I was thinking…

It was true for me and I have read it many times on other blogs of people who have had affairs, so I want to blog about the subject. The subject of marriages improving while you have an affair.  Sounds crazy right?  Well maybe not for everyone but for me, it was the case.  I couldn’t say if this was true or not for the MM I had an affair with and his wife or not, because I didn’t really ask that question of him.  However I know his relationship was up and down with her as most of our marriages are in one way or another.

I think in my case, (and I’m only speaking in my case here), but simply put, I was happy.  I felt important in the life of someone.  I felt butterflies over someone.  Someone was calling me, and texting me, and emailing me and WANTED to be.  Someone really cared about me.  Well lots of people care about us but not always in a relationship kind of way.  Those needs and feelings being met made me happy and a little less stressed out. I think when one is happy and feels like they are not empty, (all their emotional and physical needs are being met), they are able to truly think of others.  They don’t have the mind block of being sad or unhappy or unsatisfied in some way.  I think because I was happy, I was less on edge, because I was less on edge I didn’t feel like I was going to rip someone head off because the house was dirty RIGHT after I cleaned it.   Odd thing is then, your not bitching and you suddenly look less stressed and ‘softer’ in your husbands eyes.  OH GUESS WHAT?  That morning because you look like that, he compliments you.  One time, the first time in forever.  And the compliment catches you off guard.  Maybe you are spending more time on your outfits, or you have been making sure your panties and bras match.  You picked out a new perfume.  You have made sure to not miss a nail appointment.  It could be physical.  For me personally it was 100% emotional.  My husband was gone most of the beginning of my affair.  I was just incredibly lonely.  I’m not talking gone like military or work.  I’m talking gone like uninvolved and uninterested.  But my bitching and nagging stopped on the phone calls to him.  I was suddenly telling him, “Do what you need to do, bye!”  VS “Why are you doing this?  You are never here, this isn’t fair to me or the kids!”  The difference was originally he heard, I need you, you should be here, or me complaining and truly being a bitch out of frustration.  It shifted to, I’m happy and I can careless what you do or decide to do because we are making it work without you.  That freaked him out I think.  He started coming by.  Going out to dinner with us.  My appearance never was really affected, only because I am OCD about it. LOL.  Before or during my affair or even now I always do my hair, makeup and try and look nice.  I am NOT that mom that can be in her pajamas and go to the grocery store.  Hell, I’m not even that mom that can hang out in her pajamas all day on Saturday because she isn’t going anywhere.  Every morning I go straight from bed to the shower and get dressed.  I have my coffee after I get ready.   He my husband just saw me go from stressing out about his whereabouts to giving up completely and finding my happiness somewhere else.   Suddenly he was home.  Suddenly he was trying.  Suddenly I had a problem.  Where as when my affair started I felt ‘sort of available’ because I was separated (not by choice), but by reality.  He never came home.  We are not talking three days.  We are talking months at a time that added up to years.  I didn’t care at first because my focus was my kids.  I slowly started to realize I had needs too.  Talking to someone was easy.  Getting to know my AP was easy.  Looking forward to his emails, texts was easy.  Meeting him was a little harder.  But became easy.  Finding that we had feelings for each other over time, was easy.  Being intimate took a long time… it was a step that I don’t think either of us were really ready for and we respected each other.  But even then after a long time that was, (I don’t want to say easy),  well, there are no words.

I read blogs and find that a lot of bloggers who had affairs, or who are having them experience their marriages improving during that time.  Maybe its guilt?  Maybe its simply you are happy.  Maybe its because your mind is thinking of your encounter the night before or the next day and you are not focusing on your husbands dirty boxers on the floor 2.5 inches from the hamper.  Or maybe you didn’t seem to care too much about the $50 bucks your wife spent on a blouse that she already has two of that are similar.  The little things seem to become suddenly little again when you are happy.  Anyone else in your situation find this to be true?  I’ve just read it a lot and experienced it personally.

