Thoughts in the midst of a thunderstorm

Am sitting at home in the midst of a wonderful thunderstorm. My son was supposed to have soccer camp, but it has been raining fairly hard since early this morning and storms that are located to the northwest are predicted to continue to push through in a southeasterly direction. So we are going to be soaked today (four inches of rain so far...). I have made an executive decision and canceled his participation in soccer camp today. We will hang out and maybe even accomplish something

The thunderstorm is making it difficult to connect to the internet, which is putting a serious crimp into my morning email, blog browsing and other internet diversions.

In addition to the things that are going on in the lab and my gardening and home improvement projects (which are taking a hit today because of the rain), I have been thinking about my relationship with my wife. The general question is when and how does a person decide that they no longer wish to be in a particular relationship with another person. The specific question is how do I recognize that I have reached this point in my relationship with her. The difficulty here is that I have never been 100% happy and I have never been 100% unhappy. There are aspects where my satisfaction is 0% and there are aspects where my satisfaction is above 50%. The relationship works, but it does so because I make compromises. And probably too many compromises. I realize that I am not the only one who makes compromises, but my sense is that I give up more than I get.

So I tell myself that I have decided to place a time limit on this relationship. A cornerstone of my ten year plan. I have done this before - ten years ago, in fact. During a hiking vacation in Colorado, I came to the conclusion that I would give this relationship two more years - till Y2K. This was driven by the knowledge that I was deeply unhappy with the state of our sexual relationship. During those two years, I told myself, I would be the best father that I could be. And then I would move on. Well - eight years beyond that deadline, here I am - proposing another deadline. In the meantime, I have grown and matured in some aspects. But a deep dissatisfaction in this relationship persists. Or rather, a deep dissatisfaction with my life. How can I tell the difference?

It has always been difficult for me to understand that relationships grow and change. I have a vivid memory of being a young boy, standing by the sink drying dishes while my mom was washing them. I had been thinking about the whole process of growing up and becoming an independent person and living on my own and made the comment that I would probably just run away when I was old enough. My mom was quite shocked though she dealt with it very well and calmly said “I hope you don’t, we’ll always be here for you”. In some ways, my comment has proven to be prophetic, as staying in touch with my family has never been one of my strong points. Hence, a strong argument in favor of my ten year plan, as opposed to moving on with my own independent life now, is staying connected with my son and helping him through the transition to independence.

I find myself drawn to blogs that talk about the changing nature of relationships - marriage, divorce, moving on with life. I am particularly interested now in how the nature of these relationships change over time. What I need to do is survey the literature, arrive at some ideas and begin testing them in my own life.