I find myself having an internal battle most days. The overly emotional persona versus the overly practical one. It's like being on a crazy roller coaster and not being able to get off.
When the emotional side takes over, I am in for it. I sink really low and I cry at EVERYTHING. Not just the few small tears that escape, the but full out sobbing, body shaking, snot accumulating kind of crying. The weight of the world seems way too much and I feel like I am just being crushed.
At these times, if my WH is around and awake, he takes notice and doesn't seem to know what to do. He looks haunted, but somehow doesn't do much to reassure me...or to really apologize....or the show me that he is still here for all the right reasons. At these times, somehow, I am made to feel that is deceit and infidelity was caused because of my lack of interest in him. My over devotion to the kids. I end up saying "I'm sorry" and become affectionate to him.
And, it's not to say that I am not sorry that he felt I "wasn't there". But in truth, I really was. I was overly there. All the time. Little Miss Dependable. Little Miss Enabler.
I allowed him to go about his day without interruptions. Get up when you want and go to work. Don't worry about checking in. Come home when you can. I've got it all covered at home. 3 kids, tons to running, homework etc. Tons of laundry from the kids and their friends (especially in the summer when they all swim). Cleaning, shopping, cooking, juggling our devastated finances. Planning birthday celebrations, holidays.
You get the picture? So, I start to sort of feel a bit resentful of his making me feel guilty for raising our family. While he is doing what he wants. With no regard to me....or his kids really. And, with that resentment come the anger. WTF? Really?
Then the overly practical me shows up. And she isn't even one bit happy. She wants O-U- T! She wants to just move on because there is no way that this guy could really still be the same guy she married. How could he possibly be so nonchalant about the huge trust breach? The lies? The deception? And why doesn't he see that and just take responsibility and grovel like he should?
I feel like all he wants to do is smooth things over enough to shove them under the carpet. I feel like he doesn't want to be completely honest and really let us heal and move on with our lives. Perhaps he is still in the affair fog. Maybe that still needs to lift.
I struggle each and every day with trying to be rational and give this an honest try. But how do I know if it's the right thing?
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
I started this one a while ago and have just been so in my own head, I didn't finish.
Affairs are poison. They enter the tiny little imperfections of our lives. The seek out the smallest crack in our otherwise decent foundation. I knew that my marriage wasn't perfect. But, I innocently thought love would conquer all. IF you are in a committed relationship and you are trying your best and there is LOVE, then it's unconditional and everything else will fall into place.
I was so busy concentrating on keeping everything together at home that I missed the little cues that something was amiss. You know, the day to day things.The house, the kids, the budget, working. I thought I was doing my part in my marriage. I allowed my husband to get up and go to work...to stay at work as long as he needed....never worried that he was doing something he shouldn't be doing. We had commitment, we had love. It may not have been perfect, but we had history. A foundation. Over the years, we added the walls and the rooms to our foundation. You know, the history of us, the years, the experiences, the kids, the milestones. This made up our "house".
So when the poison entered our "house". I didn't quite notice. I did think certain things were odd, but I let my rose colored glassed talk me out of worrying too much. I tried harder to be the perfect wife and mother. I tried not to notice how much of a stranger my husband had become. I didn't quite notice the little 'cracks' getting bigger.
Infidelity threatens to bring down the house so to speak. It weakens the structure of marriage so much. It makes you wonder if you will ever be able to trust again. To rebuild the current structure or just move on and start over? If you are in the midst of own turmoil, sitting on the cracked foundation of your house wondering if all the walls are going to close in around you, know that you aren't alone. There are many of us sitting here. Pondering our futures. Hopefully, we won't sit for too long before we find the strength to get up and clean house, one way or another.
Affairs are poison. They enter the tiny little imperfections of our lives. The seek out the smallest crack in our otherwise decent foundation. I knew that my marriage wasn't perfect. But, I innocently thought love would conquer all. IF you are in a committed relationship and you are trying your best and there is LOVE, then it's unconditional and everything else will fall into place.
I was so busy concentrating on keeping everything together at home that I missed the little cues that something was amiss. You know, the day to day things.The house, the kids, the budget, working. I thought I was doing my part in my marriage. I allowed my husband to get up and go to work...to stay at work as long as he needed....never worried that he was doing something he shouldn't be doing. We had commitment, we had love. It may not have been perfect, but we had history. A foundation. Over the years, we added the walls and the rooms to our foundation. You know, the history of us, the years, the experiences, the kids, the milestones. This made up our "house".
