like a big pimple on the end of someone's nose

Most of this comes from my response to someone else's blog (though I've tweaked and edited/added here). Her post brought out a lot of stuff that I had been thinking about the last week or so. I have come to realize that my husband is my back-up. He's the fall back guy. He's the "yeah he's not perfect but it's better then being alone and at least I'll know what to expect" guy. We have a shared history, he knows my likes & dislikes, he's comfortable. Plus, we're married. That, in itself, is really hard to walk away from no matter how bad things get. Seriously, I have no clue how the divorce rate is so high. The simple fact that I have a marriage liscense with his name on it has kept me hanging on years longer then if we didn't have one. Now, I happen to believe in that head-over-heels in love feeling that you were talking about. I know because I had it with my husband. I know what you mean, though, when you talk about the "wants". I had to deal with that when regarding how he treats me. I had myself convinced that okay, he's just not a romantic guy and it's okay if he never brings me flowers or buys me a card or takes me away for the weekend or remembers our anniversary. And okay some times he's selfish and thoughtless and says mean things....well, that's all okay because I need to be the understanding wife who doesn't expect her husband to be something he's not. Well, guess what? That's bullshit. Why are the wives always the ones who have to change? I think maybe he needs to be the understanding husband who realizes that it's his job to meet some of his wife's needs. Why do I have to be his perfectly little supportive cheerleader and give him what he needs but when it comes to the reverse - I'm just supposed to accept him the way he is? I have recently realized that "security" doesn't mean what I thought it did. I honestly think my husband would never go to a divorce lawyer just because he procrastinates so much he would just never get around to it. And he just doesn't put that much effort in to anything. And why should he? I'm his fall-back-girl. Up until this point, he has always known that he could do whatever he wanted. I may get angry...I may even leave him (which I did once years ago)...But that "comfortable" would bring me back and make me stay. That's not security. That's a hostage situation. I may never find a man who will remember that my favorite flowers are yellow roses and who will buy me one just for the hell of it. But that doesn't mean I have to hang on to my husband in the mean time. I don't need someone to take his place. I can be comfortable with myself. This is where I'm at today and the things I have been thinking about for the last week or so. I think that Paperweight leaving, he will find to be one of the biggest mistakes of his life. All of things that I overlooked - all of the things that I was in denial about - seem to be just rising up and staring me in the face...