Alone or Not?

ACK! Last night I'm sitting all alone watching Nancy Drew. I figure I'd be safe with Nancy Drew, nothing to sneak up and remind me of the Big Bad or the other. Its a movie about a teen detective. What could it possibly hold that would mirror something in my past?

Generally I wouldn't be trying to hide from it so much except during this Christmas shopping season I have become listless and depressed and lonely...which leads to battling thoughts.

So, I'm watching Nancy Drew and what happens? A stupid song that was a memory making song from the Other-jumps out at me and plays for a painfully long time. Stupid movie. Two different times it played!

And suddenly I'm thinking about the Other and the Big Bad and all the junk that comes with it. And I'm thinking about how lonely I am right now. How alone I am and have been since Thanksgiving and I find myself getting scared. I find myself thinking, What if I do it again? What if I'm like one of those cereal adulterers? And that thought scares the shit out of me. I never feel safe.

If there is one thing I've learned, its that anyone is capable of adultery. Even you. You may not think so, you think you'd never stoop to something like that...but so did I. And if I did it once, if I was wrong about the core and substance of who I was, I could be wrong again. Right?

WRONG! Those thoughts are from the enemy and cause me to doubt myself and my faith. My Sage would tell me that those thoughts are me fighting the flesh and "trying" to be good. Not giving it up to God and trusting him to protect me and fight with me against the evil and harm in the world. And it will never happen again because now I fight with more than just my will, but with God.

And more importantly, I have come through this process, have survived and grown stronger than I ever have been. I will feel the warning of the things that led me to do what I did-and I will talk to Husband about them if they pop up so we can fix them. I'm not alone anymore. My husband is with me and beside me in a way he never had been before. I am not alone.

So no matter how lonely I feel, I am never alone. I have God and my Husband with me always.

And you're not alone, because you have me and every other person who has ever gone through this, with you. Our pain and triumph and joy are out there swirling around...we are not alone in this.

Should I Kill Myself Over My Adultery?

I don't know about you, but when I saw this search term in my blog stats, I gasped aloud. I thought frantically "Of course you shouldn't kill yourself!" and wondered if there was any way to reach out to the poor soul who thought a Google search might help them decide whether life would be worth living.

This person did happen upon my blog and I can only pray they found some words here to help them decide life was indeed worth living.

But these suicidal thoughts are not a surprise to me. During my moments of discovery I remember clearly staring into the green rocky water...thinking about how I'd have to jump and which spots I could wedge my body between so I couldn't be rescued. I wanted to jump so badly..but I didn't. And of course there was the cutting before that. So, I get it.

But I also know that there is life after an affair. Regardless of whether or not your marriage survives it, there is still life. The Big Bad of an affair will completely throw your life into turmoil. You'll feel alone and scared. Its very raw and it will break you down. But this process of breaking you down gives you the opportunity to rebuild yourself and becomes something new.

You have a chance to start all over again, in a marriage or as a single person learning about yourself all over again. For the still marrieds, this time can be very much like a honeymoon phase, mine indeed was. But I expected it to be a phase and was prepared, as much as I could be, for the outbursts and hurt that still came. But our honeymoon lasted a few months and we spent a lot of time talking, loving and caring for each other. There was a lot of work done and foundation started in those months so when the hard work came we had something stable already started. One thing I'm happiest for is the week Husband and I took off to spend together a few weeks after the discovery. It was just about he and I, something we hadn't had in years, and it made all the difference to our healing.

For the no longer marrieds, it can be a new and exciting time to get to know you. To deconstruct your personality and relationship and really learn what happened and what you want after your your healing process is finished.

Both groups really need some professional help through this. There is nothing like having a guide to lead you through the dark of the forest.

And if you can't afford a guide, then perhaps you'll be able to find some solace here, or in our online message board. Because life is still worth living.

Sorry for being MIA

Things in my world have been a bit hectic lately. I posted here about my trouble with my best friend, and to remedy that we decided a weekend away together would be the answer. However my car decided to completely die while I was 5 hours from home, and anyone I knew for that matter.

