It's When I Feel Like a Nanny

With how disengaged PC has been lately, and with how isolated I am with him having the car most days, I finally told him that I honestly just feel like the nanny. What I don't know is... if this is something that I need to address in my own head, or if there is something I/we need to be doing to help that feeling go away. Last week when one of my best friends drove an hour or so just to come spend the day with me, it was SO lovely to be able to just chat with another adult. To share stories. To share concerns. To give (and get) a hug. But that was one day out of dozens when I'm staring at the same four walls closing in on me, when I'm answering the same questions about fractions or rounding or decimals, when I'm hearing the same (stupid) jokes over and over again. I'm tired of trying to force a smile or laugh at the same. exact. things. every. day. I'm tired of feeling distanced from my own husband. I'm tired of feeling like the nanny. Who never, ever, gets a day or an evening off.

We haven't gone on a date in... probably four or five months. And with all the additional stress lately, I really need him. But he's dealing with his own stuff, and can't be there for me. I get that. I understand that both of us are so wrapped up in our own things we're dealing with that neither one of us is really giving the other one what they need. I have really tried to be there for him - to listen when he needs to talk - to be quiet when he wants to just think or do nothing at all. And I see him trying to be there for me, too - holding me, letting me talk - asking about the family situations currently going on. But somehow neither one of us is really getting what we need. I don't know how to fix that. I've done everything I know to do.

I'm tired of feeling stuck. And right at this moment, all I can think of is how lovely it would be to run away for a little while. To go sit in the sand at the beach, to wade in the tide pools, to drink coffee and watch the fog roll in, to not say one. single. word. to anyone. To just be. And maybe cry my eyes out.

The stress is closing in. The walls are closing in.

And while I did admit to PC that I feel like the nanny - not his wife - I can't tell him the rest of it. Not the part about wanting to run away and escape it all for a while. Because his ex used the words "running away" to mean something entirely different. And last time I inadvertently said I was going to "run away to the grocery store to pick up a couple things", it sent him into a really, really horrible flashback. We both ended up in tears. Not good.

But that doesn't make my own need go away. And something's got to change, or I'm going to snap. 

Please, God, get me out of here. If only for a few hours. Even a full-time nanny needs an afternoon off now and then.


Edited to add:

Ya know... maybe my hormones really ARE out of whack. 'Cause I don't seem able to cope with normal life stuff just now.