my choice

quote porn

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 24 September 14
Posted in: musings, my choice, quotes, real life, words that resonate. Tagged: , , . 5 Comments

gbye

“Love isn’t always the reason to stay. Sometimes love is the reason to leave.” – William Chapman

© 2013 William J Chapman.

 

Questions come and go but as is probably no surprise, a consistent question is “why don’t you leave”? I could write post after post about the why neither of us has made that choice just yet. It’s either interpreted as rationalizing, or not being the better person for leaving. Perhaps. The truth is, in our situation just walking away isn’t as easy as that. I’ve been accused of having no remorse or no regret. That’s simply not true.

Just because I don’t write about the crisis of conscience that flares up or the remorse for the hurt I’ve caused my dh in the exact same manner he sliced through my heart all of those years ago. Or the guilt that we’ve burdened ourselves with due to some incredibly honest and raw counseling sessions in which he has admitted that he still believes his own affairs all of those years ago are forgivable and that he doesn’t have remorse in that way he thinks I need. Or my own admission that while I’m ashamed and so sorry for the betrayal he didn’t deserve, I don’t know if I can or want to settle for the way we used to be.  That I wonder if a life without dh would be as lonely as the life I have with dh sleeping a mere 8″ away from me.

Believe it or not, we love each other. We do. Have we ever been in love with one another at the same time? Probably not. DH recently admitted that he’s not sure that he’s ever been in love with me that way a person should be in love with a person. And I admitted that that after so many years of knowing that, feeling that, of being invisible and only seen as the co-parent, the reliable roommate that would always be the one who loved him in every which way, more, I made a choice. A deliberate choice, thinking it wouldn’t matter to him. And now, I have to reconcile my choices with what lays ahead for us. And DH has to do the same.

We didn’t make it to 25-years (next week) without love, determination and a shared sense of partnership in 80% of our shared life together. We are a united front when it comes to our children. For our oldest who will head off to college next fall, and our son with special needs, together we are unequivocally Mr. and Mrs. Brown. When it comes to our mutually demanding and stressful careers, we share the burden of balancing. There is no question that our children are tantamount regardless of where this journey takes us. The question becomes one of whether or not we see our love being able to withstand the burden of our baggage and choices, and grow into one that we both want and deserve? Or, is it the love that makes the right decision one in which to leave?

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a brief reprieve

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 19 June 14
Posted in: affair, cheating, emotional intelligence and relationships, happiness, hello lover, long distance affair, married long distance lovers, mutual admiration society of 2, my choice, real life, sex sex sex, will never be mine. Tagged: , , , . 9 Comments

some of the best moments in lifei 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.

uttered in counseling

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 6 March 14
Posted in: cheating, darling husband, emotional intelligence and relationships, musings, my choice, posts i write but typically don't post. Tagged: , , , , , . 5 Comments

I choose meduring 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.

in kind

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 19 February 14
Posted in: emotional intelligence and relationships, haters, my choice, random, real life. Tagged: , . 5 Comments

in the end only kindness matter by the grace of god. i remember being a young student at st. pious  x school and the then principal, was speaking to the entire school and she used the term by the grace of god. i didn’t know what that meant, i was only in the 2nd grade but something about grace and god stood out. later that night i asked my dad about it and he took the time to explain it in a way a curious 7-year old could understand.

as i got older i found that “by the grace of god” and “in the end, only kindness matters” have been quotes (mantras if you will) that i find myself falling back to time and time again. another is “kindness is possible even when fondness is not”.

the last 48-hours, as i have had some freedom to try to catch up on the bloggers and tumblrs that i follow, it struck me how many are having moments of doubt, self-recrimination, anger and every other visceral emotion that at times, can overwhelm and challenge even the strongest individual. one in particular, struck me as she was having a good old rage in her post and yet she ended it with asking the hater’s and the self-righteous judger’s that tend to leave her hate mail to give her a break. she’s having a rough go of it. it was clear from her writing that she’s in a lot of pain. and has been. she just needed to vent in the anonymity that the blogosphere offers.

it made me pause. have i been as kind as i can be even as my own world seems to be pushing towards an implosion? we all have our own stories, our own issues and we are all human with feelings and the capacity to love greatly and hurt deeply. and then i remember, that by the grace of god i go and truly, in the end, only kindness matters.

is this where i’m at? is this what i want?

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 18 February 14
Posted in: cheating, compartmentalization, darling husband, emotional intelligence and relationships, happiness, mixed bag of emotions, my choice, real life. Tagged: , , . 3 Comments

she changed

perhaps this is what my dh means. i do have a new perspective, i no longer care that he just wants us to go back to they way things have always been. i have a new mindset and i am willing to say that it’s not okay anymore. that we should have a relationship that is full, complete and whole. that i no longer care to continue if he can’t make changes. or perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle…

13.5 hours there and then back

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 18 February 14
Posted in: cheating, darling husband, emotional intelligence and relationships, my choice, real life, will never be mine. Tagged: , , . 1 Comment

strongest not always strong

I gather strength from the bloggers I follow here. They are amazing people going through their own journey’s and putting themselves out there for all to see.

Darling husband is understandably angry, and yet, cannot understand my desires, or wants or needs. I am heartbroken. I should be heartbroken at the state of dh and me. But I am not. The hard conversations that we are having are one’s that we should have had years ago. We should have addressed way back then. Instead, I have some residual anger that it took this, my own duplicity, my relationship with “him” to have darling husband take stock. DH wants us to go back to the way it was before him, but how can that be?

