footnote that stained the last three years before he left for good.

My anger was there before.  I remember it now. Hot and raging, it had scorched
the earth of our marriage because it had ben set off by his indifference. Was it
just his ADD or was it me, as he claims. He never understood that I was seeking something I thought was good and natural to expect in a marriage.  Connection.  And I never understood that this was something he could truly only mete out in small portions, within the partitions of his interests, his motivation, his wakefulness (for he worked himself heavily), and yes, his organic inattentiveness.  I should have known that wanting more could ultimately only end up being perceived as "desperate", "pathetic".  He pushed those buttons to hurt intentionally but also because he was no longer home.  At the end, he felt betrayed by me because I would not quiet my needs, my truly desperate (indeed!) need for..connection with someone I love, my husband; a feeling that had been squelched for years and produced my anger. Don't ignore me, I am
more.  Don't curse at me so I go away, I deserve kindness.  Don't say things to ruin and devastate me, I deserve respect.  Do not put your hands on me in violence, I am a fellow human being that deserves love.

It would not have changed for the better with us.  By the end of 2009, I was an unchanging annoyance to him, and he was a frightening and stolidly uncaring individual?  When he was different before, caring but aloof, unable to worry about the boring details of life that I picked up (and resented him for). It was a dreadful match.  Years after the intrinsic bond we held together, the love and commitment, the joy of our kids.

I am remembering even at 5:37 am.  To sleep per chance to dream... I'll pass on that for the moment.  And then I remember, its two years to the day that he left.