Marriage, it is like a drug that just won’t leave you be.

A little over a week ago the husband and I sat down and talked about what we’d both been thinking but hadn’t had the guts to actually put on the table, the s word. Separating, separation, breaking up our family.

Rationally I know that it is very common, there’s no stigma, lots of people do it because marriages don’t always work out, and let’s face it, back in the “good ole days” we didn’t have the option and now we do. But still, it isn’t like going out to the store for a minute, a lot of thought and consideration are involved, are necessary in fact so that’s what we’ve been doing. Thinking and considering the actual, practical implications of a separation. Where would we live? When do we need to involve lawyers? How do we work out the logistics of the children? How is he going to survive not seeing them every day? Do we still raise them in this rural backwater if only one of us actually needs to be here day in and day out? We’re buying a house, a rather large house, do we keep it and go ahead with the renovations, do we divide it in two houses, do we sell it and start over?

Taking a minute (or ten) and actually working these things out in our heads resulted in not an awful lot of fighting and bickering over the furniture, as one would assume, but in a rearing of our stubborn streak. Really seriously thinking about breaking up our marriage took us back to why we got married in the first place. We started putting each other first. I can’t move back to America, not because he would stop me if that’s what I wanted, but because I wouldn’t want to be that far away from him. When the Husband got ill I had to imagine what my life would be like without him and now I don’t want to live my life without him in it whether we are married or not.

The reality of separating made us nicer to each other, it made us more caring, ironically it brought us closer together. I honestly don’t know what we’re doing but I don’t think we’re ready to give up on each other. The Boy came up to me the other day after I put him in time out for something or other and said: Mama don’t be mad at me, we’re a family. A family.  I don’t know how or if we’re going to work it out, but I guess we’re not done fighting. I just hope it doesn’t kill us. 

Linking up today with Shell at Things I can't say.