I guess I'll just keep adding here as I need to get stuff out...

So I realized yesterday, that if we move, we will miss our opportunity to complete our testing for our black belts in our martial art. We do this as a family, and there have been times I've wanted to give it up altogether because of my mental health struggles. He's convinced me time and again to stick with it. But for much of the time we've done it, I have wavered between feeling like it's an activity I do because it's important to him and feeling like it's something that is important and rewarding to me.

This year, however, he's been gone more than normal, I've been stable mental-health-wise, and I've really worked hard after several injuries over the years to develop myself in this art form. I was ready to test for my black belt this month, but my husband really wants to get our black belts together. Since he's been gone, he's not ready to test. Our Master knows that my husband really wants to do the black belt test at the same time. Both my husband and our Master have had conversations with me about that (and it's obvious they've had that conversation together without me), and the decision to test isn't up to me - our Master has the final word on that. I could tell when he told me we would wait that he wanted to explain to me why he was waiting and gauge my reaction.

My problem is that I KNOW it's personally important to my husband that we do this together - and objectively that's a lovely sentiment. But now I realize that we may not get to do it at all because of him, and I'm spiraling into this feeling that I've had all along, which is that this is some sort of weird novelty that our family does it together, but really, it's all about my husband. I don't get to reach the goal that I've worked for, because it's contingent on him being able to reach that goal. My value there is dependent on him. My achievement doesn't count without him.

It's infuriating, demoralizing, and completely representative of how I feel about our life together - I'm here to support him and join in when he wants company or when he wants to feel like we're a united family unit. But I'm secondary and always will be. And he will always present it in the way that's palatable to him (and how I think he genuinely thinks of/feels about it) - which is that it's about togetherness. But does that mean that if we're not together, it doesn't count? That things only count/matter if he's there or if they count/matter to him?