Arizona, about 85 miles from Kingman. I haven't been worth a damn on this run. I think part of my problem has been the soft drinks. Even diet soft drinks have caffeine, and that means the inevitable caffeine crash. Along with that Mara has started driving halfway through my shift three times when I could have driven on. So I've had trouble sleeping, and then I've had trouble getting back up (because I'm getting back up about the time I'm finally drifting off to sleep. I'm overthinking this, I know.

As for everything else? Well, I feel like my relationship with Mara has changed. Somehow I feel like I'm at a disadvantage now. I've said all along that with Mara either you're in charge or she will be. Somehow it feels like she has the upper hand now, like she has an ace up her sleeve. She thought about leaving me. In talking about that every bit of the blame was laid at my feet. So now it's like an implied threat that if I don't make her happy she'll leave.

Well, I certainly don't want her to be unhappy, but neither do I want to wind up like her father, buying computers and cars as defiant gestures against my immasculation. It says a lot about the Dianic nature of Mara's family that to this day her father bears pretty much the full blame for every ill of the family. I'm not saying that Tom was perfect. I'm saying that when he was alive I saw the dynamic of that family in action, and I do not believe that he was the sole source of their collective pathos. I won't accept that I'm the sole source of mine and Mara's problems. And I refuse to become my mother, standing around wringing my hands and trying to keep the peace no matter the price to my sanity, soul and happiness.

I won't be made to feel like I have failed Mara and that if our marriage fails I am solely to blame. Right now I feel like Mara has put the idea on the table that her unhappiness is my fault. So if in the future she decides to leave to find herself, or if she decides to have that affair with the next guy she feels a strong attraction to, she'll be completely without blame or responsibility. The blame will be mine, won't it?

Every day since I've read Mara's blog I've had this gnawing emptiness in the pit of my stomach. Just this morning I bought a sandwich, thinking that I might just be very hungry. But that gnawing didn't go away. Personally, I believe that Mara wants to leave but doesn't have the nerve. And I fear that after she goes home in May and I come out on the road alone, it may well be the beginning of the end of our marriage.