Fear

Shhh Don’t tell R but I am seriously freaking out about his SA. I know that if the issue is him it isn’t a big deal. We will do IUI or IVF and get pg that way, but still I am freaking out. Forget for a moment that NOTHING is covered for us. Forget that he would REFUSE to tell his family and that they won’t shut up about us having kids. Forget that we are going to have to move AGAIN in February and that I had wanted to start grad school next year. Forget it all because right now my biggest fear is that if the issue does lie in his body, that our marriage will be over. Not because of the way I will feel but because for R his man hood is directly linked to reproduction capability.

A lot of men are like R in this way and I have never understood it. How can being a man be wrapped up in such a small issue. But for R it is. If he isn’t 100% normal I have a feeling he will have a massive breakdown. And I am not sure how to handle that.

R has always been the rock in our relationship. That isn’t to say I don’t comfort him when he is blue or upset about life or work, but it does mean I have far less experience than he does in dealing with him being really upset. R gets upset but in manifests differently in him than it does in me. When he gets upset he has no idea what bothers him, he doesn’t want to talk about it or think about it or deal with it in any way. He will lock himself in his room and ignore me until I bully him out. Then he gets mad, he will blame something in our relationship for the way he has been acting. The relationship is in fact fine, but he is having difficulty processing everything bothering him so he picks what ever about the relationship that is irritating and goes after it. He won’t yell but will get so melancholy you would think I had killed the cat.

The once we have fought for awhile he will calm down and in a day or two he will be ready to talk. He still won’t know what bothered him in the first place but he will be open to talking about what it might have been. Even after I have clearly identified what was bothering him he still won’t fully admit it. But non-verbally he confirms it. We will talk and talk and talk until I think we might have made an ounce of progress and then his wall breaks and he lets it ALL out. ALL of it. And by all of it I mean every little bit of it and then some. Anything that aggravated him in the last year will come out. I have learned that through this the best thing to do is accept what he is saying and shut up. Once he is through he is fine. He becomes him old self again and we are okay.

I have tried in the last few years to get R to find a new way to cope, but I can’t seem to change his old ways. The hardest part of this for me is how long it takes. Last time it took about two weeks and sometimes he is like that for a month. I am not sure I can be his rock for a month about IF, but then again he has been mine for a while.

Still I really hope the issue isn’t him but we both have a sneaking feeling it is and will good reason too, but that is a whole different post.