I Was Sort Of A Jackass

So I told you there’d me more about me – here it is.

For the last couple of years, my career has come to a standstill. A screeching motherfucking halt. And it has wreaked havoc with my psyche and my emotions. It has been frustrating, humiliating, agonizing, embarrassing and depressing. I have waffled on a daily basis between all of those things and then I’d mix in a little anger. I became a hermit of sorts, slouched in my office, pissed off at the world, feeling cheated and screwed over. I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t figure out a way to stop it.

My wife tried to help. She tried to be supportive. She tried to be understanding. She tried to be encouraging. She tried to be all the things that a wife should be to a husband who is struggling. The problem was that I was so wrapped up in my own failings that I just shut her out. I was going through the motions and barely participating, throwing my own daily pity party and inviting no one but myself.

I didn’t notice her.

I didn’t tell her I loved her.

I didn’t respect myself.

I didn’t take care of myself. (Put on about 40 pounds, eating my way through my own self-imposed misery.)

My sex drive plummeted.

I lashed out for no reason.

I kept her at a distance.

I didn’t listen to her.

In general, I just became a ghost of who I used to be. A really fucked up, angry, flailing ghost.

Not a good place to find oneself.

We weren’t married so much as just living together and it clearly took a toll on her. I knew it at the time, but felt powerless to stop it. I sure as shit know it now and have spent the last two months getting my act together. Feels good, too, getting to know myself again. Also feels good to not be a fat ass. (As of today, I’ve lost 27 pounds since January 11th. Not all was exercise induced – the first 15 were a result of subsisting on Diet Pepsis and the occasional piece of cheese the first two weeks after I found out.) Feels good to be living again because whatever I’d been doing the last few years, you could not describe it as living.

Does any of this excuse the fact that she slept with someone else?

Uh…fuck no.

But I do know that I played a significant role in the deterioration of our marriage up to that point. I can see how she thought I didn’t love her anymore. She told me that’s what she honestly believed and as I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking over the last couple of years, examining myself through her eyes, I have no doubt that she assumed I was no longer in love with her.

And that is something that I can’t ever get back and maybe hurts more any other single thing right now.