Anyway, I rented this car, which I fell in love with. I totally want one now. And we only had one car for two weeks. This is what I learned. When my husband is home with me in the morning and evening every single day, I am insanely happy. SO HAPPY. I was giddy. I knew it was just a quick stint of him changing his shift around to accommodate our lack of car, but it felt so wonderful to be with him. I told him I would live in a shoebox forever as long as I could have him.

And now we finally got our car back and here comes the insane loneliness. With the loneliness comes depression and the depression brings back the memories of the Big Bad. I have to say, though, that I amaze myself at how well I'm able to fight off the attacks of those memories. And I know that the schedule my husband is working will only last through the holidays and soon he will be home more. Not as much as he was during out time without the second car, but more than right now.

Its so hard to be married and healthy and remain connected. To talk to each other and to force yourself to say what is in your head. I remember being very deliberate in the beginning of our recovery, to say exactly how I was feeling and thinking. I needed him to know what what in my head and I needed to not feel like I was ever hiding anything from him ever again.

During these low moments, I find myself almost reverting back to the old style of communication. The withholding and ignoring of my feelings. I have to fight that. We all do. We need to be open, gentle and loving in our communication.

Recently I read a post on my parenting board that disheartened me. These are women I've known online for nearly 5 years. We are on a private board together and most of us have met others IRL at some point through the years. So reading this post made me very sad. The post was from one woman asking how hard it was to be single because she and her husband weren't getting along anymore. She just didn't love him. It sounds like they fought quite a bit and they had gone through counseling for some time. When I posted about the Big Bad when it happened I remember her commenting that counseling was helping her and her husband tremendously. So I was surprised at her post.

But that wasn't entirely what saddened me. What made me sad was how many of our small group posted back that they felt the exact same way. So many. All I could do was post about how I'd discovered a love for my husband I never thought was possible...I wanted to give them hope. I want to give all people in lost marriages hope. Because if I can fall in love with my husband 10 years after I married him, then they can rediscovered what they first loved about each other.

Children, jobs, life and the thirst for adventure pulls us away from each other. We need to find adventure in each other, make time for ourselves outside of our children and to not have our job define our life. We need to pay attention to each other, hear each other, look into each other's eyes and say what is in our hearts. And you have to work-HARD. Its hard work, and you're tired. But you have to do it.

And I guess that's all I have for tonight. I'll try to post more frequently. I'm sure I will since my darling husband will be working quite a bit. Lots of time for random thinking to be done.

My Emotional Basement

This began as an email to my best friend, but as usual, I chickened out and didn't send it. She wouldn't mind me sending it, but I just can't seem to bring myself to do it. So I'm blogging it. And let me note here that she and I have never had a fight in our entire friendship. Ever.

Lately we have had little tiffs, or more accurately it seems like she has been getting upset with me. For instance she was trying to conceive her 3rd child and wasn't getting pregnant right away, and by right away I mean the first few months. On the other hand I'm not trying to get pregnant but Husband and I aren't 100% careful all the time. I would say we're mostly careful but sometimes there could be a slight chance I could potentially get pregnant (and I mean slight because I had to take clomid just to conceive my first two). So I'm also pretty irregular with my cycle, so during her attempting conception months I would be late and wonder if by some weird glitch, I was pregnant.

Finally she yelled at me when I would wonder if I should test, she was really mad. I felt that was incredibly unfair. She'd only been trying for a few months, its not like she has fertility issues. I work with a woman who took 4 years and 1 miscarriage to conceive. That is trouble conceiving. I just bottled up my feelings. I didn't say anything. I told her it wasn't like I was a crack whore mom getting knocked up with my 8th kid I never wanted.