Day 4, Blogging Challenge, My dream job…

Hmmmm.  What I wanted to be when I grew up was a doctor.  Parts of that would still be satisfying to me I suppose, although the hours probably would drive me mad.  But, lets be honest, I work those hours if not longer ones now.  My current work week is 65 to 75 hours long.  Its exhausting but helps that I love what I do.  I don’t know what my dream job would be.  I know, (and have always known), that I’d love to fly commercially.  And where that would be a dream job I don’t think it would be my DREAM job.  I would love to write a book.  Which I’ve toyed with the idea several times.  I’d love to travel and talk to women that are married to addicts.  I know first hand how painful that is.  I act like its over.  I act like, “I survived!”  When in all reality I am still smack dab in the middle of it.  I still am helpless.  I still feel broken.  I still feel lonely.  I still wish I could wave that pink silky wand you had when you were four and make it all go away or better.   I would love to just travel around the world and listen to motivational speakers and blog on their speeches.  Kind of like what I do here I guess.  All of you inspire me.  We are all going through something right?  Maybe its a failing marriage, maybe it is parenting a teenager, putting your parents in assisted living.  Maybe its blogging while healing from a surgery.  Maybe its that you just need to blog to get the shit out of your head.  I would love to be a writer.  A columnist.   An Abbey in a Dear Abbey column.  I would genuinely love that.   I love people and I love writing.  Any possible way I could put those two things together and I’d be happy.  Dear Being Her…  I’ve had about a dozen emails and I have ADORED replying to them.  Its one of my favorite things to do!  I’d love for that to actually be a job!!!

Lowest blow from my blog yet.

It’s all so debatable.  Right from wrong.  Don’t you think?  Blurred lines.  That Grey area.  I would have never, (long, long ago), thought in any circumstance could an affair be understandable.  Ever.   I would have said women who cheat were whores and men were scum.  They were both home-wreckers.   Well, that is until now.  Well until 2010.  When I learned FIRST hand you shouldn’t be so quick to judge.  When you choose to blog you set yourself up for three things.  1. to get your words and feelings out.  2. To hopefully find some support or people who have “been there, done that” and can relate. And 3. Haters. Blamers.  Finger Pointers.  Judgers. Those who are somehow better than you.  Your skin gets thick pretty quick. But there are STILL those jabs that hurt.  To the commenter that said this: “God punishes in strange ways.  Maybe your baby died and his spirit was given to a more deserving woman because you had an affair you whore.”     FUCK YOU.   I’m pretty sure God, (since you seem to know what he does), is very proud of your mouth, your pointing fingers and name calling and oh… judging.

Quotes I love…

Love this.

When something big is a trigger.

Its overcast here and rainy.  This is one of my favorite types of weather!  My absolute favorite is when it is cold enough to snow but isn’t.   Crunchy leaves on the ground, sharpness in the air, new jeans and long warm scarves.   Crockpot dinners, changing colors on the trees, red rosy cheeks on the kids when they come in.  Flannel sheets, cozy PJ’s and someone to cuddle to sleep with.

I’m not going to lie, just like HIS letter said, this weather “puts you (me) in my (HIS) head”.  And it does the same to me.   I think  because we had a year and a half together the closest most personal part of our relationship fell during the fall and winter.   We met in the summer.  But for six months we only talked.   So we started getting really close and seeing each other in October/November.  Right smack dab in the middle of my favorite weather.   I was so happy that fall.   The tears and emotional stuff was shared during the winter months that year.  Spring was nice because I was getting close to his family but I think that was when it just started to all go wrong.   Summer came and I was helping them move, having sleepovers with their kids and started to get more in touch with my actions and what I was doing.   It started to spiral out of control.   Just became too much.   No one else should have ever been involved.   Our actions hurt a lot of people.

But when the fall colors change, and the scarves get pulled out, and the coffees in hand are fall flavors and the air is brisk the breeze pushing my hair away from my face, the same way it did when I would stand at my car telling HIM goodbye for the evening, it is HIM that comes to mind.  HIM grabbing my scarf and wrapping it tighter around my neck and shoulders to keep me warm on the way home. He would then use it to pull me in to kiss me goodbye.

Damn this weather.   This is a big trigger for me.   I can’t make the season go away.

Nor would I want to.