He, to be so close to our reunion after 22-weeks and then to turn around and barely make a flight home. To not know if he is going to delve into self-protection mode as I fully expect leaves me saddened. My husband got his “goodbye” and his closure twelve years ago when he ended his affair with “the one that got away”…will I get mine? So many things tumbling about my head. My heart.

where did the week go?

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 13 February 14
Posted in: cheating, darling husband, emotional intelligence and relationships, haters, longing, married long distance lovers, my choice, real life. Tagged: , , , .

its the unexpected that changes our lives“where have you been?” “is everything okay?” “thinking of you” are just a few examples of the unexpected and thoughtful messages that started hitting my inbox the other day. fellow bloggers, yes, most ow, that I’ve been following, commenting on their posts, liking their posts etc.

what can i say other than i have indeed been absent. not intentionally but deliberately. last friday my darling husband, the man i have been tethered to for the past 25-years, asked me if i was involved with someone outside of our marriage. to say that i was shocked and scared is not quite adequate. shocked because i have long maintained, in my weekly sessions with my therapist, that if anything, should said husband discover my affair, he would either: not care, not notice and or be relieved. scared because as much as it may be hard to believe, i cannot lie when asked a question outright. of course i admitted that yes, i was (am?) indeed involved in a long distance, primarily “virtual” relationship. i wasn’t scared about the status of our relationship, no, i was afraid of the end of my relationship with “him”. while my dh is not a punitive or vengeful person, i am afraid that he may reach out to him and or his bride to confront him. that cannot happen. while my absence from all things social, was not intentional, the step back and silence has been deliberate. the separation from my blogging has been the most painful of all as i receive so much solace and education from the blogs i follow.

dh’s reaction has run the spectrum of anger, sadness and shock. anger and shock i expected. sadness i did not. this has never been about me leaving him for another. nor has it been about wielding a “you’ve had two affairs in the past and this is my turn” stick. the sadness, the hurt is hard for me to swallow (wait for it, yes i expect the haters to come out in full force now) because i question whether or not it’s genuine. is he genuinely sad that we might be ending? or is it his ego that can’t believe that the woman who he has always known and said “mckenzie will love me forever. she has always loved me more than i have ever loved her. she’s lucky a man like me remains married to an overweight and unattractive woman like her” etc.

he asked if i loved him. of course i lied and said no. no good can come of revealing that i am emotionally attached to him and that the physical side of our affair, as rare as those moments are, are the most emotionally satisfying and fulfilling of my life.

why is it that after all of these years, specifically the last four in which i begged, asked, pleaded with him to “say something” , to meet me in the middle, to consider counseling or seeing a doctor, why now? when i am so emotionally divorced that he suddenly has an epiphany and says that i should have known that he loves me, deep down and all of those hurtful words, his past affairs and his lack of interest in me sexually, is “just his way” and that my feelings and my desires should take a back seat to the last 25 years we have shared.

now, now he is willing to see a counselor. not to fix “us” but to support me in my quest to fix myself so we can go back to the way it was. the way it should be. the way he wants it to be again. my heart broke as i avoided “him” most of friday until i was safely away in my office and could log on and let him know what happened. i held my breath as i waited for him to say “goodbye” his self preservation kicking into high gear. and i cried, for the first time on friday when he asked what could he do and said “i can’t just walk away mckenzie. maybe before. and maybe i should. it’s always been my rule. but you have forced me to rethink those rules from the moment we met. this is no exception.”

darling husband and i have been talking. spending time trying to find common ground in what it is we want out of a marriage/relationship whether with or without one another. i know i want and need more. it isn’t about him. it is about me. and so we journey forward. i am not trusting his demeanor or his assertions that his way is the way it needs to be. i am giving the counseling a chance since i have wanted it for years. only now, i want to be able to take this next step either with dh or without him in a better space. dh has asked me to end it with my internet friend by the end of the month. i asked him “or what?” and he merely shook his head and replied “well since you yourself have said it’s not a mean to be relationship. eventually you will realize i am the best you will ever have”

rambling on and sad. missing him. our communications limited to a few minutes online over the last few days. but i know this is a leg of the journey i am taking on my own.

missing what isn’t mine

Posted by ismeisreallyme on 6 February 14
Posted in: married long distance lovers, missing him, my choice, real life, will never be mine. Tagged: , , , , , . 4 Comments

every atom of me missed himit’s true. as cliché as it is, i ache for him. it’s palpable. we aren’t connecting much this week. work for me is beyond nuts and with our time difference, if i’m not online by lunch my time, we can only keep one another company virtually for an hour or so before he leaves to start his evenings. one thing that i’ve come to look forward to most of all is those few minutes each night, except the weekends of course, the 10 maybe 15 minutes we have (virtually) around 11:0pm edt. it’s just a check in and a good night interaction via gchat. it’s a little thing but something that i’ve come to cherish, especially  over the last 8 months or so.

however, they are officially empty nester’s now. all three kids are off at college, all in state and close enough to pop home, but for the most part the kids don’t live at home whilst school is in session. which means that his bride is by his side constantly, WHICH IS HER RIGHTFUL PLACE (i know this!-for those anon’s out there that think i believe i’m entitled to him or his time). which means that we don’t get our good night chat as often as we did before the start of the winter semester. normally, it’s been ok but as i was explaining to another blogger earlier, this last round of chemo seems to be impacting my emotional balance more than it ever has in the past and today, well today i just miss him that much more.