On reflection...

I am getting fed up with my mind being filled with thoughts about my marriage, but as it keeps happening, I may as well write about it here to try and get it out.
I think I'm just fed up with feeling fed up, and sick of being in an atmosphere that is seemingly designed to make me doubt myself and feel like an inconvenient partner. I know I'm as much at fault as Philippa is, and I know she is not deliberately setting out to make me feel bad (and the same is true the other way round, I assure you), but I just drive away from home with the impression that I haven't done anything right for about six weeks, and that it's unlikely I'll do anything right in the near future. Everything I do is questioned and every move I make is criticised and every word I utter is heard in a different way to the one I intended. I speak clearly, and slowly, and I think things through before I open my mouth, and there still seems to be a misinterpretation, which is then my fault for being a bad communicator. And if I stay silent, I am being distant.
God, I thought the 'awkward relationships' stage had ended when I left university. I thought maturity and experience would lead to an easier path with partners, but maybe I was mistaken. After more than a decade with my wife, and despite being in my forties, I still seem incapable of maintaining balance and stability with an 'emotional attachment' (as my Gran used to call them).
I wonder, in a way I just didn't think would be possible since meeting Philippa, whether I would just be better off on my own, dealing with my own foibles without forcing someone else to have to live with them. That may sound a bit extreme, but I do feel increasingly isolated in my own home and I'm starting to think that Philippa is starting to think that her life would be much easier without me. And I'm starting to think I might agree with her.

Anyway - I'll get back to the poems tomorrow, and I'll try not to make them depressing.

RC 23-7-24