Is There Such Thing as a Soulmate?

This was the question that vexed me during the time I was "away" (which is how I refer to the period of my affair because I didn't live in my body, I was more like a robot than anything.) Was Other my soul mate? Was there such thing? I had never thought so, I didn't think there was just one person out there for me.

A year after I was married my best friend and I went to a psychic. She didn't say anything of much consequence to my bf besides telling her that she wasn't with her soul mate, that made her angry.

But when I went in she could tell I was married even though I was only 21 and had emeralds on my wedding finger, not anything that looked like a wedding band. She seemed to know that things were very bad at home. (I had spent the whole first year of my marriage crying in the bathroom because I still loved my ex-boyfriend and not my poor husband).

She looked at me with such kind eyes and promised me that it would get better. My eyes filled with tears...then she told me that I had married my soul mate, I scoffed in my head, knowing he was not. I disregarded most of what she said after that point. But little did I know.

I've always considered myself an Empath. Not to everyone, but to people who I chose to tune to, it was like I could feel them. Even when we weren't together. Mostly this worked against me because I would tune in to people who were somehow dark and twisted. And try as I did to heal and save them, I could not. Their darkness was always too great. I need to do a blog about the dark ones, the ones that I think opened me up and put some little black seed inside me long ago that took years to burst out of me in the form of an affair. There are many things I still have to write about.

But back to my connection, my Empathy. I ended up binding myself to the Other, I couldn't help it. At first I convinced myself I was trying to help him, I wanted to make his life better. But as time went on I saw that is was more a compulsion... and then an addiction.

I don't know how much detail I want to go in to- I still try to shield my Husband from all the details that he doesn't need to know. He knows all the facts, but he doesn't need to know word for word or have more things in his head about it than he needs to. So I'll probably save detail for a time when this event is further away from us. Its still pretty fresh and raw sometimes.

But I had a few eerie moments where it seemed like we were connected in some other worldly way, some unexplainable way. And I let my train of thought go to pondering if he was my soul mate. It made it less my fault if it was some cosmic absolute that I wouldn't have been able to escape from if I wanted to. It was my way to deflect my blame and let me continue on my path with him.

After the discovery it seemed like I was instantly free and cut free from him. I quit being aware of where he was and what he was doing every minute of the day. I stopped having the conversations with him in my head like I always seemed to be doing. And I stopped feeling him.

Suddenly I was bound and feeling my husband. But not to the extent that Husband was feeling me, something that he had never experienced in his life. Here are some examples.

The first one was a few days after the discovery. I was at work and trying to purge the email address of the Other from my work computer as well as block him from emailing me. Something happened and for the briefest of moments I thought I had emailed him accidentally. I panic, my heart shot out of my chest and I was terrified.

20 seconds later I got a text message from Husband asking me what was wrong. He felt it and he was freaked out. He was in a training all day so he couldn't call me, but I was panicked to explain what happened and let him know that I didn't do anything and had not intended to anything. But... Husband felt my panic, from over 200 miles away.

The other time I remember very vividly was when I journaling about the discovery. This was a few weeks after everything. I was writing the awful details and moving through a whole host of awful uncomfortable emotions.

excerpt from journal- Sept 29th, 2007

...Finally when the night came so did my tears at the thought of me sleeping separate from Husband. I finally was allowed to lay on the floor beside him and although he was filled with hurt and anger-

(Husband just called. He's not doing well. I think he picked up on what I was writing. His feelings started as I started writing... then he tried to write what he was feeling and it only made him feel worse.

He really seems to feel me now, sense me. And I worry because mostly I am numb. I think my subconscious is holding everything at bay because it knows it will crush me.)

I am skipping to the good stuff now. Just know there was tremendous hurt and I was the cause.

Then we walked into the office of our therapist, a christian counselor, and told him our troubles. Something about him, his kind face, concerned eyes and soothing voice calmed the storm in Husband.

(Husband just called again. he felt suddenly better and asked if I was writing still. I laughed and said yes but the good stuff. He said he could tell)

Weird, huh? Maybe coincidence. But get this one. This next one will freak you out.

I'm a vivid dreamer and am prone to nightmares. One night I had a dream about everyone's eyes turning black. I don't remember this dream, but Husband tells me I woke and told him about it during the night.

A few nights later I had another dream. This time I had a dream that Husband's eyes were turning black, there was an oil like darkness seeping across the pupils to blot out his sight and possess him with demons. I had to fight the blackness by repeating phrases from the bible constantly. I woke up freaked out and told husband about it.

It was probably later that day that he sat me down and told me he had to tell me something. Every time he does that I am stricken and the blood drains from my face. Even still, almost a year later.

He told me that the Other had a blog that he found and that he had been looking at it. He said that the night I had my first dream was the day he looked at the Other's blog and the picture of the Other had his eyes blacked out. He told me this had worried him, that he thought I was somehow still connected to the Other.

Then he told me the night I had my second dream was the next time he looked at the blog and that this time the eyes had black running down his face and coming out his mouth-it said the picture was horrible, dark and scary.

