The pathway is broken, And the signs are unclear, And I don't know the reason why You brought me here But just because You love me the way that You do, I'm gonna walk through the valley If You want me to
Cause I'm not who I was When I took my first step, And I'm clinging to the promise You're not through with me yet So if all of these trials bring me closer to You, Then I will go through the fire If You want me to
It may not be the way I would have chosen, When you lead me through a world that's not my home But You never said it would be easy, You only said I'd never go alone
So When the whole world turns against me, And I'm all by myself, And I can't hear You answer my cries for help I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through And I will go through the valley If You want me to
[Hey, I appreciate the comments from my slamfest. Very much. But it was helpful to take a look at myself from their point of view. I'm good, thanks. Oh, I am so not the hero, Mr. PhD. Not by a mile. Ask my husband - although thanks for the shoutout.] Insanity has been defined as doing the same old thing over and over and expecting different results. -unknown
Jeez, ya'll. I went back to look at this blog from the beginning, got to about October of last year and hit the brakes, discouraged. I'm sure I'll keep reading later but why the hell are you?
I am a fcuking yoyo if you look at the Big Picture. Self-aware one day, Ignorant the next. Thoughtful one day, Selfish the next. Have a plan one day, Emotionally lose control the next. What a gigantic PITA I see overall.
I'm emotionally unpredictable. So much so that my sweet little family is uncomfortable, and tiptoes around me if I am moody (which has been often). I control the household with fear. Is she in a good mood? Will she be nice to me or not? That makes me sick. Look: I was all excited last September about changing my tone of voice, threw myself a little blog parade about it. There's been no permanent change there: just had an issue with that two days ago with my daughter. Sh!t.
What the hell is all this therapy for, if change is a)slow and yet b) not long-lasting. I'm convinced that all this going-back-in-time-to-relive-past-traumas in therapy is pretty much a load of sh!t for actually moving forward. It firmly plants you in the past. I know all the crap that happened to me in my childhood. I know my issues. I know how I got here. I know why I am wired the way I am. Fcuk that, now let's FIX it. I need solutions, how to change my world NOW.
This belief is backed up by at least one well-known therapist, Michele Weiner-Davis: It's my belief that couples in crisis don't have the luxury to analyze how they were raised in order to find solutions to their marital problems. If your therapist is focusing on the past, suggest a future-orientation.
I agree: I am not on board that all this going back is where it's at. If so, I would have long ago been the Poster Child for a changed life, I've been in counseling of some sort for years on end. I'm just funding their annual vacations.
It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship is going down, people. Let's get on a life boat, to safety, and then analyze why the ship sank and go salvage what we can from it.
I can't find the exact quote, but Davis doesn't believe in ignoring the past issues once the marriage is OUT of crisis. Address the crisis first, then go back. Makes sense to me.
She also says: Know that most marital problems are solvable. Don't let your therapist tell you that change is impossible. Human beings are amazing and they are capable to doing great things- especially for people they love.
This is where my rubber hits my road. If I loved my husband (and by extension, kids) enough, I should be doing my "great things" for the "people I love", right? Perhaps the "people I love" most is me. And so I spin my life and actions/inactions thusly. I can't just keep overreacting in the name of What's Not Happening in My Marriage. God, what a mess.
More from Michele: Just keep in mind that forgiveness isn't a feeling. It is a decision. You decide that you are going to start tomorrow with a clean slate. Even if it isn't easy, you make the determination that the alternative is even harder, and that you are going to do what you must to begin creating a more positive future.
I have made that decision, several times in the last year, and then backslide based on emotions and impatience. I have to keep my eyes on the goal instead of the immediate. I am one to extrapolate that What's Happening Now is What Will Always Be Happening. It's inaccurate, and a self-fulfilling prophesy. I think my husband does this too, and we both keep doing the same things, and yet thinking we will change (see above definition of Insanity).
At one point (albeit an all-too-brief one) I really thought we were getting somewhere in this marriage post-explosion. There was a window of connection and positive movement last May (pre-blogging) then it dissipated. When I think of what I want with my husband, I think about last May - not pre-affair. There was an openness, connection, and sweetness that was starting to appear between us. That time is where my lingering Hope For Us springs from, despite all evidence to the contrary.