So when the poison entered our "house". I didn't quite notice. I did think certain things were odd, but I let my rose colored glassed talk me out of worrying too much. I tried harder to be the perfect wife and mother. I tried not to notice how much of a stranger my husband had become. I didn't quite notice the little 'cracks' getting bigger.
Infidelity threatens to bring down the house so to speak. It weakens the structure of marriage so much. It makes you wonder if you will ever be able to trust again. To rebuild the current structure or just move on and start over? If you are in the midst of own turmoil, sitting on the cracked foundation of your house wondering if all the walls are going to close in around you, know that you aren't alone. There are many of us sitting here. Pondering our futures. Hopefully, we won't sit for too long before we find the strength to get up and clean house, one way or another.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Well, here I am, my first entry on my new blog. I have been stalking other people's blogs, but it's time to tell my story. Yesterday, was 1 month to the day of my D-Day. A month ago, I didn't know what a D-Day was. I'm sorry that I know now. And what a WS is and a bunch of other terms I have since learned. If you are lucky enough to be naive to them, D-Day is day of discovering. A term used for the day you find out about your spouse's infidelity. WS is short for wayward spouse, or WH in my case, for wayward husband.
July 14, 2014 started out like any other day. DH (dear husband at that point) got up and went off to work. I was at home with the kids. There were no major events happening and vacation was less than a week away. Life was NORMAL. I was checking email and honestly, I almost deleted this one. I thought it was junk. It came from Goodreads. I don't really use Goodreads, but I have clicked it on Facebook to see what other people are reading. What caught my attention on this junk mail was the subject line..."you and DH's name". Hmmmm, how they heck does Goodreads know my DH's name? So I opened it and read it. The anonymous sender (through the guise of a "book recommendation") proceeded to inform of my not so DH's infidelity. You have no idea how awful it is to read something like that. Or maybe you do and I am sorry for your pain. It is an AWFUL feeling. I couldn't breathe, my head felt like the blood rushing through it was going to make it explode, and I felt like I had been punched in the stomach all at once. Time seemed to stop. I thought the ground was going to swallow me up. I think that would have been the kindest thing. It didn't though.
I had to keep it as together as possible, because I wasn't home alone. The kids were there. And yep, the youngest took one look at me a bit later and started with "what's wrong mommy, did someone die?" Ha, what a question. Because, yeah, sort of, they did. The illusion of my marriage and my husband pretty much just did. But of course, you can't say that, can you? So, I reassured her that I was just very sad and that it had nothing to due with her and she shouldn't worry. I'm not sure how convinced she was, but she finally stopped asking, but she was never far away checking on me. I made dinner and had it ready when my DH, oops WH, came home. I had decided to just confront him and get it over with so that I didn't have to stress about that part anymore. I followed him into our room and into our closet as he was changing. I said I had something to talk about and I just need to say it. I told him that I knew he was having an affair and that I knew it had been going on for a while. Then I yelled at him. Then I cried. To his credit, he never denied. He never got nasty or hateful with me as I have read most WS's do.
My first instinct was I wanted him out. Once a cheater always a cheater. All the deceit and the lies, unforgivable. There was no other answer, right? So I told him I couldn't stand the sight of him and I didn't want to be around him. He was so calm as I ranted and yelled. He said he didn't want to leave. He would just stay in the spare bedroom. I said there was no way I would be able to go on vacation with the family (with go with his parents). He said he understood. I needed time and went for a drive. I ended up at church. I couldn't make myself go in because I didn't want to talk to anyone, but I was led there. I sat there for a while and figured I needed to go home. The kids would wonder what was going on and at that point, I didn't really know what was going to happen. I didn't want to cause them any unnecessary stress. I grew up in a broken home with an extremely bitter mother. I didn't want them to have that life. That's when I decided it was too soon to make decisions at all. And, that it wasn't just about me or about my WH's selfishness. I needed to be an adult and try to keep them out of it until there was reason to bring them into it.
So, I get home and we act like everything is "normal". They had eaten while I was gone and had already cleaned up.(I never did eat and didn't for about 3 or 4 days, I still really would rather not eat) My WS was actually doing laundry. He doesn't do laundry. We spent time with the kids. After they were in bed, he asked where I wanted him to sleep. We have a couch in our bedroom, so I opted for him to sleep there since it would be the least obvious to the kids that things weren't right. We talked a lot. I cried a lot. I said that the physical part of the affair had been minimal and it had been over for a while. He refused to tell me the who. Said it didn't matter. I said it certainly did. I suggested that maybe the vacation would be a good time to spend time together and work on us. I didn't want the kids to be upset by my not being there either.
