New Year’s Eve Spent With Just My Family…

My teenage daughter decided it’s a good idea to put up a countdown to the new year 10 minutes before midnight.

Our TV screen was a huge timer now…

We could no longer keep busy watching the standup we planned to watch till midnight. She sat with us and kept chit-chatting about how exciting it is to enter 2021, ah the teenage naivety…God Bless her, was all I could think.

Her dad and she were making silly jokes and exchanging memes about 2021 as the timer continued counting down. Staring at the screen, the seconds passing…I had this impending sense of doom, an inevitable discomfort creeping into my thoughts.

I looked at my laughing daughter and her doting father and shrugged it away, we were here, as a family. A mother, father, and daughter. I should be and I am… thankful, for our health and overall well being. 2020 has been such a tough year for so many and we have been fortunate, I thought to myself.

And it’s right, that is the way I should be looking at life…right?

Midnight struck, she kissed her dad and then me…My husband came up to me, cheek to cheek kiss, hardly a touch. Fortunately, my teenager was busy looking at her phone screen, and couldn’t have seen my face which I’m sure was a strange expression… It’s been years, but it still affects me the same. His inability to show even an ounce of physical affection towards me… makes my soul bleed.

I wish it didn’t.

He said nonchalantly, “Happy New Year Honey”. I wished him the same. Family hug time, and a couple of selfies later, we are all back to each other’s phones…wishing and texting friends and family.

He hugged the dog, cuddling her and letting her lick his face. It brought back memories of a time when I had begged him, to love me. And I had said, “I wish I was our dog; you would at least touch me from your heart.”

I can’t begin to elaborate on how much this isolated new year celebration sucks. It makes me feel exposed and raw. The things my husband and I actively try to hide and successfully manage to… especially when in a social circle, are now out in the open.
I know no one’s looking, but my heart is…

And it hurts, even though it’s been four years…and yes even though I am a fuckin adulterer, it still hurts.

We would rather be around people, family, friends…and mask it all. We make an amazing team, successful, attractive, and “in love” or so they think. But we have kinda got used to the act, it makes us feel normal.
Keeps us going, weirdly it is…I mean, has… become our comfort zone.

So these, isolated celebrations, occasions…they make us uncomfortable, they make us cringe. Coz we don’t need to pretend here, we don’t have an audience scrutinizing us anymore. It is hard to believe we would rather have that, and keep up the illusion, the perfect picture.

It’s true, practice makes perfect…and we are perfect at that.

Notice how I say “we”. Yes, it’s both of us, it is our decision …call it due to our circumstances, or whatever. We have chosen this, a life of misery (in private) and perfection (in public).

I know…I will get some comments on here, from the righteous police. Leave the marriage, stop complaining, you’re a fucking cheater…etc. It’s good, I have earned all of that.

I know who I am.

But that doesn’t dilute the fact, that I am human. My heart is just like any other…and sadly, in fact, pathetically I still have hope. Even though my brain knows, it’s hopeless…my stupid heart prefers to live in denial. Or just covers it up with meaningless sexual escapades.

I throw myself into a whirlwind of nonstop things like writing, sketching, and sometimes sexual affairs. Because, I am scared…to pause and think.

I know it’s probably time, for me to finally accept…that this is what my marriage is. And it’s beyond repair. My husband is incapable of showing any passion or love for me.
I still cannot hate him. He is my companion and the father of my child.

But this also means I have to accept, there is no one. Just knowing that I have no one whom I can call mine or no one I love romantically, sends me in a downward spiral. People might call me needy, yeah but whatever…yes, I am.

Who doesn’t want a shoulder to rest their head on after a long day, or a number to call and know there will be a voice who wants to listen? Just knowing there is someone who will hold you when you need to be held, or let you disintegrate into their embrace when you can’t be strong anymore, is a feeling which can’t be described.
Have you seen a woman who is loved right? She glows, in a way only knowing that she is loved and accepted, desired just the way she is…can make her glow…no amount of crazy adulterous sex can make up for that…none.

So here’s my new year’s resolution…it is to let go,
let go of this infinite hope I have clung on to…for the last four years. The hope that one day I will wake up and find him (my husband), all sorry and regretful. That he will take me in his arms, and all of this will be forgotten.

Let go, just be co-parents…coz he definitely appears happy being just that (I wish I knew what he really thinks, or maybe he is indeed happy with this).

And in the meantime, my other resolution is to work on my body, harder than before and have more mostly meaningless mindblowing sex. I will continue to work on my mental well-being, try to keep sane, and have some fucking fun along the way…all the while making sure I don’t get my hopes up for anything more.

I wish all of you a very happy and healthy 2021 and hope all your resolutions stick…. mine too.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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