Tension

Things are a bit tense in my household these days, and have been for about the past month or so. I'm not sure what is going on exactly, but I do realize that I need to figure it out and also work it out.

The husband and I are doing a dance of sorts; after the girls go to bed each night, we each seem to exist in different rooms of the house, and ne'er the two shall meet. He will be in front of the TV in the family room while I will be at the computer in the dining room (honestly, I do spend way too much time in front of the computer and need to work on that) or he will be watching TV in the bedroom while I am in the family room, or some other similar schematic.

We rarely go to bed at the same time. He will head off to bed around 9 or so and I'll stay up doing things (making the girls' lunches, reading, doing laundry, and other assorted good times). He used to come up to me and tell me to 'wrap it up, it's bedtime' but that got old quick and I got tired of feeling like he was my dad telling me what to do. He doesn't do that any more and I kind of miss it in a weird way.

I can't tell you the last time we got a little frisky...it may have been a month or two ago. Coincidence? I think not.

I love him, couldn't imagine my life without him, and need to make sure he knows this...which--in somewhat typical male fashion--he usually equates with physical affection (and sex), something I am bad at expressing (having grown up in a household without much touching). It doesn't help that the girls are on me or touching me just about all the time we're together. I think I get a little 'touch-burned out,' if that makes any sense. I've told him about this previously but he just takes it personally, insisting that I don't want to touch him, that I don't look at him, that I don't see him.

Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that I am uncomfortable in my skin, which means that I am rarely, if ever, the aggressor in sex--which he takes to mean that I don't want him. I prefer the lights out too, generally to keep him from viewing my jiggly belly (that he says come with having had children), the floppy breasts (that he says are beautiful), the dimpled bottom. Sigh. I need to work on loving me more....

We are going away tomorrow through Saturday, without the girls. I think I need to make up for some lost time. Not to sound like a horrible wife/person, but it'll buy me time until the next lull in our life...a dance that has become a series of ups and downs emotionally and physically.

Who were we before we had these wonderful children? I think we need to get back to that. After all, one day, the children will leave the roost and we'll be left again with only one another's company.

Easy for me to say, now I just need to put my words into action. How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time....