The Story of Our Marriage, Kyle and Susie Nix

 Just beginning to tell this story makes me feel a sense of sadness.  Way more sadness than I was expecting.  I'm trying to have a kind curiosity towards this sadness, but I also just want to feel that sadness for a while and try to get used to that feeling so I can compare it to other feelings that come up with I tell this story.  

It's probably more helpful to tell the big stories that are part of the overall story, so I'm going to try to somehow give a detailed story and tell the big stories, the over-arching themes of our marriage, at the same time.  

One of the themes of our marriage has to be the story of belief.  We started out at a similar place.  Susie's family catholic.  My family UCC.  Neither of us grew up evangelical, but our childhood faith had real meaning.  Then we found a place to really grow in our faith in high school at Southern Baptist Churches.  We loved kids and wanted to have a Christian family.  We desired to see the people and youth at St. Peter's UCC come to know the saving love of Jesus Christ.  But somewhere in there, during our time at St. Peter's, I lost my faith and couldn't talk about about what I believed with Susie any more.  And if we tried to she felt, I think, like I was criticizing or attacking her beliefs, or something.  And here, maybe, is where the overarching story emerges, we didn't properly grieve this distance that my loss of faith created in our marriage.  In fact, I don't think either of us knew how to deal with it at all, so we just pushed it off and tried to sweep it under the rug, pretend, to a certain degree, that it wasn't there and that we were just fine.  But it was an issue, a fissure between us.  

At what point did the two become one, and then the one become a twisted up mesh of one trying to unsort and return back to being two.  It's hard to say exactly, but the wedge between us created from my changing faith was one of the biggest causes of us going back to being two individuals instead of one united front.  

July 11, 2022

I can get disregulated so quickly because I interpret things that Susie does that may or may not be actions that are her reaction to my attempt to move toward her or connect with her.  It's really exhausting because I can't talk to her about it because it pushes her away.  And it's hard to just sit with it because I feel like it is going to spill out of me in unhealthy ways.  

I'm really looking forward to meeting with Rick and Vicky next week.  The questions that keeps popping up, at least today, is does anyone see how much this hurts me?  Because I am hurting so much and so often.  I just want to be loved.  And I have given so much to this relationship that I feel like Susie owes this to me and our family.  But she won't do it.  She won't .... I don't know what.  But it's not happening for us and it hurts.  I want to have at least one person who I can count on to love me.  I do have Mihika and my mom.  But I also want to be able to count on my wife.  That seems like such a small ask because that's what a marriage is supposed to me.  

And the way she seems to look at me with no respect is very painful.  Like I'm in the way of her getting what she truly desires.  LIKE I'M IN THE WAY OF HER GETTING WHAT SHE TRULY DESIRES.  And the sooner I'm out of the way the happier she will be.  

Maybe that's not true.  But a part of me certainly feels like that is hitting the nail right on the head.  That hurts.  That's really painful.  That one is tough to swallow.  A part of me is sure that it is true.  But another part of me wants to ask her if that is how she actually feels.  

July 12, 2022

Another theme of our marriage is constant adjustment and change.  Like being swept up in a very fast, very large river that you just have to ride down and occasionally grab onto something safe.  And at this part of the ride it's not just in the current but it's the middle of the night and there is no light shining.  

The biggest adjustments have been getting pregnant with Elijah, a change in my faith in Christ, the birth, life, death, and aftermath of Ruthie, moving to Albuquerque, adopting Mihika, getting pregnant with Simon, adopting Mary, and having Esther.  Shockingly, Anna is the only one in which there weren't parts of the story that were traumatic.  

But even before our marriage there were traumatic events.  There was the trip to California that ended in Susie and me breaking up, me leaving my job at Lion's Den to move to Albuquerque to be with Susie, which ended with us breaking up, me not pursuing any of the work opportunities that were presented to me, followed by a traumatic drive home to St. Louis through an ice storm that took me three days to get home, then our sudden engagement, then my disasterous bus ride to Albuquerque where I missed the bus and arrive a day later than I had planned, our pushing back the wedding date, our premarriage counseling which was awesome but I did not pursue breaking off the marriage after one particular session because I didn't feel that we were compatible, then telling Hale Shroer that I wasn't sure that I was ready to get married or wanted to get married to Susie, to the very day of our marriage when Susie was upset that we had messed with her make-up for my bachelor party.  ... Man, that was a lot more pre-marriage trauma than I expected... but it was all there and it was very real.  

With all this trauma, how did I every make it this far without giving up or losing my mind.  

So all of this must be reframed into something beautiful.  Not something fake, but nevertheless, something beautiful.

There have been beautiful parts too.  These are a bit more challenging for me to recall.  

It's like she's not there, like she's not present, in my memories, when the good things happen.  Like I can't share them with her very well.  Like the good moments are for me, rather than for her or for the both of us together.  And that is one of the huge realities of our relationship.  I was not concerned, or tuned in to what she wanted, to what her desires were.  Or maybe it was that the good in our relationship rarely came from me, it was from her but I never really noticed all the good she brought to the relationship.  

July 17, 2022

But there has been much good in our marriage, and seeing and feeling that good must be a discipline that I pursue if I am going to help turn around our relationship.  

The good isn't necessarily the things that happened but the feelings that were there when we were together.  The feelings of just being together, usually with our kids, enjoying each other's company.  I remember our 10th anniversary, I beleive.  We stayed at a hotel in Albuquerque.  Went swimming.  Had sex.  Got breakfast burritos in the morning.  Got up earlier than we wanted to.  I think we enjoyed each other that night.  I know I at least enjoyed the sex.  

I remember watching King of Queens every week before we were married.  That was fun.