I haven’t slept more than six hours a night since he started his new schedule.

I’m exhausted. I’m lonely. I hate being alone at night, I hate how it makes me feel. I hate that it makes me feel resentful, and at the same time guilty; I urged him to take this new job.

This new job that he hates, where he feels like a loser, where he’s lost seniority and benefits for the promise and hope of a potential future doing more, doing better.

The reality is, right now, we are both miserable. Neither one of us know how to fix the problem. He withdraws, I resist the urge to lash out. I want to run away.

My depression worsens with insomnia, laying alone in bed at night, I worry; I cry, I panic. I know he always says will survive anything, that we can get through anything we intend to as long as we’re together but what if this is the thing that we can’t get through?

His commitment to me seems to waver, his commitment to life seems to waver. I worry one of us will do something drastic. I worry neither of us will do anything. I feel responsible for his current state, for his feelings of failure, for his disappointment, for the fact that I can’t fix it. I can’t make him happy. The man I love is buried deep inside of him. I want back the one who wanted to be around me, who was thoughtful towards me, who couldn’t wait to see me. Not this man with his walls – keeping me at arms length, keeping me out of his bed, pushing me out of his heart.

It’s his defense mechanism. I’m supposed to apologize and understand because he’s having a hard time, but I’m having a hard time too and instead of turning towards him I’m turning away and so is he. I knew my former marriage was bad when we slept on different schedules, where we didn’t really share a bed and I’m feeling a lot of those feelings now and I don’t know if it’s related to time.

By the time I was with my ex for five years we were on the road to divorce. We had survived infertility problems, his joblessness, financial problems. Do I just have a five-year limit on good relationships? Do I sabotage myself and fuck things up?