what is this?

I really should be doing other things right now, but am somehow typing this.

I feel like I am coming unglued.

And, on top of it all (or, perhaps, as a result of it all--I can't be sure) I am at day 12 of my cycle and am having spotting and cramping. What is this? Really, I don't need to start worrying about my reproductive health on top of everything else right now. I already have a tendency to worry/obsess about things as it is. I don't need actual strange symptoms to fuel my anxiety.

So here is what ran through my head earlier today:
I was having a conversation with the Student Teacher about relationships and how we met our significant others. And as I was talking about Mr. C I found myself falling far short of what I usually say about him. Now I realize that I am still getting to know Student Teacher and am very aware that I am sharing personal details very cautiously. But here is essentially what I said when I described Mr. C today:

When I met him I was immediately attracted to him. At the same time, I was caught completely off guard because he seemed so different from me in many ways. As it turns out, these differences are what make him so perfect for me.

And here is what I have always said in addition to the above description:

While Mr. C is one of the most intelligent and creative people I know, he is also extremely funny. His sense of humor is one of his most attractive features to me. This is where he and I differed so strongly. Before I met him, most people would describe me as being very serious. But Mr. C has softened me, helped me to lighten-up. He makes me laugh EVERY day, even if he has to tickle me to make me do so. My sister and my brother both told me, after dating Mr. C for about a year, that they liked me better.

What occurred to me is that I didn't share these details with her because it felt too personal and sensitive. Because right now my wonderful husband, for the first time since I have known him, isn't the one who is holding me up and helping me to see the brighter, more hopeful view of life. Right now he is struggling to hold himself up. And I feel so fucking helpless in the face of this. And I also feel terribly guilty that he has always had to be the strong one...and because of this he is finally feeling weight that he has so gladly piled on his shoulders for me and everyone else he cares for.

When Mr. C was fighting cancer he was the one to make jokes and lighten the room. Sure, he expressed his fear...even shed some tears. But now that I think of it, the one time he really cried was when he was on the phone with his father. He was talking on the phone with his father after he got the diagnosis and he just broke down and had to hand the phone to me. On the other end I could hear his father crying as well. I hung up the phone and held him and he told me that he just couldn't handle hearing his father cry--that is why he lost it, it just tore him apart to hear his father in pain. And when we were in the hospital and they were prepping him for surgery the nurses (his mother included) made a huge fuss over me because they were certain I was about to faint. He was so worried about me, he said that he was more worried about me than he was for himself. How could I be so selfish? Why couldn't I just pull it together so that he would have felt more supported, not to mention that he wouldn't have had to add worry for me on top of his own fear and sadness.

And when we lost William there was no one there to really support him. Sure, his mother was there, but all of the focus was on me. Once he knew that I would recover physically he continued to worry as he watched me grieve. Yes it is stereotypical but while I "grieved like a woman" he told me after less than a week that he "couldn't cry anymore." He was promoted to management just as we were losing William, and he returned to work quickly. He immersed himself in work, believing that it would be good for him to do so. And now what I believe is delayed grief is catching up to him.

Tomorrow will be his fourth session with a psychologist. When he decided he needed to see someone it was because he felt like he was suffering from anxiety and depression--due to his highly stressful job. He didn't even mention William at his first session. But after his second session, in which he did, he told me that he realized that it isn't just his job that is causing him "stress."

I am feeling pretty helpless in all of this. I wish that there was something that I could do. And it makes me so angry with myself that I had grown so dependant on him to be strong, to "lighten" things for me.

It has been hard for me to write much lately. It has been difficult to do much of anything. I know it isn't helping him for me to be so sad and depressed as well.