And then the relationship faltered, stalled, and shifted into Reverse. And ran over tire spikes. Blew every tire on the damned vehicle. We seem to have accepted that our car won't run, since it's been such a long time since it started. Hoping that the tow truck will arrive by telepathy, or some such crap.
[We've talked about it since, and neither one of us is quite sure what factors were in place that made those positive interactions real. Or else we'd be re-creating it.]
We're waiting for the right feelings before we do the right actions. And that's just bullsh!t and backwards. Part of our solution is that we need to ACT as healthy married folk do and trust the feelings to FOLLOW. It's like reading the Bible, to me. I know I should, and I drag my sorry ass over to do it when I'd rather be checking my email or doing something less important. But I MAKE myself do what I ought, and AFTER I've done it I FEEL better. I am not feeling particularly close to God before I do it, but afterwards I DO feel closer. Action first, then feeling. Makes sense, right? So why can't we just GET ON THE TRAIN?
Because: ultimately I'm scared to death to be hurt again, crave reassurance I don't have/doesn't stick, and stay in the state of partial dread that I may hear the words that he wants out anyway.
Because: ultimately he is uncomfortable in my presence, having to police my emotions, never knowing when I might 'blow'. I exhaust him; he's past putting in effort because it's not rewarded. I appreciate it, and ten minutes/two hours/one day later I've forgotten it because it wasn't enough, and I'm disappointed in what we still don't have. All we are not. Terrified it will never Compare To. And therefore, it doesn't. What you focus on expands.
At this point we are lost as to how to hit the "reset" button. If this marriage is supposed to be Over, at least I want to run at it well and hard before I call it a day. To hold hands and just Jump. Both of us. We are so wary to do it now. Because it's been 'bad' for longer than it was 'good' - that if we commit to jump, it still won't work. Or that one of us will pull the ball out from under us, a la Lucy and Charlie Brown.
There are layers upon layers of emotional complication, and I just want to somehow Wipe It Out, and say fcuk it, let's go.
Look at this promising comment after a post from The Husband's Story last year: I agree with all you said. It's so not worth it. I'm so glad I made it. When I went to couseling, they told us, "Write love notes (just little ones) and leave them places for each other, give her flowers even when you don't feel like it, say I love you even if it feels empty. My husband and I did that and we slowly started to fall in love again. The actions came before the feelings. Now we are doing so much better.
Short of a brain/emotional transplant, I am going to have to rely on doing the right thing being its own reward. No unmet expectations derailing me. Just me & God for a while. As it should be. I always start out strong, and then -pfft- poop out from loneliness, exhaustion, or a wayward thought that ambushes me.
So promise yourself, that no matter what the reason, you will not go another day blaming your partner and feeling lonely. Make peace. Make up. Make love. I promise you that the benefits of deciding to forgive go far beyond anything you can picture in your mind's eye at the moment. Your decision to forgive will create a ripple effect of exponential changes in your life. -Michele Weiner-Davis
Do, or Do Not. There is no Try. -Yoda, in "The Empire Strikes Back"
If you put it out there, you're going to get Smacked
Ouch. Way back when I first started this blog last summer, I put it out there on blogrolls, Technorati, Top Blog Sites, etc.
Yes, yes, to shamelessly get traffic here, in the (misguided? self-important?) hope that people would get something from my story. I also submitted it to be reviewed on the above site. They might give a positive shoutout to 1 out of 10 blogs. Maybe. And they can be mean as hell about the rest of them. And it's no secret. But, in the interest of getting started, I submitted my blog for review.
Obviously, I was a dumbass.
It was reviewed yesterday, and duly hated. I was bored the very second I started reading this whinefest.
Oh, don't take it personally, you say? Riiiiight. My whole story here is as personal as I've ever been. That was the point of starting it. I sat in a corner and ate my hair for about an hour and then realized some good issues in the smartass-ed-ness of the reviewer (and subsequent comments) so I wanted to 'man-up' and face the music. Let's address a few, shall we?
"I can't tell if she's a strong Christian or making fun of one who is."
Oof. Anyone agree with him? I'd like to know. Perhaps because I swear like a sailor here? You can love Jesus and say fcuk (oh, FYI, I do misspell my bad words on purpose in order to not show up in internet search results). Now, whether or not I should be all 'sh!t' and 'fcuk' while being a person who reads the Bible, prays, and loves Jesus as my savior, I don't know. I'm sure that's not ideal. I'm just who I am.
