My marriage.

I have been thinking about my marriage for the last couple of weeks or so and I am not sure if my emotions are exaggerated because I have been sick and dealing with personal stuff or if they are justified.

I love David so very much. More than I thought it was possible to love another person. I have loved him since 2001 and I expect I will love him for all eternity. I was ecstatically happy when him and I were married. It felt as though God had heard my prayers and granted my fondest dream.

Since we have been married we have had our ups and our downs and I think that part of the problem is that in the 19 or so months that we have been married we have only spent 9 months together and in those 9 months we have gone through so many changes. We have not really had a chance to settle down together and get used to being married.

I knew before I married David that he had some flaws, he makes mistakes and despite those or maybe because of those I still loved him and wanted to be with him. I figured if I could love him as much as I do even when he makes me angry then he was a keeper. I am not a perfect person, I know that I have flaws and I make mistakes. I also know I am a jealous person as far as David is concerned (I feel as though he has given me reason though) and I am working on it. I believe that David and I together make sense. We fit together and if we both made an effort our marriage could be amazing.

Since David left for deployment he has ran me through the gauntlet, so to speak. Right after he left I found an e-mail to another woman. We worked through that as best we could and then I found a chat conversation he had with another woman where he professed his love for her. I guess we worked through that as best we could. I am still hurt over it and he has yet to ask my forgiveness for anything that he has put me through but I imagine it is something we can work on when he gets home.

I have been feeling neglected, abandoned and taken for granted in the last week or so. I do not want to be in the type of marriage that is a one way street where I am giving and giving and all he is doing is taking. Where every once and awhile he does something to show he cares but even those few instances are going away.

I do get to talk to David a lot more than other people get to talk to their spouses but that is because David has a lot of down time. I understand that sometimes we are not ABLE to talk but there are times when we are able to talk that he chooses to not talk to me (even knowing that I am going through a rough time). Since he has been gone he has not sent me one letter, package or even a postcard. He did order me something from online and I was happy about that and I thanked him. Since he has been gone I have made an effort to send out at least one package a month and there have been times where I sent out 2-3, plus I sent him cards and letters.

There are times when he will send me a text in the middle of the night that will wake me up and I will get up and talk to him because he wants to talk. There are times where I have had to reschedule an appointment or something because he wanted to talk.  I go online and find funny jokes, or videos or pictures and send them to him just so he will have something to make him smile and to let him know I was thinking of him.

I cannot recall if David has ever once rearranged his down time to talk to me. In fact one time I asked him to because I had something I was doing and he said no. When I asked him why not he said he didn't want to. I pointed out that if he didn't we wouldn't be able to talk and he was OK with that. I do not think David has ever woke up a couple minutes early just to get online and let me know he was thinking of me.

Before David deployed and even when he was in basic training he would do the sweetest things. When he was in basic I never had a doubt that he loved me and that I was on his mind and we only got to talk a handful of times but he sent me letters a lot. He wrote to me how much he cared about me and what I meant to him. Now I have to ask how much I mean to him and I usually just get the answer "a lot".  When he was home he would come home from work and surprise me with something sweet or he would tell me how much he cares. He would show me how much he cares, not just with material things but with actions. Even though we talk a lot I feel so distant from him. I feel like he does not make an effort to make sure I know he loves me or that he cares about me. I sometimes wish he would change back into the man I married.

I love David very much and want to be married to him but at the same time I love myself and do not want to be in a marriage where my husband thinks it is OK to emotionally cheat on me, disregard me, not support me, and abandon me when I need him just because HE does not feel like talking. I need it to be an equal partnership, where we both make an effort for one another, not a partnership where one does all the work.