The past month has been the darkest of times in my life. I realize that we did have some issues, but we had talked about them and I thought we were working on them. We have been married 17 years and the one thing I thought I KNEW was that my WH was a man of strong faith and moral character. I foolishly let that blind me to the fact that he is indeed human and that infidelity is possible with anyone. I am full of self blame and regret. I do KNOW that he was the one who made those choices. I didn't make him cheat. It has been a month and I still feel so raw. I am so all over the place in my emotions. I do believe it's normal and to be expected. I don't know where we will end up. Part of me really wants to call it quits, to just end it before I get hurt anymore. Maybe next month will be better.
July 14, 2014 started out like any other day. DH (dear husband at that point) got up and went off to work. I was at home with the kids. There were no major events happening and vacation was less than a week away. Life was NORMAL. I was checking email and honestly, I almost deleted this one. I thought it was junk. It came from Goodreads. I don't really use Goodreads, but I have clicked it on Facebook to see what other people are reading. What caught my attention on this junk mail was the subject line..."you and DH's name". Hmmmm, how they heck does Goodreads know my DH's name? So I opened it and read it. The anonymous sender (through the guise of a "book recommendation") proceeded to inform of my not so DH's infidelity. You have no idea how awful it is to read something like that. Or maybe you do and I am sorry for your pain. It is an AWFUL feeling. I couldn't breathe, my head felt like the blood rushing through it was going to make it explode, and I felt like I had been punched in the stomach all at once. Time seemed to stop. I thought the ground was going to swallow me up. I think that would have been the kindest thing. It didn't though.
I had to keep it as together as possible, because I wasn't home alone. The kids were there. And yep, the youngest took one look at me a bit later and started with "what's wrong mommy, did someone die?" Ha, what a question. Because, yeah, sort of, they did. The illusion of my marriage and my husband pretty much just did. But of course, you can't say that, can you? So, I reassured her that I was just very sad and that it had nothing to due with her and she shouldn't worry. I'm not sure how convinced she was, but she finally stopped asking, but she was never far away checking on me. I made dinner and had it ready when my DH, oops WH, came home. I had decided to just confront him and get it over with so that I didn't have to stress about that part anymore. I followed him into our room and into our closet as he was changing. I said I had something to talk about and I just need to say it. I told him that I knew he was having an affair and that I knew it had been going on for a while. Then I yelled at him. Then I cried. To his credit, he never denied. He never got nasty or hateful with me as I have read most WS's do.
My first instinct was I wanted him out. Once a cheater always a cheater. All the deceit and the lies, unforgivable. There was no other answer, right? So I told him I couldn't stand the sight of him and I didn't want to be around him. He was so calm as I ranted and yelled. He said he didn't want to leave. He would just stay in the spare bedroom. I said there was no way I would be able to go on vacation with the family (with go with his parents). He said he understood. I needed time and went for a drive. I ended up at church. I couldn't make myself go in because I didn't want to talk to anyone, but I was led there. I sat there for a while and figured I needed to go home. The kids would wonder what was going on and at that point, I didn't really know what was going to happen. I didn't want to cause them any unnecessary stress. I grew up in a broken home with an extremely bitter mother. I didn't want them to have that life. That's when I decided it was too soon to make decisions at all. And, that it wasn't just about me or about my WH's selfishness. I needed to be an adult and try to keep them out of it until there was reason to bring them into it.
So, I get home and we act like everything is "normal". They had eaten while I was gone and had already cleaned up.(I never did eat and didn't for about 3 or 4 days, I still really would rather not eat) My WS was actually doing laundry. He doesn't do laundry. We spent time with the kids. After they were in bed, he asked where I wanted him to sleep. We have a couch in our bedroom, so I opted for him to sleep there since it would be the least obvious to the kids that things weren't right. We talked a lot. I cried a lot. I said that the physical part of the affair had been minimal and it had been over for a while. He refused to tell me the who. Said it didn't matter. I said it certainly did. I suggested that maybe the vacation would be a good time to spend time together and work on us. I didn't want the kids to be upset by my not being there either.
The past month has been the darkest of times in my life. I realize that we did have some issues, but we had talked about them and I thought we were working on them. We have been married 17 years and the one thing I thought I KNEW was that my WH was a man of strong faith and moral character. I foolishly let that blind me to the fact that he is indeed human and that infidelity is possible with anyone. I am full of self blame and regret. I do KNOW that he was the one who made those choices. I didn't make him cheat. It has been a month and I still feel so raw. I am so all over the place in my emotions. I do believe it's normal and to be expected. I don't know where we will end up. Part of me really wants to call it quits, to just end it before I get hurt anymore. Maybe next month will be better.
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