But it did disturb me that I may be thought of as 'making fun' of Christianity. I think that's more the perception of Christians as 'holy' and 'above it all' and not struggling through Real Stuff, so I couldn't possibly be one.
Wrong. Thanks for playing. Next.
And in the comments section, this bit of snark: Reading a while I keep waiting for her to explode or something, and we'd end up with exploded over-analytical chick goo all over the walls. Her story is somewhat interesting, but I'm not sure I want to know that much about a person. I'd rather they fake it and smile and look cool, then go have their meltdowns privately. Society runs better that way and it makes my life easier
Damn, ya'll. Isn't that interesting? No, really. That is exactly what I was like, the whole "fake it and smile and look cool" while having my "meltdowns privately". I think that is a lot of what is wrong in our society. It may "run better that way", but most of us are coming undone trying to fake it longterm. I totally got what he was saying, and I used to agree, and now I SO disagree with that sh!t.
Having said that, there's no need to bust out with TMI and "exploded over-analytical chick goo" (ha! that made me laugh, even though it was meant to be a slam) upon first meeting people IRL, but being Authentic is important, although sadly unnecessary in our culture. I guess it's up to you how Real you can stand to be in this life. Surface is easy, I know. I'm great at it. But it comes with a price. Eventually.
And you know, I did get a LOAD of referred traffic yesterday. So the original goal was obtained, even if people came, read, judged, and left. So be it.
Oh. My. God. And I thought I was introspective. This chick is fascinated with herself. It was nearly impossible for me to stop reading this blog - and now I'm going to go sit in a corner and think about my thoughts and my feelings about this.
Dude, I guess we're all fascinated with ourselves on some level. But the irony is I ignored myself for so long that the pendulum is swinging the other way for me in the aftermath of a Catastrophic Life Event and I guess it does look like massive amounts of navel-gazing. Oh, well.
I did get one positive comment on that site, and hooray, what a relief in maelstrom of slams. the second one, though...love it. i can see how it could be tmi for a lot of people, but i have to have respect for someone who puts themselves really out there like that, and the story is interesting to me. maybe it's because i'm a chick, but i dig her.
"Pooh?" whispered Piglet. "Yes, Piglet? said Pooh. "Oh, nothing," said Piglet. "I just wanted to be sure of you." Piglet and I have something in common here. ::poke, poke:: just making sure you're there.
Only my poke is a sharp stick. In the eye. Or soft, tender flesh.
Like a bull in a china shop, I am completely out of hand. The tinkling of glass is heard initially, as I inadvertently drop a few things, and then ::CRASH:: sh!t is falling to the floor in great explosions as I turn around in spaces too small for my big emotions.
I end up arguing, hard, with my husband, when I just meant to poke him gently to be sure he's still there. It is never gently. At least not until after glasses have been shattered and I'm aghast at the mess I've made.
And then I just want to hit the imaginary "Reset" button and poke him gently, after my Monster emotions have been spent, and they are now sleeping quietly in the corner. And he, being a logical man, is dumbfounded. Are you f-ing kidding me? Get the hell away from the crazy, unpredictable person. Run, do not walk, to the nearest Exit kind of dumbfounded.
It is rare to have my husband's full-on undivided attention/extended eye contact unless he's upset, pissed off and arguing with me. That's a years-old thing now, and I've discovered a well, then, if that is how I get your time, I'm going to do it bit of a scenario.
And after said-argument's denoument, I feel closer to him in the big picture. Even though he likely feels miles away. I know it doesn't make sense, but it's been true after just about every argument we've had (with the exception of the Dark Time). When I realized this, I mentioned it to my counselor. Who, amazingly, didn't gasp in horror at my incongruence. She was quick to enlighten me with the Why.
I've engaged him, which is what my heart cries out to do. Yet, I've engaged him negatively. And at great cost to the relationship and long-term goals of intimacy. But the status quo for my husband is to be dis-engaged from me, unplugged.
I am searching to "plug in" some way, any way, and if I can't engage him positively, by God we end up arguing. It's awful, emotional, I am usually crying, it's fcuking exhausting to both of us. It goes on and on, and when it finally ends, I am left upset but feeling connected on some wackjob level.
