I don't even know what to tell you; I am on a roller coaster of hope and despair - much of my own making. The Husband is just empty and has nothing to give me, his whole life imploded for God's sake, and I run around like a little yippy dog wanting more more more. I'm so tired mentally and physically that I just want some comfort here at home, and that's not working for me. I know The Husband cannot fill me up, that only God can, but I still wish for a fix.
It's just been the most exhausting year of my adult life on every level. I turned full-on to the Lord early in this thing, and was comforted by Him, held up in the middle of the ongoing Hell of the affair by Him directly and indirectly (through amazing friends). Since then, it's been a world of busy-ness and emotional torture for me with returning to work fulltime, the kids going to school, and The Husbands's individual destruction/upheaval of his life, and by extension, mine.
I am (overly) concerned about a return to the status quo of Life Pre-Affair, which was nothing worth writing home about, as I've mentioned here before. The Husband's late night habits of staying awake without me, and not being intimate were bad habits for years, which is the most obvious road sign on the way to Things Staying The Same And Not Changing, and therefore how I gauge progress in the marriage. Every day/week/month that goes by with that 'one thing' still the same in our lives, the more panicked I become that we are on the same road to StagnantMarriageton, Unfulfillment, or Adulteryville, and won't be able to find the off-ramp. It's a multi-layered fear, really. Feeds right into my insecurity of being rejected, etc. So I panic, and think The Husband hasn't noticed this non-change and gee, I guess I'd better say something about it, because maybe if I KEEP SAYING SOMETHING ABOUT IT, IT WILL EFFECT A CHANGE. Well, duh. Not. That's nagging, ya'll.
But in my panic to find the off-ramp, I nag him about this ONE thing that scares me to death, that I consider to be the road sign into Hell's cul-de-sac. Who wants to move toward THAT? Hey, I'm bitching at you constantly, come over here and love me. Um, no thanks. Who can blame him? Yes, yes, he's wrong about the bed thing longterm, but so too am I - in my way.
So I ride this rodeo bull of my emotions/feelings, which just digs up any good that's been planted and leaves another gaping hole in the ground where something should have been planted, left alone, and allowed to grow roots. Each time I ride these large emotions, our progress is impeded and slowed considerably. But at the same time, I wonder: Will this EVER change? Is he just plodding along with me out of no other choice? He tells me repeatedly that's not true, and I long to believe him. I can't just dismiss this stuff out of my head, although sometimes actually I can. I admit wanting to leave and be done with it, and in the very next minute thinking that I would not want to live a life without him in it. And the Lord sits on His throne and just shakes His head at me, I'm sure. I feel so lost about the Lord, more far away from Him than I want to be emotionally, because my soul feels a jumbled mess anymore. I have a purpose at work, people value me and need me. I don't feel valued and needed at home.
Perhaps The Husband felt much the same way about things when he was working and coming home to the old yucky me. I'm not the same person that I was this time last year, and for that I cannot be anything but grateful, no matter how horribly it came to pass. I don't think I hold the actual affair over The Husband's head, but I know I do hold what he's not doing since the affair over him. I'm sure it's no way to live, I just had such hope that our relationship would be much further down the road by now than it is. That's my shortcoming in expecting more than I have.
I have also been reading about couples who are further along in intimacy, etc. after adultery and it makes me ache. Not that I should be comparing my individual situation to others', but it's hard not to when I'm searching for answers and other stories about successful marriages after infidelity. Sex/intimacy/time would not be the sticking point for me that it is, if we were having it. But perhaps even then I'd find another sticking point. The Husband certainly seems to think so, and he may be right (although I'd like to think he wouldn't be), it's just that this particular problem plagued us pre-affair, and is much more painful to be STILL dealing with post-affair.
Plus, the negative stuff has so much more 'sticking' power than the positive. It seems bigger and stronger and in more abundance than anything good that's happened. (more on that in a future post, since this one is rivaling War and Peace in length already) My fault there for chewing on that bone as well. Grabbing the classifieds to look for an apartment every time I want to run is not good for trust and rebuilding, I realize that. I reach for him and then run away from him -like a yoyo- depending on whether I'm upset or happy, and I've worn him out with it. I do not blame him for being over me and my fat dramas.
