A Death

I am sad to report that my husband has died of metastasized bladder cancer. I am sad about how I wasn’t there, how I didn’t have the chance to be with him at the end.  I had moved back to the States after seven years in the UK. What started so promisingly 7 years ago ended about a month ago after I packed all my goods and shipped them back. We had to share a house while I got my affairs in order and we got along better knowing that there was an end in sight. Weirdly enough.

He had decided, after all that, to return to his ex-wife. We were having so many problems before that, it was almost a relief to have an excuse to separate because I’m not sure I could have made the decision on my own. I had my own cancer scare to deal with and I didn’t feel like he supported me as much as I supported him. I needed a push and this was a push. A month after I moved out, a doctor told him that his cancer was in his liver, bones, and lungs. So unexpected after a positive post-surgery. He expected many years yet.

After that, the end was very rapid. I am still processing it all. Those who followed our story on here needed to know. Blessings to all of you.

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I’m Still Standing

Elton John notwithstanding, I am still here. It’s been over 10 years ago that I started this blog and the world was completely different.

When last I blogged, I was awaiting a diagnosis and I have that; Grade 2, stage 2 ductal breast cancer, estrogen +, progesterone +, HER2-. After plunging full-bore into the terminology of breast cancer (and oh how complicated it is), this means that I have the ‘best kind’ of breast cancer to have. I caught it semi-early and it doesn’t have the rapid growth hormone/protein found in the HER2 test.

So, I went in and had a lumpectomy and some nodes removed to further test and type the cancer. More good news. The lump was taken out and there was no cancer discernible in the nodes. This doesn’t mean they aren’t there however, so radiation was recommended. I did not have to have chemo and they advised against it since I have a stent and some history of angina. Chemotherapy is hard on the heart apparently. So I began radiation treatment 2 and a 1/2 weeks ago. I have to visit the hospital daily for five days and have the weekend off. In total, 15 treatments. This is good too because the longer the radiation, the worse for your skin. Mine is just now starting to turn dark and red. For the most part, I am handling it well. Radiation is cumulative so I might be singing a different tune next month.

It’s been interesting these past few years when it comes to spirituality and belief. Meeting up again with folks from Deconversion on Facebook gave me a good mental kick to get back into blogging. Facebook is easy to just sit back and watch the world and the stories roll by without too much engagement, but blogging requires thought and planning. I miss the writing as well. For a time, even following the initial deconversion phase, I fell back into old spiritual and ‘god’ habits. When I married again and moved to England, I started going to a Quaker meeting with my husband because he was going. I thought I could be a Quaker because it was the best of God thought without the evangelicalism. Long story short, it was the final step toward my complete deconversion and acceptance of atheism.

The Quaker story is a long one, but basically British Quaker religion is politics. In fact I met quite a few atheists in the Quaker meeting! I couldn’t see how this could be and I realized that British Quakers were just a ‘Christian’ organization in name only. They were a method. I admire the Quaker way, which I can blog about at length, but they are no longer the Christian radicals of George Fox’s day. This helped me further clarify my own beliefs, or lack of them. Cancer also helped. I think I’d finally had enough of the mental hoops required to believe in a deity that cares about us. No such being exists. There is nature and the effects of nature.

Also helping me along this path is my sister who remarried an ultra-fundamentalist man. She became even more out there and weird and promptly dispensed her brain to the trash bin. She now actually believes that a change of diet will ‘cure’ my cancer (I find this infuriating because it implies it’s my fault I have it) AND, get this, she is now one of those stupid flat earthers because the bible said so, don’t you know. Oh dear. I could go on, but I won’t.

Thanks for reading this far and I shall write more. I promise.

Quick Update

Providing care and support for my husband as he goes through chemotherapy for bladder cancer. Will update when I can.

Blessings.

The Importance of a Father’s Love

I think that my lack of a father’s love started this whole mess.

My real father abandoned my mother and my sisters, and I when I was just 3 years old. My step-father did not have a loving bone in his body and ate cruelty for breakfast.  I was ripe for someone to come along and make me feel as if I were the most important person in their world; something daddy’s do for their little girls. Normal daddy’s anyway.

My lack of a father’s love probably contributed to my conversion to Christ when I was 23 years old. Feeling out of my depth as a new wife and mother, one day I felt an overwhelming sense of love and well-being from a father/brother figure.  That sustained me for quite some years. My marriage was not a passionate love affair, but merely a remedy for small town boredom and we parted ways when our children grew up and moved out of the house. Notice I don’t say our home because I’ve never really felt ‘at home’ anywhere. We never jointly created a home like some couples do; putting their particular stamp on a place to reflect their budding love. Perhaps a father’s advice about any of this would have been invaluable.

