stuck in my head, needed to say it somewhere.

I am tired. I attend the family parties I don't want to attend, I feign the desire for a private life, I forego myself for the sake of others, I do the driving, I do pick ups, I do late night runs to the store. I remember to buy the presents for Christmas. I go and buy said presents. I feel my that husband seems to have lost interest in me, who notes my faults but cannot see his own, who makes me feel inadequate at most times, then tells me how I'm his world. I am trying with his family, I am getting ridiculed, I am getting spoken to poorly without an apology and expected to hold my head high at every gathering.

And there are the lies he does not know I know are lies. Hurtful truths that if I bring out, I will end up being the bad guy for how I figured it out. Fear of losing him consumes me, but I am paralyzed. Our home is scattered with lost efforts. I am trying to change myself so as not to lose him, while attempting to work on my self confidence. How does that make sense?

I have done everything, and there is still so much to be done. I am exhausted. I am defeated.

But I do want to live. I want to travel, I want a partner that wants to travel with me. Who wants to take me somewhere. Someone who loves to sit down and enjoy dinner with me. I want those simple conversations, they meant so much to me.

I want things to last, I want my partner to want a pretty and clean home. I want a partner that doesn't give me whiplash, who doesn't turn things around on me when I try to bring up their wrongs, and yet has no trouble bringing up mine.

I want love to be easy. I want to feel the calm of someone's presence, much like soft ocean waves. To be caressed, not just felt. To be seen, and not assumed. Familiar, safe love. A light house after the storms. A cup of hot chocolate.

Is it the burden of a lover to know just exactly how to be loved, and yet cannot afford the luxury of receiving that love?

Despite the logic of my memory, I am reminded to feel ungrateful. Why?

And I recall one night when he asked if he was good for me.

Was he right to ask that?

Is this marriage holding me back?

Is this manifest intuition?

I write these things, these tormenting thoughts, all while knowing too much and not enough.