I can't tell you how laser-guided missile accurate that was to hear.
While it's not pre-meditated, or intentionally cruel, it's my slippery slope. Motive doesn't matter when you end up in a bad place (the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that).
And it usually happens after a prolonged period of disconnect, or when I have reached my emotional limit of Feeling Alone and Neglected.
And despite my inner groanings of 'growth' sprouted in my last post, we just had this very scene tonight. For hours. And my bull in the china shop was crashing all over the place. At my worst I hit him (in the shoulder) and threw something (small, unbreakable) across the room at the peak of frustration.
My eyes are still puffy from the boohoos. Monster emotions were at DEFCOM 5. No one should have to internally flinch when you're in the room, you know? For God's sake, this is how I grew up. This is the steamer trunk of baggage I have brought with me and unpacked in my own house.
My emotions are labile (ya think?). The conversation started decently and then -perhaps because my subconscious radar registered that he was not plugging in- it went south.
I am NOT proud to tell you this. To reveal more of the deepest, sewage-y Yuck I still have gurgling around in my psyche is galling. I am knotted all up inside.
But I want it out there. All of it. I have for a long time, but that's not as easy as it sounds. I try to tell (a select few) friends that, yes, I had my part in running my husband away. (Caveat To Prevent The Flood Of Indignant Emails: yes, it was ultimately his mistake to go outside the marriage for a false solution, and he had his own faults in the demise of the marriage, etc. but HELLO? do you see his side even a tee-tiny bit?)
They don't believe it. Not truly. I'm the Beauty Queen. I'm all surface. I'm funny and charming and enthusiastic (the flip side of which is Monster emotions and china-shopping bulls). You can't know me. And the one person who really did see my Ugliness, walked away for a time.
But he is also still here. And at my basest, insecure depth, I cannot begin to understand why.
Excuse me, I have to go brush off my knees. And elbows. Again.
It's not how many times you try and fail, it's how many times you fail and try again. -unknown
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. -Rainer Maria Rilke
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. -Viktor Frankl
In my clay feet of defensiveness and all-over protective gear, this seemingly easy task is crazyhard. I can read the books, see the picture, talk the talk. Walking the talk is a whole different ballgame.
But it's coming along.
Slowly.
And not without grand fcukups on my part. When frustrated, my Default settings are B!tchAboutIt and AttackWildly. I've fallen into doing that several times in the last month, re-setting the Spousal Goodwill Toward Wife meter to square one, or zero, or negative. I don't know where I stand at this point without a 6-week progress report.
Last week I had a few chances to put my money where my mouth is in the Change department.
One morning, things went bad. I had worked the night before, a long difficult shift, came home from work to find the house locked tighter than a drum, kids in PJs, husband still sound asleep. And school started in five minutes. He woke up apologizing, we scrambled to get them ready and instead of me getting to bed, I schlepped them to school myself. ::yawn::
Was I pissed and wildly inconvenienced? Absolutely. And normally, I would LET YOU KNOW ABOUT IT, BY GUM.
But, as I was driving to and from school, I turned it over in my brain and looked at things.
Just about any time I have screwed up big time, my husband has been amazing about it. He never makes me feel like sh!t. Never. He is supportive and okay with me in a crisis of circumstance. Always.
So, I pondered how to be that way myself. He didn't intentionally, or with malice, sleep in just to piss me off. Previously, I would have reacted as if he had, with a dammit, man, can't you do anything right? kind of undertone. This is definitely a FOO-learned behavior. And it's got to go.
He had their clothes laid out, backpacks ready, and lunches made - getting ready fast was much smoother than it would have been otherwise. I mean, we had the kids dressed and in the car in about ten minutes. So I focused on how he had them super organized the night before. I was grateful for him, and my attitude shifted.
By the time I arrived home, and he started the Repeating Apology (no doubt in anticipation of the bi-otch I would normally be), I was able to snuff it out by telling him how much I appreciated the fact that the kids were basically ready to go the night before from his prep work, he had made it easy, that was great of him, it was no big deal, it all turned out fine. And I wasn't Faking It. I had worked internally toward true OkayWithIt-ness and AppreciatingMyHusband. And I went to sleep. In a much better place than the old me would have been.
