Nothing Has Changed

Last night before going to bed, I glanced at one of my old journals from two years ago.  I was shocked!  It could have been written yesterday!

Nothing has changed.

Joel and I still struggle with communication.  I am still lonely and unhappy.  Joel goes on with his life with no clue as to what is going on around him.

We do talk sometimes.  When things get to be too much for me to carry by myself, I tell him we need to have a conversation.  He acts surprised, tells me he couldn't imagine life without me, that I am the love of his life, I am the first thing he thinks of when he wakes up and the last thing he thinks of before he goes to bed at night...

Yada yada yada.

Then he returns to his computer and his Amazon freebies and his eBay sales and tunes me out.  He doesn't understand that I am a woman and NEED to be told and shown that he loves me.  I'm a dying plant and he holds the watering can, only he's hoarding it because it's his and why should he share because it was his when we got married.  I should get my own water.

I am not kidding.  This is exactly how he feels about his things and my things. If it was his prior to us getting married, it is his and his alone now.  I have never once felt like this is my house.  In fact, I pay rent to live here.  Maybe you can see my point.

This isn't a marriage.  This is an arrangement. 

I can sit in my recliner in the corner and have a complete conversation (one-side as it is) with him and he won't hear a thing.  I will question and answer myself silly.  Sometimes he will answer, then not remember later that we even had the conversation.  Once he even told me he was deliberately ignoring me because he assumed I was on the phone.

Why do I stay?  Because after I pay my Medicare insurance and Medicare supplemental insurance, I have a little over $800 a month to live on.  Out of that, $300 goes to Joel for my living expenses and the rest goes to my credit card payments and groceries, gas and miscellaneous.  There is no possible way for me to get out on my own.  I think Joel knows this and takes advantage of it. I know he would never help me leave financially. I would be on my own with no money and nowhere to go.

So stay I must.  

Is this how Mom felt when she sat on the computer all day and occupied herself with Bingo and slot games?  She and Dad had separate bedrooms and rarely talked unless they had company.  Sadly, that's how Joel and I are, too.  How animated he becomes when we have visitors!  The smiles and the laughter is poured out like champagne on New Years Eve at midnight!  He is so charming and cute, people love him and have no idea why I could be so sad.  With the slamming of the door after they leave, his entire countenance reverts back to silence...and I revert back to my chair in the corner.  

No one sees the many tears I shed every day.  My heart actually aches (yes, that is a thing) when I think of how my life has turned out.  It isn't being ungrateful.  I was happy when I first moved here and we have the same things we did then.  I'm sad because I'm invisible to the man who said he loved me.  I have struggled my entire life with love and thought I have finally found it with Joel.  But no.

Maybe I'm not supposed to have physical or emotional love.  Maybe my focus is supposed to be on loving others, not receiving it except from God alone.  How I wish I would have listened prior to being all caught up and thinking with my heart instead of with my head.

I tell myself...and those who may be wondering...there is NOTHING wrong with being single.  There is a great blessing in that state of being.  You can set up your home or apartment the way you like and it will stay the way you leave it. You can come and go as you please.  You answer to no one (except God, but that's true for all of us).  

In other words, you are free to worship, free to serve, free to do God's work without anything holding you back.  Oh, that I could!  I made the huge mistake of marrying a man who doesn't believe God exists because one day he told God to make Himself known and God was silent.  On that basis and that basis alone, Joel has decided God does not exist.

Let me tell you what that's like.  We can watch show upon show of aliens, zombies, witches, etc.  But put a show on that has an image of a church steeple five miles away and it screams "CHRISTIAN" to Joel and he won't watch it.  He'll be kind enough to record it for me, but I can only watch it when he's not around.  Problem is, he's never "not" around.

Same with music.  I can be inundated with the melodic sounds of Pink, Miley Cyrus, or Adele, but Joel will blow up in a million pieces (apparently) if I listen to Christian music. 

Listen to me on this one, kids....

"Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.  For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?  And what accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?  and what agreement has the temple of god with idols?  For you are the temple of the living God.  As God has said?

''I will dwell in them and walk among them.  I will be their God, and the shall be My people."

Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.  Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.  I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." 

This scripture isn't given to us to punish us or take away our fun.  It's to protect us from heartache.  Listen to this hard-hearted old woman who thought she knew what was best for her.

I believe God will show me a way that I should go.  He's good like that.  Even in my mistakes, when I bring them to Him and see His forgiveness, He forgives me and shows me where to go from there.  I am trusting Him in that.  I cannot do it on my own.  It's impossible.  But my God is not stopped by worldly limits.  

I put my trust in the One who created us all.  He will make all things right again.