Then after she did become pregnant and we'd talk on the phone, I'd say something like, "I wish we were pregnant together." Because our first two we were. I miss sharing that. So one day she tells me she felt like her pregnancy has put a strain on our friendship, that she felt like she couldn't share things with me. That floored me. I didn't know what to say besides "how on earth could you ever think that??" She and I have been best friends for 16 years, she has been a constant in life and she is one of the people I love most in the world. Her saying that really pushed me into a sadness I had been ignoring.

We talked about it briefly and we decided that we just need to make phone dates and talk more. That the lack of talking as much was what was causing the strain.

Then tonight she was talking about her big ultrasound coming up. I couldn't remember if they knew the gender from her previous ultra sound or not. I felt like in the back of my head I remembered, but I opened my stupid mouth and professed I didn't-at which point she yelled at me and told me now she was really mad at me. I do remember now her telling me she went and bought something pink...

I shut down. I just was like, "Dude, I don't remember crap these days." and she said something like I better not, I better be that flighty, and all I wanted to do was hang up the phone and cry.

I guess I could have said something on the phone, I don't know. I just don't have the capacity to deal well with anyone yelling at me anymore. I let shit behind my back slide off (like at work with the psycho drama co-worker boss harassment weirdness) but I can't deal with it up front. I think I spent so much of my energy surviving the affair and the emotions that came with it, that I don't have much left over to control. So I shove them into the basement and hope they'll go away. And they never do. They stay down there and get angrier and darker and more sad.

Am I such a bad friend :( it makes me want to cry... I almost did, I still may. I have so much crap clogging my head, trying to remember so many things, things that don't matter like work crap, I just don't seem to have any room left. I sometimes can't tell the difference between something that happened in a dream and something that happened for real. I'm tired and stressed and I live in a shoebox and I'm fighting depression-situational depression.

And always, one of the things that has terrified me most is the thought of losing her. She has always loved me regardless... maybe that is what I'm afraid of. That she doesn't love me as much.

I am just so sad right now. And the Big Bad is taking advantage of this, starting to whisper old memories in my head... the things I want to forget. Its not plaguing me like in the early days, but I'm afraid they will start to. I'm not sure what to do. I know that clearly I should talk to her, but for some reason I'm just afraid to do so. Perhaps I'm afraid the crap will burst out of the basement and do irreparable harm some how. I'm not sure. I just don't want to feel this way anymore.

The Test

These next few months will be the real test for me. Marriage is much easier when life is easier. When bills aren't stretching you thin, the weather is beautiful and you have a lot of time to spend together. Its just effortless.

These next few months promise to not be easy.

I had a taste of life to come this winter and it was not pretty. Husband ended up working 3 weekends in a row, and when he works weekends we don't see him from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon. It sucks. I was so lonely... and from loneliness came depression.

I hated it, I was afraid of it. Depression, sadness, loneliness...aren't those the first little pieces that lead us to stray? I am always afraid of myself. Above everyone else, I always did the right thing and me not doing the right thing makes me doubt myself completely. I could rationally say something like the affair will never happen again. But I could rationally say before that an affair would NEVER happen at all. I don't know how it happen. Actually I do, I was tricked...by myself, but tricked all the same. Stupid. But I believed completely that I was above something so low... and now I know otherwise. It sucks. But I have learned a whole new compassion for people who find themselves in the unhealthy addiction of an affair.

So during these times when I don't get to connect with Husband I find myself terrified. And the thing I am most afraid of is that this will go away. This thing we have, this love. I lived many years without feeling in love and constantly feeling badly and I am so afraid of that. I'm afraid that all of this is a cruel trick and one day I'll wake up and find out I was fooling myself.

These thoughts and feelings plague me in my loneliness and instead of reaching out, I shut down. I pull in and seclude even more. I now know that what I do need to do is really reach out to my friends to keep me company during these months when Husband works so much. Even just having my neighbors come down to watch a movie with me... or going to my sisters house to watch the boys play. I think that will help.

Its all about self caring. We have to insulate ourselves during good times so when the hard times come we will be ready. Its like an emotional nest egg. You need that plan in place for when things start to get hard.

What have you done lately to care for yourself?