“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.