Dr. Phil, Love and Apathy

I had a dream the other night that was both sad and funny. Even though I spend a little time writing my dreck, I spend much more time thinking about some of my readers. Well, it looks like some of this has crept into my dreams.

The other night, I found myself on the set of the Dr. Phil Show. This is sort of weird because I know little about Dr. Phil. Yeah, I have seen his show once or twice while visiting family, but that's all. Anyway, one of my blogger friends was on Dr. Phil – let me call her Muse. As in, she is sometimes my muse. Okay, we all want a piece of this delightful heart.

Anyway, Dr. Phil is talking about it taking longer for men and women to marry, mostly because the women have to save up to do extensive background checks. You know, see if there are any paternity suits out there, do a bit of psychological testing, whatever. Totally bizarre, but in a sad sense, believable.

Anyway, I don't know what this has to do with Muse. Muse is waiting to get on the show, to share her perspective. And that's all of the dream I remember. No lesbian sex, no sexual innuendos, no Ninja Turtles, and no flying through the air. Not sure of what it means.

Guess it means I have been thinking about Muse, partly because I care about her, partly because she and I seem so alike sometimes. I get bits and pieces of her life – and I don't want to display them here. She does that herself in a more real and raw way than I could ever duplicate.

One thing that struck me was a phrase that I heard recently, "placing the blame appropriately." Okay, I probably heard it on some political show on Sunday mornings, but it means more to me personally. I really think many people do not place blame appropriately, and that is the source of much pain.

When I was going through my toughest struggles, I placed nearly 100% of the blame squarely on my shoulders. Well, I was fucking random guys and being unfaithful. That sort of made sense to me. But the dynamic started a long time before being unfaithful physically. Our marriage became stale – that is the polite way of putting it. I did not hunger for hubbie, and he had little interest in me, physically (which was very evident at the time), emotionally, spiritually or any other way. I really don't know exactly what caused this, and I have tried thinking about it for hours. I took the blame for this, also, and I now realize that we probably shared blame for drifting apart.

Many people think love and hate are opposites. And I did as well, when I was young and inexperienced with the nature of love. The more I live, the more I love, I think love and hate are entangled, like the positive and negative poles of a magnet. Positive needs negative to exist. They are right next to each other, and exist because the other exists.

Loves antonym may be hate in Roget's Thesaurus, but in real life – where people get married, live on and love on – I think love and apathy seem to be more true anonyms.

When hubbie and I started living our own lives, we had more apathy for one another. We made nice at home, divided chores, ate dinner together, and what not. We were housemates who occasionally had sex. Please stress the word "occasionally." And it seemed so comfortable for us. We just did our own thing, and to the outside world, I am sure we looked like a happy couple. No arguing, no fights. How can you fight with someone for whom you have little feeling? And that's where we were.

Then things happened – well, things did not really happen, we did things. Notice how we use passive language when we don't want to acknowledge what we have done? I did not fuck random guys. Things just happened. What a freakin' copout.

Anyway, my Muse and I had similar experience, I think. We have not often talked about it, but we seem to find comfort in each others' stories. But there are differences for Musey. She has children; she moved out. And I did not know if I ever would have moved out unless we were splitting up.

I mean, if my hubbie continued to be apathetic, what would I have done. Moving out would have added some urgency to the situation – apathy and urgency are not bedfellows, and even though hubbie and I were not either (at the time), perhaps it would have helped us heal faster. Perhaps it would not have.

You see, when we were around one another during the early part after the discovery of the affairs (again, wimpy passive), we fought horribly. We tore at each other – and we started to hate again. After a while, when the wounds were not so fresh, we started to love again. Hate and love. Who would have thought? But if we had kids at home, I am not sure the hate would have been good for them to experience. I have forgot about much of what happened, but every once in a while, I remember the hate. Not sure if love is related to the mythological phoenix, who has to be burned to be born. Once love has been damaged, do we have to hate to love again?

This is a messy post, as I rarely finished a thought. I am not as pithy as our dear Dr. Phil. And maybe what I have written is pure garbage, amateurish psycho-babble. For that, I apologize. All I know is that hubbie and I love again; we are no longer comfortable roommates. We love, we hate, we grow together. At times, I don't know where he ends and I begin. He would probably point to his twenty-first digit and proudly say, "This, sweets, is where I end and you begin." And if I argued with him, perhaps I would end up loving him just a little bit more.