It was almost inevitable that I dream of the perfect romance. My romance fantasies led me to a couple of affairs and later to the online ‘romance’ that landed me where I am today. All I’ve ever wanted was be someone special to someone else. I wanted to hear the words, ‘I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy’ or those coveted words, ‘you are so special to me’.  I’ve never heard that, or felt it either while growing up or in all the years I’ve been married. My sister, mother, and I have always dealt with our pain alone, probably because no one ever sought us out to comfort us.  But still one hopes.

Maybe I’m feeling a tad maudlin but when I read of other people’s marriages, of the love and care and the grief that happens when such lovers are apart, I mourn for what I never had or have never known. I worked so hard to be a good wife and failed both times. Now I just wish someone would care for me. Just a little bit. Some people say that God can fulfil that need in me, but how can you have a fulfilling relationship with an invisible person?  I’ve yet to master that, even after all of these years.

I am broken by this latest betrayal and although I KNOW that acting with love toward someone whether they deserve or not is the Christian thing to do, just once, I wish that someone would be more concerned about me than I was for them. Just once. Is that too much to ask?

Forming Ethics in a Dysfunctional Family

I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional family. If you’ve read my previous entries I’ve detailed the problems I’ve had dealing with a father who abandoned me and a step-father who abused me, my sister, and my mother. We carry the psychic scars to this day and my mother carried them to her grave. Long after the death of my step-father, his abuse left the three of us unable to relate to each other in a reasonable and loving way. Is it any wonder that I have issues with my husband?

Needless to say, there was a nod to church and religion, but no examples of Christian behavior whatsoever. So, I did not form my ethical view from Christianity. Growing up, I formed my ethical view from my own experiences with people. I learned that trust is not automatically given but earned. I learned that forcing forgiveness is more damaging than healing. I learned that most people will use you for their own ends rather than treat you with respect and dignity.  I don’t recall thinking anything at all about marriage. Despite my mother’s horrible experiences with marriage, I did not believe that the institution itself was bad. Surprisingly, I always thought I’d get married.

Perhaps, because in a small Midwestern town, there is nothing offered but marriage and children, I automatically thought that it was my lot in life. Guidance counselors at school wrote off those who did not perform well and did not even offer to tell them of opportunities they MIGHT have if they concentrated on school work rather than partying every night of the week like I did. My acting out was a given. I drank alcohol like there was no tomorrow and I had one-night stands and no clue how to achieve a normal relationship with someone. My experience taught me that men demanded sex to cement a relationship regardless of what I wanted.  When I see women today who are so present in themselves and assured, I mourn for the clueless teenager that I was.

Ethically, I have never felt that non-monogamous relationships could work. Perhaps because in my world, there were NO examples of any. Theoretically I agree that people are not monogamous by nature. There is enough evidence in the world to show that marriage cannot contain the wandering eyes of men or women. I can count on one hand the couples I know who have not been divorced at least once. Marriage is a civil legal arrangement only. Now I can see this. Back then however, I had all of the romantic notions of any teenager.  I expected way too much.

So, as an adult I’ve tried to think in non-monogamous terms, but I also think I’ve narrowed my world too much. Forget monogamy and non-monogamy. I’m thinking in non-marital terms right now. Why be married at all? Perhaps marriage was never for me because my expectations would never be met or because I’m better off with my own company. I also feel that I’ve never allowed myself to grow as a person in my own right. I’ve always been in some kind of relationship. I do not know myself as a single person. I would love to find out.

Is That All I Do?

Some people must think all I do is complain about my marriage. No, I do other things, but the state of my marriage is what occupies my thoughts most of the time. I have a lot of time to think. I come to this blog, as I have always done, to get things off my chest, to write reviews about books and movies I’ve seen, and to comment on news items of interest.

I started this blog ages ago to give myself a writing outlet when I finished, or was about to finish, studies at university. You see I am one of those odd ducks that loved to write the research paper, bringing all sorts of disparate bits of information together into a cohesive whole. Unless you keep at it though, you tend to get rusty. I’ve fallen into lazy thinking habits and I rarely write anything except in my journal.

My day now is pretty easy-going. Rather than a 9 to 5 job, I can get up when I wish and come to my desk and do whatever my husband needs done to prepare for his gigs, his radio show, or errands about town. Since he can’t drive, I am the designated driver for most everything unless he goes by train or taxi somewhere without me. I am not wedded to my desk and being so was the absolute worst part of a desk job. That 3 p.m. lag after lunch and before getting off work was sheer torture. It was all I could do to stay awake if our office happened to have nothing going on that day. And let’s not mention getting up early to drive 35 minutes one way to get there. I definitely do NOT miss a job like that.

