...

It is an oft referred to idiom that we cannot understand a person unless we walk in their shoes for a mile. I wonder sometimes about my own partner.

I wonder how he can be so divorced from the inner workings of his own home. Was the rent paid for? Utilities? Do we have enough to eat in our pantry, refrigerator, freezer? Does our daughter have lunch packed? Homework completed? Paperwork filled, filed, sent? Taxes? Do we have clean clothes and bedding and home?

And that is where the fairy tale of love starts to falter. I recall the joyous abandon with which I declared that I would never fall prey to the tragic arc of a loveless marriage. I thought that my love of freedom and my sense of humor and sharp wit would see me through every obstacle, triumphant in the knowledge that nothing could make love falter. So I ignored the lack of help or care as my relationship progressed. I had the spoons, so logically it seemed to fall into place for me to continue these tasks. And I would grumble on occasion, but because I felt energetic and young, the grumbles would die for the sake of peace.

But I changed. I lost a mother and carried a child. I went through the agonized doctors' warning to evaluate my daughter. I rode with her to the ER time and time again as she would be weak from a seizure. We both went though this trauma, but I feel that only I felt the burns. The burn of fear that I forgot something, that I am not enough, that I cannot hold every minute detail together with poise and harmony.

So I wonder what it is like to walk in his skin. To not worry. To wake up every morning only wondering about my workday and what is on YouTube. To feel so safe that even if I didn't take a single action, my home would be clean, my tummy full, and everything attended to and paid for. But I never feel safe. So when I am told... write another list, don't consider leaving, talk to him... I scoff. Do they not think that in the space of 15 years I did not try every technique, helper chart, tone of voice? Love can be lost in a meteoric single moment, but usually it dies slowly, when one thinks of the ethics that the people we trust lack.