I started off with me noticing that he didn't message me at all yesterday after he got off work. I was I was sort of disappointed because I like to be able to actually talk to him at lease once a day. If he doesn't text me, then I have no idea when would be a good time to call. I made a point not to be the one to text him. Then the morning rolled around and he still hadn't texted. Not even to say good morning. Even when he's in town he would usually text me good morning at some point, and I take that as a way of him letting me know he's thinking about me. Eventually, I text him asking if he'd broken this phone too. He responded and I really just left it alone. I was tired anyways and went back to sleep.
I eventually called him today because it was late enough that he should have been off of work. It turned out that he was off of work and was in the car on the way to get some dinner with his coworker driving them. He answered the phone with, "Hey shortened-version-of-my-name. What's up?" I was already a little irritated by the fact that he hadn't bothered to tell me he was a live or anything. Then he called me by my name and seemed as though he thought I must have called because something was up and I needed to talk to him rather than a warm "hello, some-term-of-endearment".
Like I said, I was already irritated, so I didn't put a whole lot into starting a conversation. Also, the tone he was giving me was along the lines of "hurry up and say what you need to say so we can end this call and I can get back to what I was doing." You know the tone. I forget what I asked him, but it was basically did he not want to talk, if so then say goodbye now. He said bye and "love you", and I just couldn't help myself when I made the mm hmm sound and just hung up.
After I hung up he test me saying that he had to entertain one of their customers over dinner and that he would call me when he was done. He eventually called and even though things started off reasonable amicable-I told him a little about my day- they eventually went down hill when I'd asked him what his day was like yesterday. I know what I was doing. I only asked in order to collect evidence to build my argument. After he told me what his day entailed I hit him with it: "Then why couldn't you at very least text me at some point after you got off?".
He started off with the same old shit I've been hearing for years. "When I'm on travel for work I'm working. That's my first priority." Things along those lines. I'm so tired of hearing it. It's the sort of thing that put us into marriage counseling a few years ago. At that time, he was gone much more often and for much longer periods of time. The first year we were married he was gone exactly half of the year (about 25 weeks throughout). When he was out of the country for weeks at a time I would get especially distraught. It hurt so much that he refused to make the time for me.
I would ask him to let me know when to expect him back at his room since it was much cheaper for me to call him. He told me that he couldn't do that because he could never be sure when that would happen. Then I asked him to be more persistent about setting a limit to how much overtime he would work each day so that he could. Again, he refused. Eventually I tried to bargain with him, asking him to dedicate at least one hour a week to time for his wife. I asked him to set aside just one hour for me, and he could do what ever else he wanted with his time. That was a huge argument. He simply didn't want to commit himself to setting aside that one hour.
This was like a slap in the face to me. It told me that I wasn't important enough for him to make a priority in his life. While in counseling I relayed this story as well as other related scenarios. The counselor basically told him the same things that I had been saying for years. He understood the point after hearing it from another person, and I was sort of mad that it took hearing the same exact thing from someone else for him to finally get it. Also, I felt a sense of validation, and he felt like he was being ganged up on.
Anyways... I feel like this is the beginning of the same thing all over again. The biggest reason is that he started with that same argument about being on travel for work and therefore working being his first priority. Before he even finished trying to get that tired old argument out I told him to stop and that I didn't want to hear it. I wasn't asking him to text me throughout the day while he's supposed to be working. I was asking him to text me when he wasn't working to let me know what was happening.
Times he could call me or text are if he's taking lunch, when he gets off for the day, if he's back at his hotel room, before or after going to dinner, or before he goes to sleep. I'm not saying that I want him to text me at every single one of these points. Just one would make me happy, and just one is all it takes for him to take a little time out for me. Even if he didn't use any of those points in the day to actually call me, I feel like the least he could do is text me a few times if he isn't going to actually make time to talk to me. It's important for me to know that he's thinking about me from time to time, and me asking him to do these things is a big concession on my part. I used to call him at several points through out the day. That's a whole other blog post, but my point was that he didn't like it, so I said that I would try not to even though it was hard but that I needed him to make an effort in return.
------------------------I was going to start off this next part by saying that I know this post has nothing to do with porn addiction and that's what this blog is all about, but in truth is about me. It's about me being a spouse to someone who is addicted to porn, and the experiences and thought I'm having through the process of him getting over his addiction. Right now I don't really feel like this post is entirely applicable to those things and will likely also add it to my secret letters to him, but I'm going to leave it hear anyways. I may come to find that this was actually entirely related. I don't know how now, but we'll see. I may even revisit this.
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