and while we were here  - reflections on the 2012 film

i just watched this film. 

and sadly, i know all too well how true this story feels. 

within a marriage, even one not hastened by situation or necessity, there are many struggles, money being one of the best known. 

but that whole childbearing thing? it bears much weight. 

and it can be a smothering weight. 

with the husband often not acknowledging the pain or consequences after a miscarriage (or multiple miscarriages) but with the woman feeling lost... 

and that silence, that inability to get past it, or to discuss it, that lack of closure (because i don't know if that ever comes) is a huge stress on any marriage.

while all the reviews out there tout a loveless marriage as the backdrop, i would disagree. 

it is not a loveless marriage.

leonard, while emotionally blocked off, loves his wife. 

he just does not allow himself to let go long enough to show this love.

and her feelings of invisibility stem from his inability to really look at how this situation has effected her. how it has effected their marriage. i would surmise that this is because it would make him emotionally vulnerable and that is not a trait traditionally prized among men.

but it is necessary within a marriage.

one must make oneself emotionally vulnerable if one expects to survive the storms that can plague marriages.

and while i could never leave my spouse (he really is a good and beautiful man). while i could never forsake the promises i made him in marriage, and while i really just don't see me having any sort of affair or even tryst with a younger (or any other) man.

i do wholely understand how the character, jane, feels. i understand her feelings about her body. her almost inability to look at herself in the mirror. her feelings of invisibility where her husband is concerned. her need for love, affection, and understanding. her need to talk about the whole thing. her need to deal with it or else run.

i have felt that urge to just run away. to just leave all this crap and heartache behind.

but there is so much more. there is also love, laughter, moments of joy, small shared moments, our dogs (we love them like kids), our families (i really love his), our life together. and i know i could never leave all that because of this pain.

it doesn't fix things.

and bosworth's character's confrontation of her husband 70 minutes in was spot on. it wasn't over done or under done. not too much drama and not lacking emotion. just that exasperated quiet hopeless rage that tends to accompany fertility issues and their baggage especially if left unspoken.

as for my life? 
i know we still need to communicate more. we still need to get to that emotionally open place. but i am confident we will. and i am confident that time will show us how. that all will be revealed in time.

somehow.

i have to.

to do otherwise, that would either leave me in a "loveless" marriage or else wandering from relationship to relationship waiting for the mythical unicorn of relationships to fix all the things.

and that is just not reality.