Scene Two:
We're at a sports event. It's been a fun day. I turn to say something to him in the crowded arena with one child between us. Call his name. Repeatedly. He is faced away from me watching something else. He's only 1+ seat away and doesn't acknowledge me. I keep saying his name loudly and he finally turns to me with an aggrevated, "What?!"
[insert divorce papers here]
I was so put out by then, I said "Nothing" and turned away. And proceeded to spend the next 15-20 minutes trying to salvage my attitude and re-gain my center. I had been having a good day. I do not need to let this one thing send me over the everything sucks, my life is over, my husband can't stand me edge. It was a long and protracted internal battle, but the good guys finally won. My Default settings were overridden, and my outlook improved. But, damn people, it was hard work. Would have been much easier to let that one perceived meanness take over, to quit talking to him, or slap a retort back into the fray.
A lot of this negative manifestation (or not) is up to me and my attitude. I don't mean to sound like a self-help book, but it sort of came to me on the way home that night that I am going to have to make a lot of internal effort that no one will even be seeing.
I think I've been just 'waiting' for things to change, my situation, my marriage, my husband, my attitude, everything. In sort of a passive mode, as if understanding the issues, praying about it, and knowing what should change would change it all.
I came to a (long-overdue) realization that I am going to have to Always Be Working At It. That this is going to be an Ongoing Effort On My Part. For a Long Time. And trust me, I'm going to fall down all over the place making mistakes here, but the fact that I just finally owned that part of the puzzle was something in itself.
Reading over this post, it sounds less significant than it was. Oh well. Some posts are only for me anyway.
There's your work, the other person's work, and God's work. All you are responsible for is your work. You cannot do the other person's work OR God's work: it's impossible. And anyway, you're only responsible for yours. -unknown
Okay, okay. This post has garnered some strong emotions in the comment section. Mine included. Please feel free to add to the discussion there, help a girl out.
I do want to clarify that the man I quoted in that post was separated for years, plural, from his wife before they were reconciled. And there was NO adultery on either part, so his point of view is not skewed by anyone betraying the marriage in a sexual manner.
I think perhaps I should have clarified that for you from the get-go, even though I happen to agree with him regardless of what happened in my marriage.
It was an issue before the adultery with us, and continues in the aftermath, the irony of which is almost unbearable at times. I'm completely befuddled. And feel continually chosen against. Daily. Nightly. Over and over. Let's face it. I'm an anomaly here. I have the higher sex drive, UNstereotypically, as the female in my relationship. I was the 'betrayed' partner who actually WANTS physical intimacy in my marriage. My whole situation is off-kilter, compared to many of you. End of story.
I subscribed to a daily Christian email for wives, to encourage us how to specifically be more generous and caring. Because, hello, I realize I was not treating him well for a long time and I'll take all the help I can get. Half of those emails are instructing the wives to be more sexual to their husbands. Obviously, I am a freak of nature, if you believe the media. I don't need that advice, thanks.
My husband is a great guy; you would really like him if you met him. I guarantee it. He's a guy's guy, but also relates well to women. He's thoughtful, witty, smart and kind. I really enjoy him. He's also hot, and when he puts his mind to it he can kiss me like no one ever has and take my breath away. Literally. Cannot breathe.
But he doesn't. Put his mind to it. Some days he barely acknowledges me physically. I cannot remember the last time he tried to take my breath away. As a physical person, who loves to touch, this is hard to reconcile. Not only with my idea of a marriage, but with the man I did marry. And I didn't just marry someone less than ideal and hope it would get better; I married my ideal person. In every area. He was all that and a bag of chips, for a time.
So. That's difficult for me. It just is, and I am sick of apologizing for wanting/needing sex in a marriage. I have a physically able and sexy husband. Just out of reach.
I remember reading somewhere that when you're having it, sex is 10% of a marriage but 90% when you're not. I would love for it to take its proper place in my life at 10% instead of the big elephant in the room. And it's not just sex. I'm including physical affection of any kind, touches, kisses, hugs, special eye contact, verbal flirting. I'm convinced that if it were happening, my almost insatiable desire would decrease to a manageable level.
I no longer am comfortable wanting such things, and paralyzed to initiate any of it. How this all shakes down psychologically: I don't feel like a priority to my husband. I haven't for a long time, and the continued status quo reinforces my low status (below children and other-things-to-do) rather than reassure me of anything positive. It's not just a physical thing; it never has been. I want to be important to him. Walk the talk.