Emotional Triggers

Several bloggers I know have blogged on this very topic. For example Recovering Wayward blogged THIS.  I guess today is my day.   The way I feel about my current situation changes every single day.  I think that is what makes this so hard.  You have to have a goal in place to help not focus on the triggers.   About February of this year I was a hot mess.   I call it a hot mess because I was beyond just a mess.   I didn’t know what to do.   All I could do was cry behind closed doors.   This man who seemed perfect to me was gone.  I was devastated, embarrassed, ashamed, insecure, angry, hurt, broken, lost you name it, I felt it.    I remember seeing him in absolutely EVERYTHING.  Everything was a memory of something he said, something we did, somewhere we went, something we had talked about.   The case now is that is still the case but it isn’t all day long or even every day.  The really important stuff or ‘awkward’ stuff sticks out.  When I used to see something that acted as an emotional trigger I used to just loose it.  I had to go cry behind a closed door.   I felt this ache at the pit of my being that made me feel like everything was over forever.   Now,  eight months later, I still see those things, feel those feelings, but I am able to acknowledge them, and remember him for a second.  Tell myself I hope he is happy.  Somehow, in eight months,  I have found the ability to continue what I was doing with a smile on my face that for a second he came to mind.

For example.   He liked lemon in his coke.

I used to grab him coke and would ask for a lemon for him.

After our affair, coke and lemon sent me into tears because I remembered how impressed he was when I remembered lemon when he said his wife never did.   He said she would just say “oh I forgot that,”  and he said it was fine he could still drink it without, but he was impressed that she after seventeen years couldn’t remember that (or probably just didn’t want to take the time to order/grab one) but that I did after just a couple months.   Little things.

So the other day I ordered an ice tea.  The waitress asked if I would like it with Lemon.   I said no.   My son said, “Mom get the lemon and I will put it in my coke”  The waitress just said, I’ll just put lemon in your coke.   And it hit me.  A smile crossed my face.  I thought to myself what a simple smile filled memory.  Ordered my food and that was it.    No tears.   No instant feeling sick.  No devastation.   THAT right there I feel is huge.  THAT right there took me EIGHT months to be able to do.

I don’t think remembering is a bad thing.   I think it goes hand in hand with healing.

Now I will say there are some triggers that are devastating.   The deep ones that hurt.  Those will take me a while longer.   Some of those are about moments that I haven’t even shared with you guys yet.   Maybe one day I can get there.   I’m just saying there are still some things that if I saw or heard or felt I think I’d still be in tears.

It is so crazy how simple a trigger can be.   A place.  A sound.  A smell. A number.   And you can’t go one single day with out a couple of them.  And they bring soooo many emotions to the table.  I can end up happy, sad, hurt, longing for him, missing him, relieved its over, it just makes me feel every emotion imaginable.  My point is, it DOES get easier.   One step at a time.   And I can say in eight months its a tad better!  So in another eight months who knows where I will be in the healing process.  🙂

I’m not going to lie.

I’m not going to lie.

Its ten till six and I have a kick ass buzz going on.

I’m not going to lie.

My girlfriend picked up my kids because she said I needed a night.

I’m not going to lie.

He came home saying he was having a gallbladder attack and asked me  if he could have some pills.

I’m not going to lie.

I’m pissed.

I’m not going to lie.

I’m hurt.

I’m not going to lie.

I’m ready to be done.

I’m not going to lie.

I want to text HIM so bad.

I’m not going to lie.

I want to tell HIM that  he was right and that I haven’t been happy since October.

I’m not going to lie.

I think about HIM making love to me.

I’m not going to lie.

I clearly have a problem.

I’m not going to lie.

My marriage is over.

I’m not going to lie.

I gave my husband his *30* days.

I’m not going to lie.

I am jealous of HIS wife.

(Bitch).

I’m not going to lie.

I love my husband and I want back what we had.

I’m not going to lie.

I hate fucking prescription drugs.

I’m not going to lie.

My girlfriend picked up my kids.

I’m not going to lie.

I had a few drinks.

I’m not going to lie.

I dumped ALL my pills in the toilet.

(fuck my pain).

I’m not going to lie.

I told my husband if he is in pain to call his doctor.

(From his moms house).

I’m not going to lie.

I remember HIS cell phone number by heart.

(Encourage me, (please) to NOT text him).

 

I’m not going to lie.

I’ts NEVER going to change.

#letdownagain

The Hardest Day To Forget.

 

I got into that room first.

I put a LOT of effort in getting ready.

I stood in front of that ceiling to floor mirror that ran down the entire length of the bed.

I won’t lie, I looked cute.  If only I put this much effort in getting ready for my husband, and I would if he were home.

