Taking Two to Tango

Is it possible that this remarkable, magical, spectacular love that I have for my husband will not withstand the equally spectacular stress of this life we've created together? Could such magic be so cheaply made?

I don't know.

And I don't know anymore if the spectrum streak that runs through my husband is what will make it just too damned much to bear. I already have one man in my house who refuses to look me in the eye and answer. I don't need another. And is this hardwired? I always figured that through the course of our marriage, the rough spots would soften and we would grow together, change together, learn together. Isn't that how it works? I thought so, too.

Not so much here. He tells me I've changed since we got married twelve freaking years, three kids, two states, one pervasive neurological disorder, and one brain-fried mother ago. Oh really, Honey? Gosh, I'm sorry I let that stuff get to me. My bad. He says we're not supposed to change. (WTF?????) I know, right? But that's what he told me today and I cannot make sense of it and I am beginning to think that he will never, ever hear what I say, never understand my perspective, and never trust my judgement. And the worst is that he will never, EVER talk about it.
Me? I'm all about no secrets. Ever since we had the big secret about how my grandfather drove to the end of the block and put a bullet through his head right before my mother's school bus went by, and nobody told my brother about it, so when he was sick and grabbed his gun in similar fashion, neither he nor his wife knew how this was built into him. (Because it was a secret...shhhh...)

Anyway, ever since then, I'm not much for not talking, for pretending it's sunny outside when the roof is leaking. I don't have the stomach for it. My husband comes from the kind of family that spoke of nothing. Ever. Thus, I am confrontational and difficult and obsessed. No, I'm not. I'm scared and mad and I need to talk about it. Tomato, Tomahto.

I'm horrible. I know. I can't let up. I've changed since we married. I know things now that weigh on me like wet sand. Am I supposed to pretend? I cannot. And I cannot keep asking the same questions and getting no answers. And getting no explanation for the no answers. Not big questions. Regular questions. It's very strange. And one minute he wants a documented list of these "offenses" and the next he thinks I should forget about them. I...I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. He hears things I do not say. His perspective has changed me, yes. Made me completely gun shy, if you'll pardon the pun. I am wary of talking,it comes at great cost to me, so when I do, it is because I must. Do you see? I must speak and be heard, and I must have him answer when I speak. For good, or for bad, just an answer, please. This is communicating, no? And yet, here we are.

Oh, how I love this man. I do, a million times over and over, I do. But is it enough?

I don't know.

I Know This Much is True

Until LRHF has the therapy he needs, he deserves, and he wants, I'm useless. A concise daily spiral of desperation and anxiety, a nightly recount of maternal failures and fears. In between these two things, I might make pizza.

This is what I am.
All I am. No, really. All I am.

He doesn't want me to play with him, engage him, even in those moments when I hike up the big girl panties and try. He knows I'm not that stuff. He knows how much it hurts when he turns away. How can I blame him? He hates when I pretend to be therapeutic.
Is it so bad that I'm not that stuff? I don't know. Probably. I am so woven to him, so bound to, and blessed by him in his different ways, his secret sweetness, his six year old hurt, and still, I am useless to him. My beautiful boy. So close, it's like he's just in the next room. I can see him, I can, but it isn't my voice that will bring him out. It just doesn't work like that for us. I don't know why. I miss him so damned much. He comes for kisses and for hugs, and that's good, but then he's gone again, back into his world of breezes, and leaves falling, and toy trains, and computers. I need a crowbar to break into that little world now. And I hide, a little. Okay, a lot. Like chickenshit hiding.
Every day without a progress report is a day without progress for me. I am a Noted Progress addict. Because he's not regressing, not unless he knows it'll piss me off, but I apparently can't see progress unless someone else does. Nice. A born mother, that's me.

And there's nothing in sight. Just endless afternoons, watching him soundlessly through the kitchen window. Wondering what he's thinking, what he wants, what he's holding back. Wondering why I've been given this child, this gift, and not the gift of knowing what to do for him. And then turning away from that window and feeling my soul curl up on itself and chew on its tenderest parts. All this, and two other boys who only know I'm tired, I'm "not myself," I'm sad. All this and my marriage, stretched so thin, seams wearing weak, worn spots becoming holes. Oh, how I love that man! How truly he is that one treasure I did choose, and yet he is the one I never see, never nurture, never can. No respite. No dates. No spur-of-the-moment romance. All of every rare moment together is at a great cost, greater stress. Someone has to watch the kids. There are only two people in our Someone Department and we're heading toward ten years of company service. We're it, and it's wearing us bare and abrasive. Defensive. Hurt. Or worse, numb.
I look at the early days, baby days, when all we needed was more sleep. Silly, how hard it seemed back then, before delays and doctors and diagnosis and therapies and applications and modifications and the way it is now. Today I stood in line behind two mothers of infants talking about teething and rolling over and sleeping through the night, and it was all so hard on them...Oh, silly mommies of babies who will most likely not be one of the 1 in 92 on the autism spectrum. Such silly worries seem so very big when they stand alone, I know. I get that. I'm certainly not better for having bigger worries, but I can testify that there are bigger worries. That those mommies were splashing around in the kiddie pool of worries while I'm pulled out to sea by the riptide of autism. Under and under and under.

I don't know what to do here. Where to go. Who to call. Thought about being all Buddha and facing it head on and alone, accepting it, letting it pass through me, and then letting it go. I can't make it work, tho. Autism doesn't work like that, I don't think. But then, I don't think I know much about how Autism works at all.

All I know, all I can be absolutely sure of, is that I am insufficient, not only in my own abilities, but also in finding those things which will be help my son. My beautiful, blessed, and deserving son.