As I said in one of the comments I made under the post we're talking about: I just can't accept that this status quo is how God planned it, or that He intends to keep us here. Our God is a passionate God. I am made in his image. Insert Flap A into Slot B.
Your lips, O my spouse, drip as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue ... Song of Songs 4:11 NKJV
Drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers. Song of Songs 5:1b NAS
I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me. Song of Songs 7:10 NAS
Well, that last post was a whine-fest, so I'll get out of my own head and let someone else do today's whining portion.
With his permission, this is what a wise man wrote to a woman who didn't want to have sex with her husband. He shared his point of view, in the hopes that she could understand what her own husband felt in a sex-starved marriage.
And after reading what he wrote, she got it. Really got it. So one man's stuggle blessed another person. That's what you hope for, second only to setting right your own.
Here's how I feel about my wife not being able to be intimate. I feel like I have a disease, like I'm not good enough for her, like there's something wrong with me, like she doesn't like me or love me, like I'm shackled and stuck in a cage that I can't get out of. It makes me want to divorce her, and go find a woman that'll want to have sex with me. A woman that enjoys a good orgasm, and isn't afraid to show it.
You see, one of the biggest turn-ons for a guy is a woman who's turned on. It's not a porno kind of thing, it's a sharing of the love thing. It's a communication that is deep and very hard to describe, but it lets us guys know that we are needed, loved, and appreciated, like a warm piece of fresh baked apple pie. We come away with the satisfaction of knowing that our woman just recieved the fullest of the love we can possibly deliver.
Being refused good sex is the ultimate rejection. It's like a kid pouring his soul into a work of art, or writing beautiful story, and being super excited to show it to his mom, only to find mom uninterested or not even care to see it. Makes you just want to tear it up and throw it away.
Personally, it's the cruelest thing I've ever had to face. I'd much rather have her be rude, ugly, short tempered, air headed, etc. Just about anything but frigid.
Sex should not get mixed up in personal differences.It should be like brushing your teeth, you do it every day no matter if you're mad or sad or whatever. Don't get it mixed up with all the other confusing emotions that are running around.
Just have a glass of wine, dance naked in front of the mirror, whatever you need to get you a little warm, and then give that man the whole of you! Teach him how to bring you to climax like only YOU know how to climax and scream outloud how good it feels.
It's a blessing from God to you and your spouse. Keeping your spouse from good sex, is keeping them from one of the greatest blessings that God has given a marriage.
I just want to live happily-ever-after every now and then. -Jimmy Buffett
When trips to the library & free time were more readily available, I enjoyed the author, she's very fun. (click photo to travel to amazon.com) She wove some words together in this book that I took away with me, and use mentally a LOT:
The protagonist reflects on attending a stress-reduction seminar where they were instructed to imagine a safe and comforting place. She figured everyone else was envisioning warm beaches, and she couldn't find comfort in any of the standard imagery. She writes:
The place that I went, the place that I still go, was the warm hollowed-out center of a Bundt cake. It is usually gingerbread, though sometimes that changes. Sometimes it's gingerbread crowned in a ring of poached pears. The walls that surround me are high and soft, but as they go up they curve back, open up to the light, so I feel protected by the cake but never trapped by it. ...I press my cheek against the cake, which is soft as eiderdown and still warm. This isn't a fantasy about food exactly, at least not insofar as I want to eat my way through a cake that's taller than I am. It's about being inside of cake, being part of something that I find to be profoundly comforting.
She goes on to say
It was a laugh to think I was stressed when I signed up for that workshop. ...I remember it now and hang my head in disbelief. I want to go back to that person I was, take her by the shoulders and shake her. "Look again!" I want to say to myself. "You are standing in the middle of paradise." [emphasis mine]
Or as I nutshelled it, I was in the middle of the cake. But I was so obtuse I lost perspective for all that I had in my hands already. If only I had looked harder at myself, and my relationship(s).
I put my head in the sand, ignored the signs that I was in some poor patterns of behavior as a wife, parent, person. Ignore, ignore, stay busy, put priorities in all kinds of dumbass places (hobbies, busy-work, affirmation for tasks/committees), avoid relational intimacy, la la la.