He said that it hadn't been a recent blog post from the Other, it had been a few days old, so he determined it wasn't the Other I was connected to, but to him and what he was seeing that was bothering him. Both times he'd looked at it, that night I dreamed about the blackness taking over the eyes. But the second time it was Husbands eyes.

This freaked me out on more than one level. But more than anything I took the warning from my dream and told him that he MUST NOT go to his blog ever again. I deeply feel it was a warning.

So in the end of all of this... perhaps there is such a thing as a soul mate. Perhaps the psychic was right about us. Regardless, I do know there is such thing as a God Intended Mate because I feel strongly that husband and I are, at the very least, that. But probably much much more. I just never opened myself to see or feel it.

p.s. to those who have emailed me, I'm a little behind. Please check your email, I am responding.

Explosions

Explosion is the only way I can describe it. It takes you by surprise, comes from no where..without out a warning and suddenly you're just a gooey gross mess.

The last week or so I've been in a funk. And when I'm in a funk I find myself feeling disconnected from Husband. Even though I've gone through these moments before, and have come out of them fine, they still scare me.

Usually they last a little while, maybe a week or two, and when its over I collapse into Husband's arms telling him how much I missed him, wiping away some stray tears.

However last night I totally and completely exploded with emotion. It was after some much needed very deliberate intimacy. I was happy, feeling happy and suddenly I just exploded into a blubbering crying mess. I confessed how scared I was, afraid that my feelings for him would turn out to be a cruel joke and I'd have to go back to pretending. During those moments, I know that is my darkest fear. That somehow I'm tricking myself. But always, the fear will suddenly melt away and I tell Husband how much I missed him. And always the feelings of closeness, connectedness and in-love-edness (which is not a word) returns. And I realize my fears were unfounded.

Through my choking sobs I began laughing at myself for crying so explosively. And as I cackled like a crazy woman, I wept...at.the.same.time. I was able to choke out that I was acting like a crazy lady. I think I was just overwhelmed by everything I'd been feeling for the last few days, and feeling so lonely while Husband was working. I really need to take care of myself during the alone times. Need to find some friends or something, I'm telling you.

I think after a major breakdown the emotions can be somewhat unstable. There are many triggers for feelings our body and senses remember, even if our mind doesn't. For instance, sex was a huge trigger for me. For 11 years Husband and I never made love. Not once. It was always sex, great sex, fucking even. But never slow lingering love-making where you stare into the eyes of the person with such love and longing.

In the moonlight, the night of the Hilltop Discovery, was the first time we'd ever made love. Husband was amazed sex could be something so wonderful and intimate and fullfilling. I always knew it could be that way. I longed for it.

So after the discovery and Hilltop, any time intimacy was something beside slow and loving I totally freaked out and bawled like a baby. It just brought on so many memories of 10 years of emptiness. I couldn't take it.

Wow, probably TMI for many readers out there. But hey, I'm trying to be transparent.

Driven to Distraction

The weekends alone. The nights alone. That is what where I got into trouble. Well, I was in serious trouble way before that. Obviously. I guess the times alone gave me the opportunity to get distracted by the Other.

But I think we had become distracted way before. Distracted from our marriage and from ourselves.

This world is full of so many distractions that its easy to lose sight of what is going on around you. I'm reminded of the movie Wall-E, the people were driven around in their chairs, TV's and Phones in their face blocking out the world around them. When two of these people suddenly found themselves without their screen they were amazed at the things they hadn't noticed about their world.

Living life like that, you might not notice as your world crumbles around you. Suddenly you find yourself sitting in your underwear amongst the rubble.

I think our society is like that. We put a computer, TV, Movies, book, sports, work and children in front of our face 90% or more of the time. Anything to distract us from reality. I think for a lot of men it is their job and a lot of women, it is their children.

Often both people in a relationship get so lost in the tasks of the day that they lose themselves and each other. I know that, as I lived in my marriage and my relationship, I stopped doing the things I loved. I stopped writing, taking pictures and the theater. How I loved the theater. Those were things that excited me.

When you let the things that excite you get lost, then no wonder how easy it is to get addicted to the excitement you feel in a new and taboo relationship. That sounds disgusting to me... I was not after excitement. I plan to go more into what I got from the Other, but that will be another day.

But I think what is important, especially for women, is to take time for you. Do some things for you, things that you like, that build you up. Paying attention to yourself is so important.

And pay attention to each other. Marriage is hard, staying connected is hard, having a happy healthy marriage takes deliberate action. So go look at your spouse/partner today and really connect with them. And keep on connecting.

Tending a Fire

There is something to be said about nature. John Eldredge talks about how society has taught us that a flower is just a flower, boring and normal and everywhere. Instead go buy an iPod, or a cool new mini-cooper car, or a better life.

I get it now. I get that flowers, trees, water, and sunsets are Gods creation that takes us just a little bit closer to our creator, when the world is constantly pulling us in the opposite direction.


This is me. Making a fire. Sometimes you have to put down the remote control and go do something else. So often in life we get wrapped up in the hectic craziness that consumes our daily living that we have to get away from it all to really enjoy life. So go do something with your spouse. Go watch a sunset. Or go for a walk. Go and build your fire.