originally posted to drafts folder 3 July 2014 (in a moment of my own snarkiness)
for the anonymous and not so anonymous people that have messaged me in order to call me slut, cunt, whore, skank et al. if you insist. but to be clear, only his
cheating
….and or saved in the drafts folder in order to write more later. the next few posts are likely going to reflect this habit of mine.
posted these image quotes to my drafts folder 4 February 2014. (side note: three days before D-day.)
I was going through very regular and arduous chemo treatments every other week and unlike previous treatment plans, this round was kicking my ass. There was surgery at the end of December and the healing from that was taking longer than I expected. I had once again brought up the subject of counseling to dh, testing the waters if you will, again. And again, he wasn’t interested at all. And even went as far as to say he wished I would lean on friends and my therapist for emotional support because as he said at the time “it’s not in my wheelhouse, you know that.” I admit that in that moment, I already knew who I could lean on, even from three thousand miles away, I was just hoping dh would be the one.
On this particular day, it had been several months since we’d seen one another in real life and yet he had found a way to connect with me that I had come to look forward to. He would leave me a daily greeting the moment he went to his office, knowing that I would wake up to a voicemail from him every day had become the highlight of the two months he’d been doing it. It may seem small or insignificant to some, maybe even most people, and of course horrible to those that don’t approve/agree of our mutual admiration society. But to me, especially to me it was his way of giving to me, what I needed at the time.
Outside of the guilt and the remorse, and yes, there is guilt and remorse. There is also love. I recall starting this post with the three images below because the words resonate and because regardless of who you are, who you love and who loves you back, it’s different for everyone. it’s nuanced. it’s flawed. and it’s messy.
this is the weather out my way today and it makes me deliriously happy. truly. rain is appropriate for any mood when applied with the right perspective.
today is marriage counseling day as well as a day when we have the quarterly check-in with the aba program manager for our son as well as a myriad of his other providers. it’s during these when dh and i are completely in-synch. when it comes to parenting; whether our neuro-typical kidlet #1 or our quirky kidlet #2 we are a team. most of the time i’m the qb and he’s the point-after kicker, it’s just the way it is. that said, we are so good together when it comes to our kids, that he nor I take that lightly. it weighs heavily in our decision making as a team, as a family and whether or not we remain married.
for a variety of reasons related to having a child with special needs; ours is a family that has availed itself of counseling and therapy in that regard. dh has never pushed back or resisted when it comes to our kids. not when our oldest suffered a medical trauma that has had lasting effects and certainly not with our youngest and all of the nuances that comes with therapy, support systems etc. to answer some people’s question around staying/leaving: this is a large reason why neither of us, that’s right, it’s a choice either one of us can make, it’s a big reason neither of us has left. believe it or not, together, as parents we are a good team. we recognize what each of bring to the table in terms of strengths as well as tolerance level for particular activities and or situations.
if dh would have invested and leaned in, as he has as a parent, over the last 13 years when it came to us as a couple i’d like to think we wouldn’t be where we are right now. but we won’t know that, will we? no. he has always resisted and flat out refused to do any work when it came to us, whether together, with counselors, mediators, self-help books etc. steadfast in his determination. even all of those years ago, when his affair with a then colleague turned into a full on love affair and we hired a mediator to form a parenting plan in preparation for a divorce, even then dh refused counseling. of any sort. even as we worked to rebuild our marriage and family when he ultimately decided to stay; counseling to address what got us to his stepping outside of our marriage in the first place was never part of the plan. until D-day 6-months ago.
and then it was suddenly “let’s go to counseling” because in his mind; since counseling is what i had been asking for all of these years if we go to counseling “it” would be fixed. to dh, who is a very good and well-rewarded engineer, he sees our marriage as a project, complete with a gantt chart, deliverables and milestones. if you check off a box then it’s forward on a timeline. but real life isn’t a project plan, gantt chart. especially when you add the complexities of emotions, feelings, childhood histories (and for one of us, sex abuse as a toddler) and a shared, past history into the mix. i recognize counseling is incredibly difficult for dh and it’s selfish of me to not have more patience as he works through understanding and internalizing that emotions are very real and very important to people. to me.
when dh had his affair(s), he was safe in knowing that i didn’t want our marriage to end. but i also had to take ownership of my role in what led him to a relationship outside of our marriage with a colleague that he fell in love with. a big problem is that we never worked on repairing our relationship when he decided to stay in our marriage. instead we let life become the priority and when we had kidlet number 2 everything else but the kids, our careers and our community service took a back seat.
dh never expected me to stray. hell, i never expected it of myself. and now that i know what mutual desire, emotional connection and emotional intimacy is, the question isn’t whether or not i can go back. i can’t. the question is do i move forward with him and we do the heavy lifting together knowing that nothing is guaranteed and it’s a crap shoot. or, do i move forward, alone, and forge ahead.
someone asked if our counselor or my dh knows about this blog. all three therapists (our mutual marriage counselor which dh chose, his therapist and my own therapist) know of this blog and one of them has commented here and there. they all know that i also have a nsfw tumblr and dh knows i have a couple of blogs but only has access, that i know of, to my professional blog, the one i get paid for.
i’m happy because it’s been brutally hot for the greater pacific nw over the last month. unheard of. cold, heavy rain is refreshing to me and while today is going to be a tough day all around. it’s also a good day because it’s a new day of fighting the good fight for our son, together.
I swear I did *not* go searching for this article, it was served up to my feed on the homepage I use at work. the article in of itself isn’t earth shattering per se, but rather the perspective one doesn’t hear often unless you are a dedicated reader of dan savage and other columnists with a more diverse, and open foundation.