In the aftermath of my life imploding, I realize almost daily that I was in the middle of the cake. I just want to sit in a corner and eat my hair when I think about it. I had so much, squandered vast potential. I'm trying not to lose hope of finding the cake again, even a cupcake.
Dammit. I crawled out of a very fcuked up childhood/adolescence and managed to knit together a decent human being.
And then, unbelievably, found the person who was my happily ever after. Cheesy as it sounds, it was all that. He was everything I ever wanted - and believeyoume I had kissed, etc my share of frogs to know. People commented that I lit up from the inside out when I saw him.
Then as times got stressful or difficult, as things in all progressing relationships will, I emotionally pulled away and attacked the one person who was on my team. For a long time.
I knew no other example of how to be, but I couldn't help it is of small comfort over here by myself. And I'm paying the price. Even now, when I know what not to do and why, I still grind against my Default settings.
My safe, loving, comforting places are gone, and I struggle with losing my soft spot to fall. To rest my loving gaze. To have it returned.
And lately, the heavens seem as brass. :::tap, tap::: is this thing on?
Last time I just set up the scene: what my life was like, and how I could remotely get to the envelope-pushing place with a man who was (a) married and (b) I was also friends with his wife. Eww.
I'll be telling you all about it, the rise and fall of the forbidden relationship, in an effort to pull it out and examine it from this faraway distance. I need the perspective, and I need to purge it. At least I think I do. And here's why.
I still see that time through a glass darkly. I know it was wrong, but I also filter it through my then-perspective, which makes me lean toward 'excusing' or downplaying my behavior somewhat (so that I can live with myself? I don't know).
I really should be over vomiting in a corner about what I did back then, but I cannot quite make myself because - get ready - it was fun.
As I told you before, I loved dangerous, and my secret self still longs to be swept away in excitement and danger (obviously, the ideal is not a fcuking married-to-another man but back in the day of young and stupid truly all-about-me, that's where I was). It's like it wasn't 'really' adultery because we were all so young, or always out partying, or they didn't have kids, or insert your own crazy-ass excuse here.
Oh. My. Dear. God. Isn't that awful? I am creeping my own self out. I was (and still am?) so absolutely screwed up, but I'm saying it out loud. You have no idea how tempting it is to highlight and delete all this text so you will never know such bad sh!t about me. I sinned and I am remorseful. Kind of.
Yes, if not for grace, I would be completely going to hell.
Even after all that has happened to me (being the married woman whose husband was unfaithful), my point of view in my own adultery is still skewed. I heard a song a month or so ago that reminded me of Glenn, and immediately - without the time to censor myself - I smiled inwardly at the memory of a good time. (I am a little nauseous telling you this, because I realize how horrible and hypocritical this makes me).
As soon as the pleasant thought passed, I thought Does my husband have involuntary warm fuzzies when a song plays, or something reminds him of her? Before he can censor it because it was "bad", does he have a happy thought of her?
For a microsecond I could go there. I could understand it.
And yet in the very next second, my betrayed, self-righteous, hyprocritical self got all uppity and whatnot that he could dare have a warm thought of her. WTH is that? One-sided, selfish, and self-protective: that's what the hell that is.
Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.
Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention.... Stop repeating the past and start creating the future.
Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail....Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not...
What if the life you really want and the future God wants for you are actually hiding in your biggest problem, worst failure, or greatest fear?...
When we don't have the guts to step out in faith and chase lions, God is robbed of the glory that rightfully belongs to Him.
And the truth is this: The greatest regret at the end of out lives will be the lions we didn't chase.
I'm convinced that many of us are one chase away from our dreams becoming reality. I can't promise it will be a short or an easy chase. In fact, it will probably scare the living daylights out of you.
But where you end up in life really does trace back to how you react when you cross paths with a lion. -from an article by Mark Batterson in the Jan-Feb 2007 issue of Relevant Magazine
I, too, committed adultery. Only I wasn't married back then. He was.
I met him in a group of people I hung out with after college. I had moved to a big city and fell into a fun crowd of co-ed singles for several years.
We'll call him Glenn. He was a flirt. He was in a very long-term relationship. Everyone knew he flirted outrageously; it was just part of his personality, his charm. He was funny, and I enjoyed both he and his girlfriend, Lucy, as part of our crowd.
One night we had closed down a dance club and were piling into someone's convertible to find a greasy spoon for an oh-so-early breakfast to prevent the onslaught of sure-to-come hangovers.