I took off my wedding ring, not in any grand gesture actually. I haven't been wearing my diamond for a while now (long story because the stone came from my mother, and I'll perhaps elaborate on those feelings another time), and I take my band off when I go to the gym (NO, get your heads out of the gutter, it's because it's in the way when I lift weights. Not because I'm trolling for gym rats). The last time I took it off, I just forgot to put it back on for several days. Frankly it just didn't seem to be a big deal but The Husband saw the rings in my drawer one day during my recent Dealbreaker mindset and asked if I was going to keep them off. I didn't answer him directly, and I could've just apologized and explained that it wasn't intentional etc. But no. I didn't. Which made it seem - by omission of explanation - that it was part of some Master Plan. That was wrong of me. I implied more sinister motives than I ever intended by my lack of information, than I would have if I had tried outright.
Sometimes I cannot process things fast enough to see the end result, and when I hold honest information close to my vest, screw up even more. Hence, the whole wedding band scenario. And did I come right home, put it back on and explain it to The Husband? No. I just left it off for a few more days because I figured I wasn't in a marriage anyway, blah blah. The bull-riding emotional rodeo rides on.
Did The Husband remove his wedding ring? No. Not even during the affair, actually, which falls on both sides of the fence for me (i.e. aw, he never took it off VS. the bastard didn't even take off his ring to screw her. You understand). Way back when, he voiced many times that he would never love me again, wouldn't live in a loveless marriage, wanted to leave me and this trainwreck of a marriage, etc. But. In his defense, since he ended his relationship with her, he still has never removed his ring. Has never voiced anything but his desire to make this marriage work. Even when I've been out the door a handful of times since. Even when I am the first to bring up separation. Even when I say I will not live in a loveless marriage, and many of the same phrases he uttered during that awful time. Even then. He is battered but still standing.
This blog is biased toward my wayward and wind-swept emotions. Hell, my life is biased toward my wayward and wind-swept emotions. It is not objective, nor does it take in The Husband's side of things. Although, good grief, people. How many men would blog about their affair and how it ruined their life because their spouse asked them to? Not many, I'd venture to say. The Husband is a good man. He has grown from this as well. Just because he's not meeting every need I have for a marriage is no reason to beat him when he's down. I say that to myself as well as to you. As has been revealed to me by a wise man, we both broke our vows, The Husband's lapse was just more public and got all the visible PR. I did not love, honor, or cherish either.
My sins were more subtle and less visible to the outside world. Good heavens, how many of us bitch and complain about our spouses? That's so wrong. And you know it. Even if s/he never knows about it, it infects your relationship. It's what happened with The Husband and his friend-turned-lover. And it's what happened to infect my respect for my man before he even turned away. Quitcher bitchin'. Fix your problems before they spin out of control. Even if you're bad-mouthing a little teensy thing, it looks poor.
Here's a recent example. I saw a friend in church a few months ago, and her daughters were wearing little matching dresses. I commented how pretty they looked, and she said, "I never should have let their daddy put them in their car seats. He didn't do it right and they are so wrinkled." Damn, woman. Be glad he's helping you by buckling the kids in their seats, you know? But she saw the negative in her man, not the positive. But we've ALL done that. We've ALL disrespected the person closest to us when that is the LAST thing we should be doing.
And for GOD'S SAKE, don't bemoan your marriage to a 'friend' of the opposite sex. Just don't. If you can't share the conversation with your spouse and have to hide it, you know it's wrong. Don't even give me your story or justification for doing so. Talk to the hand.
All of this to say, in my roundabout way, there are two sides to every story, marriage, failure. This blog is mostly my side, and biased toward my point of view. It's not an accurate accounting of the things The Husband has done to secure my trust, and move toward me in other ways since the adultery. He takes itty-bitty-bound-up-geisha-steps toward me, due to his own baggage clashing with my own, but he is taking them. He, too, is a different person than you would have met one year ago. He includes me in his life, makes time to talk to me for hours if needed, and makes plans for us to do things together occasionally, as a family and as a couple. I put my caveat on all of his efforts by telling him it's not very often, or you didn't hold my hand, or you only did it because you had to, or you're only here for the children, you see the pattern.
My rampant insecurities jump right out of my mouth and splat onto the brand new sprout of a relationship trying to come out of a frozen ground in some fierce wind. If you were that little sprout, would you keep trying so hard? I see my side, yes, because - well, I'm ME. But I do also see his, as much as I can from my selfish cranium-in-rectum position most days.