Additionally, Kat, a blogger I’ve been following for a while over on BlogSpot recently posted her thoughts on sexual fidelity (here) from the perspective of being in a long-term (25+ years) marriage and both articles came up in our most recent counseling session. (that post forthcoming).
Jenny Glick for YourTango.com
It sounds crazy that an affair could actually strengthen a marriage. And yet, for those of us who work in therapy, what we see is that couples who do the work after an affair is disclosed often describe having a relationship that is even better than before. Impossible? Not really.
In American culture, affairs are the most taboo choices that a spouse can make while married. It is quite common to hear the unmarried and married alike say, “If my husband cheated on me? I’d leave him! Period!” or “I’d never tolerate an affair. Our relationship would be over!”
Until it happens to you. Can your marriage survive an affair? When an affair comes to light and your entire life, your family, your children, your standard of living, and the person you have loved all stand in the balance — it often does not seem as cut and dry.
If you have a quality therapist, that person probably will not just focus on the affair itself. She will help you and your partner untangle the, often, years of emotional distance, unresolved hurt, sexual tepidness, and complacency that almost always accompany an affair. During this process the “whose to blame?” question gets thrown around a lot but the truth is that in marriages it is not a 50/50 agreement. In a healthy marriage, each partner is 100% accountable for their actions, behaviors, tone, and emotional engagement in a relationship. If the marriage is not satisfying what you want, where are YOU accountable? Tough questions, especially if your partner is the one who cheated on you.
And yet, like most tough questions, it is the question that gets to the underbelly of the issue. I am not saying that a spouse can cause an affair, but I am saying that both parties contribute to creating an environment that sprouts and can sustain an affair.
Often, the person that acts out and has the affair is communicating something loud and clear that their partner has not been able to hear prior:
- I am very unhappy in this relationship.
- I am tired of being ignored.
- I cannot go on living like this.
- I am incredibly hurt and want someone to see and love me.
- I am willing to take a major risk in order to get my needs met.
Almost always, prior to an affair happening, some of these statements have been made aloud. There have been discussions (or arguments) about how one or both people have been dissatisfied in the marriage. Almost always, if each partner were to get quiet and feel back to before the affair, they can see signs of where and how the relationship was breaking down— but you didn’t think your partner would ever cheat.
The statistics are somewhere between 30% and 70% of married people have affairs (texting, chatting, or sleeping with someone who is not their spouse) in America. We can pass judgment or we can see this as an indicator of an epidemic of marital breakdown that is sweeping the country. It is a call for help to find effective ways to revitalize and heal our marriages.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.com
i looked up and suddenly he was here. right in front of me. in. real. life. and yet again, as my breath caught in my throat and i look into his cerulean blue eyes i found myself at a loss for words.
still. even now. every first time. and when he smiles and the blush reaches his eyes as they darken with lust. my heart beats faster and the moisture pools in my panties.
after we were led to the suite by the proprietor and the door shut behind him. i launched myself at him. standing on my tip toes to wrap my arms around his neck as he leans down and engulfs me in his arms. holding me still against him, knowing that in the moment, right then and there, things would be alright.
and then there was that moment. that nanosecond just before our lips meet. again. for the first time. after months apart. the three thousand + miles that separate us, among other things, fades as his hands; strong, firm yet gentle become urgent against my skin and my body responds without hesitation.
every. damn. one.
the medication that i’ve been prescribed between chemo treatments usually leaves me with nausea (though much less than if i didn’t take it) but last night it seemed to bring about dreams that were fueled by memories of me and him. together. in one of those rare moments we’ve had over the course of the last two years.
that first kiss when i realized without a doubt i had not only crossed the line i swore i would never cross, i had pole vaulted over it. or the way the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my nipples went erect when he walked into the conference and i hadn’t even laid eyes on him yet.
or the delicious way his blush reached all the way up to his cerulean blue eyes and my panties went wet. or the raspberries he brought unexpectedly when i was alone in nyc and he found the time to cross the bridge to welcome me to his side of the continent. or meeting at my favorite bistro on the one day our travel schedules aligned whilst we were in france. enjoying a meal before strolling along the city. and the moment at the chalet his past fall, when i had orgasm after orgasm after orgasm and he held me as my body lay spent, trembling from pleasure i had only ever read about in erotic novels.
the way my flesh in his hands responds of their own accord and the way he renders me speechless with the simple flick of his tongue on so many parts of my body. his skin against mine and his weight upon me. the salty taste of his skin or better yet, the taste of myself on his tongue as his mouth recaptures mine.
dreaming of him leaves me spent and aching for his taste, his touch, his scent, him.
I posted this on another blog earlier today, as it struck me how it can apply to so many things in someone’s life or even the various parts of someone’s life. I forget that he occasionally follows that blogger as well…until I see this message in my inbox:
To:
From:
SUBJECT: I have
so many more than one memory of you that I’ll keep forever….Don’t try and limit me.
travel well my friend. for the rest of the month not only are we separated by distance and time zones, the distance is literally half a world away and the time zones increased to a day+
given the way things need to be and the new normal of limited virtual contact, the additional distance and separator of time zones pierces my heart more than ever before. I miss your touch. yes, of course the actual physical touch but more importantly the touch of our conversations and human kindness in the mutual admiration society we have. the voicemails of encouragement before and after a chemo treatment, the funny limerick left in my mailbox or the good night wish sent as a single note in the ether. that’s the touch I miss the most.
during counseling today i was stunned into silence when the counselor looked at me, then at darling husband, back at me before turning to face darling husband and said “you can’t fault her for finally choosing herself when she has always put you first. always. her choice, whether right or wrong, was still her choice and you chose to ignore her for so long that to raise an objection now is your issue. not hers. we are here to deal with each of these separately as they impact your relationship. but until you can see, not agree, but see things from her perspective, you won’t move forward.” huh…still processing.
is me is really me 