We were climbing in and around each other to find seats; who would sit down in front, who would get in back, who would risk a blue light sitting on the backs of the seats with the top down...
It was very dark. Glenn climbed over me and -whoa, jack- kissed me on his way to sit down. My boyfriend hadn't yet climbed in the car.
It was a real kiss, long enough for me to know he meant it, and he would do it again if he could. Real enough to hide that information from The Boyfriend.
My best friend saw it happen and we laughed about it later - in an oh, that Glenn kind of way.
But I knew it was dangerous. Dude, I loved dangerous. I craved attention and affirmation. But the difference with me is that I didn't actively seek it like a needy, desperate girl at a frat party. Quite the opposite. I presented myself as independent, bubbly, fun, and totally self-sufficient, thankyouverymuch.
But should you happen to really dig me, I loved that. Fed on it. It tickled and massaged a deep need within me, and I felt alive when someone - or plural someones - were obviously attracted to me.
So.
Many months after The Convertible Incident, Glenn & Lucy became engaged and then married. We all traveled to the event and made merry with our friends.
Glenn remained his charming, party-boy self yet also a sweet, romantic husband. On each month anniversary after their wedding day, he gave Lucy the corresponding number of roses. We all continued to hang out together - bar-hopping, game nights, cookouts, supper clubs. The usual.
I remember entering a bar one night and going upstairs as Glenn was coming downstairs. He kissed me (for real) on the way past me. We laughed and I continued into the bar.
I cannot accurately recall the next step down the slippery slope. Harmless flirting had continued among all of us - it was just our way as a group. Not unlike the cast of "Friends", some of us had dated several in the group throughout our years of hanging out.
I think a Superbowl party was where the conversation turned a corner. I recall Glenn giving me his beeper number if I was interested in pursuing anything. I didn't use it.
A group ski trip to Lake Tahoe was planned and there was no way I was able to go. I had returned to school and was getting a second degree. A week out of state was out of the question. My boyfriend, however, was on the trip roster. I was selfishly hurt that he would plan to go without me, would even consider it.
Left Out, the thing I hated most, was upon me and I had no control/recourse.
Adding salt to my wound - the trip dates fell over Valentine's Day. To his credit, The Boyfriend left me a present and card to open, and called several times during the trip.
Didn't matter.
I was beside myself with abandonment issues the whole time. Left out, inferior, left behind. I can't begin to convey the inner turmoil I had over this stupid-ass ski trip. Of course, now, so many years later, I understand why this situation was extremely crazy-making.
Tahoe set me up to be vunerable. Even when the group returned home, I could not emotionally let it go. I exuded an undercurrent of *pissed-off*-ness. (if my husband is reading this, he's probably nodding his head in all-too-familiar knowledge of what that looks like)
The Boyfriend and I were not getting along. One night at a club, he was reminiscing about the trip with two girls who had been there and I began seething. Perhaps smoke was seen, I cannot be certain. I picked a good fight and he ended up leaving for home without me.
And. It just so happened that Glenn was out that night.
And. His wife, Lucy, had traveled to the west coast on business.
And. He offered to give me a ride home, post-argument. I was living with The Boyfriend; Glenn & Lucy lived two streets away from us.
We stayed out late at the bar. On the way home, Glenn asked if we could stop by his house to check on his dog. Sure, I said. I was in no hurry to get home, believeyoume. **Danger, Will Robinson**
So, we went to his house and I was petting the dog 'hello'. Glenn came up behind me, turned me around, and kissed the hell out of me.
Unexpected (yet well-timed) passionate kisses are my Achilles' heel. (My husband actually found this out the night he met me: dude can kiss like a house on fire. My heart's all skipping beats just remembering that)Putty, I tell you. Yummy stuff. And talk about not being left out. That was good medicine for what ailed me at the time.
'You know how when you're a little girl and your mom reads you fairy tales before bedtime, and you fall soundly asleep after the story, dreaming of being in the fairy tale? I'm off to tuck myself in and dream of castles and crowns...and someone loving me that much, like in the story.'
If words could fall like raindrops From these lips of mine And if I had a thousand years I'd still run out of time To express my love for you I cannot even start All the words now fail me You have to read my heart. -Jeff Thoren