When I first came to this country I tried to find work outside the support work role that I found myself in, but even with a degree, I did not get any second interviews. I barely got an acknowledgement of application. I must have filled out 30 or 40 applications in the first few months, but heard back from none of them. I wanted a job; any job. I was willing to work for peanuts, but employers just did not care. There were meticulous rules about even filling out the correct application forms. Everything was regimented down to how you could answer an application question. After being here some years I have come to realize that there are so many employment shysters out there and so many rules and regulations regarding EVERYTHING job-related that I wasn’t so sure I wanted a job outside the house.  No wonder there is benefit fraud. It’s MUCH easier to stay at home than to jump through those regulatory hoops for a minimum wage.

In the States, getting a job is pretty straightforward. You either work full or part-time.  The applications are easy to fill out. You either get benefits or not. You will get a letter of denial or be called in for an interview usually within a week or so of applying. Everything is stated up front. Once you’ve gotten the job you pretty much have it unless you royally screw up and get fired. Not here. Here, you could get stuck in a 0 hours contract with no assurance you would have a job in 6 months, even if you did an absolutely fantastic job and didn’t screw up once. They use your talents and discard you.  Not only that, paying train fare can leave you penniless unless you find a job that is close by. Commuting into London could cost you upwards of £6,000 a year, not to mention parking 5 days a week for 8 hours or more a day! You’d better have a damn good job then!

No, in many ways, despite my unhappiness with my relationship, I have a pretty good job right here. When I’m not being his eyes or organizer, I can go read or watch television or play the many video games that I’m hooked on at the moment. I can be interrupted at any time when he needs something, but it’s a small price to pay for the freedom it provides. I can set my own hours and take time off whenever I wish. We can go see friends for a couple of days between gigs and not have to arrange it with anyone.

The downside of all this is that we are together 24 hours a day. All of these factors come into play when it comes to relationship matters, so I know it’s complicated. So, if I complain, I’m letting off steam. It’s not like I don’t have a legitimate gripe after all. I just wish I knew what the answer was. Perhaps there is no answer.

Non-Monogamous, but Committed, or something like it

Right now I am sitting upstairs in our bedroom as my husband skype’s with his new girlfriend. I know this because he makes a show of listening to the radio on television, which is under our bedroom, but I can hear his tea-cup hit the desk next to his computer chair. Sure enough, I go downstairs and see that he’s skyping his girlfriend. I turn off the TV in the other room and come back upstairs without a word. He makes guilty noises like he does when caught but says nothing.

Here’s the thing. I’ve told him over and over that all he had to do was just stop lying and hiding and do it whenever he wants.  At least that would be honest. In fact, I’ve half convinced myself that it’s the lying and secretiveness that angers me most. At first it was feeling like the discarded wife and the dying of a nice romantic dream, but after my initial anger and hurt feelings (and love?) died down, I realized that the betrayal is not who or with what, but with hiding it.  This was the chief reason he and I told our respective spouses about our chatting after we’d met online and took up chatting. I even offered then to just chat and have a bit of online romance, because we didn’t want to break up marriages did we? OH he was soooo determined that we should tell our spouses about our ‘relationship’. We should be honest, he said. He was not willing to just chat and be married to others.

Now here we are 8 years later and he has accepted this woman telling him that she is in a “non-monogamous committed relationship”. An oxymoron you say? I would tend to agree.  He thinks it’s a great idea though. Look, he says, she doesn’t want commitment! I said only if the two parties involved agreed from the BEGINNING! I remind him of his words to me all those years ago. But, in fact, he doesn’t even remember telling me that this sort of relationship would not do for us back then. See? Out of sight, out of mind.  he is literally blind, but he is also psychically blind. And now that I’m here, where his ex-wife was and she is where I used to be, he’s accepting it all. This means that he was in a bad marriage when he met me and wanted out. It means that I’ve been the one to rescue him from a that bad marriage. I realize that it was probably his goal all along.

Except I’m not sure he’s that devious, knowingly anyway. He’s just that unaware and clueless about how other people feel or react to his actions. He honestly does not care to remember or reflect on anything that’s been past. If it served him then, great, but now he must have a new purpose; getting sexual jollies online. It’s all about now. Not even the future. He’s a man with no principles or integrity but lives in the moment and for the moment.  How can I respect a man like that, who feels so little respect for me?