The soft yellow scarf accented the grey boots and grey sweater perfectly.  The yellow bracelet, full with stones and beads fell loosely from my wrist matching the scarf perfectly.  I turned and the scenery took my breath away.  I opened the blinds fully.  One entire wall of the hotel room was ceiling to floor windows over looking the snow capped mountains.   It was sunny but super windy that day. I walked to the edge of the window and looked down nine floors to the ground.  The hotels courtyard was beautiful regardless of being off season.   The American Flag was snapping in the brutal wind.  It was so beautiful with the mountains being it’s backdrop. I watched your truck pull into the hotel parking lot.  Instantly my heart started racing.   I went from perfectly calm to a feeling I can’t put into words.  Anxious, happy, relieved, excited, worried, scared, nervous all mixed into one.  I watched you park.  You were so sexy in your suit.   You looked so small looking down on you from the ninth floor.   I had the door propped open with the safety latch and I hear you open it.  I turn and time stops.  Seriously it stops.  I am hit with this instant love for you.  I get up onto the bed onto my knees (still to short for your height) and you kiss me as you are taking off your jacket. Your mouth is cold proving the sharp wind hasn’t died down.   I feel your hands wrap around my body and grab my ass.  I hear a chuckle as you make a comment about the mirror.   You lay, (not toss) your coat  on the chair and just lay down on top of me kissing me all the way down to the bed.   And it just starts.  Everything is just right.  Not awkward.  Not weird.  Not rushed.   I hands down knew at this moment I was in trouble.   I had feelings for you.  Twice during this amazingness, I fought back tears.  This day was just different.   I had so much fun.  You knew everything about me.  We at this point had talked for a long time.   Knew so much about each other.  And it showed in the way we touched each other.    This day out of all the days I was with you was my favorite.   I knew this day when you left three things.  1. I was in trouble because I knew I loved you.  For the first time ever I knew it was love.  2. I officially wanted what wasn’t mine to have.  and 3. I knew that moment was the one time best moment I had ever shared with any one  person.    You left and you took my heart with you that day.   You kissed me goodbye and said how each time was getting harder and harder and this time it was almost unbearable.   I walked to the window and watched you walk to your truck and watched you drive away until your truck faded into a tiny nothing.   I took a shower and bawled my eyes out.   I didn’t understand going from cloud nine to a dead drop to devastated.  I showered and go to step out and see the bath mat and just start bawling again.  I loved that about you.  My husband wouldn’t use a mat and would drip water everywhere and I would always scream about laying down a towel or the mat and here you had laid it out when you had showered before you left.  I wrapped my hair in a towel and put your towel around me.  I opened the curtains all the way, laid down on your pillow that still smelled like you and laid there for hours.  No joke.  Hours.  I watched the sun go down and the lights in the parking lot come on.  I debated staying the night, because the room was paid for but decided to go home.   If I didn’t think they would have charged me something insane I would have kept that pillow.   I love the memories.   I do.   I will never forget them.  Ever.

Forget crying over spilt milk, big girls cry over wine.

So today not much is different.
My husband is still out of town for work.
We have texted here and there but nothing major.
Now my anger has turned into hurt.

I just feel with him out of town that I am back at square one.
He isn’t here.
And we aren’t really talking.
It was this mood and these emotions that after two years lead me to do what I did.

My girlfriend asked me if I ever miss ‘HIM’.

If you have a heart, and you are human who wouldn’t?

Who wouldn’t miss someone who made a bad call and had an affair, but loved you more than anyone ever has?
Treated you better than you have ever been treated?
Listened to you when you cried?
Laughed with you to the point of tears?
Danced with you outside of a limo to the soft lights coming from the country club that stretched across a golf couse that you walked along?
Wrote you the most loving, caring and thoughtful things? Showed you what love and emotions and feelings were suspposed to feel like?
****TAUGHT YOU THAT EVEN YOU, (ME) a good person, with a heart can mess up and make a bad choice, a choice that can and will teach you that nobody is perfect and we are NOT encouraged to just fall in love with who ever we want to even if it is VERY possible. *****
Why would I miss him?
I don’t know but there are days, like today, that I do.
Days when I don’t feel loved.
Days when I don’t hear from my husband.
Days when my anger thinks he would put aside the safety of his family over whatever was in his truck.

Days when Waywards and Wendy’s words ring through my head:
Wayward: “These days happen, they are hard, stay strong”
Wendy: You BOTH have some work to do. See your issues too, not just your husbands. And quit thinking about HIM, HE is not an option”.

I am hearing you BOTH loud and clear. Trust me. It doesn’t make that ache go away OR my husband come home.
But I am so glad that I am hearing your words in this situation. Thank you both.