Just so you know...

[bluerain]

He sent me an email the other day. It started out "I have so many things I want to say to you, but I figure that you dont want to hear any of it" The rest of the email was all business, how we are going to resolve the house and such. Then at the end he adds this PS, "Just so you know; I havent been in a relationship for 7 months, Ive been wanting to tell you that since October"

Why would I care when the ^&*Y%&#@ OW dumped him, doesnt he realize that Im a little more concerned with when his affair STARTED?

This has been going on for so, so long, I am tired! Still not divorced, so Ive been in a little bit of hell for the last year almost, with what I imagine will be the worst part yet to come! I havent even spoken to him in months, I decided that if this is what he wants, he can have it. I dont know what to make of the beginning of his email, or the end, when I responded I didnt even react to his PS, but I did tell him that I think that a big part of how we got here is him holding his tongue when we needed him to speak up, and that I am ready to listen to whatever he needs to say. I havent checked my email in about a week now because I am terrified that he responded.

I have been doing better lately than I have in a long time, things have finally settled down, I dont know what to make of this latest communication, or if I should make anything of it! I cant speak to him on the phone without breaking down, thats why I asked him to communicate with me through email.

I just needed to vent about it I guess.

[Flicka]

Thank you for posting. I always was interested in you and your situation... You have an awesome career and lots of personal strengths. It still seems possible to me that you might want to consider repairing the relationship with your H. He has regrets it seems. His impulse control mechanism is broken. Maybe it is part of an alcohol problem, really.

It seems you do have choices. Maybe you should carefully permit yourself to reconsider a friendship with your H. You are still grieving so much, and I am sorry. Good luck, no matter what.

[karen43]

I do the email communication thing too. And then the few times I speak to him "live" or on the phone is not too bad b/c it's rare. Have you checked your email yet? I think you should lose your fear and be confident, you will make good choices. Karen

[bluerain]

Hi Karen, How are you doing? And thanks Flicka, Ive had some pretty good distractions lately because of work, just in time for H's MLC to re-rear its ugly head.

I did finally check my email, no response yet. Not really a surprise, I don't know what I thought would change, this is his way of doing things. Just be quiet and hope you get what you want.

Really, whatever he says its going to mess with my head. What he has said already has messed with my head.

I think I'm burnt out on this whole thing, I don't know if I could be his friend, he said and did some really rotten things, he lied to me, he made love to me and then went out in the living room in MY house and called her, he let me blame myself for all of it, and he left me high and dry. Friends don't do that. I couldn't look into his eyes and not see her there, I couldn't watch him smile, how he wrinkles up his eyes and hunches his shoulders the way he does when he thinks something is really funny, and not remember that he gave that to someone else.

I hate how I was ostracized by the military community here, phone calls stopped coming, people who I had thought were my friends stopped even looking at me, there's one wife who works at Safeway who still cant peel her eyeballs off of me. I would love to scream at her, but that wouldn't help. I didn't do anything wrong. It seems so strange to me, all of our H's go away for the same amounts of time, to the same places. Did I catch the plague? Cant they imagine how they would feel if this was happening to them? Cant they see how easily this could have been any one of them? My main solace in this is that they are military, so in about a year everyone who knew us will be gone on to new duty stations.

Got a little off subject but the rant felt pretty good.

[karen43]

I agree with all you say. Friends don't do stuff like that. I wouldn't even want my H as a friend, much less an H!

That sucks about the friends. I just think those can't have been good friends; I mean kind of fair weather friends or something. You need to make some good new friends. I've made lots of friends, and found lots of support the past couple years. Some don't want to hear about the D, maybe they're worried it's contagious! but most are supportive, and I just talk about the D a little bit with those who ask and are really concerned. Karen

[Flicka]

It seems part of the pain of these break-ups is the publicity that goes with them. The small community factor adds to the distress and affects our own self perceptions.

I think you can be proud of yourself for trying to reconcile and also for not behaving badly...

I remember reading what you were typing last year or whenever it was all happening and admiring you for your own self respect and personal strength. I bet others in your real world notice that too. I am supposing some think grief is contagious.

Maybe it is!!

[bluerain]

Well, one of our resident volcanoes blew yesterday, and the ash headed right for us (its really cool, you can go to avo.alaska.edu and click on Redoubt), so I had to talk with H about preparation and such. We actually texted for a while, mostly about the volcano, and about how last time one went off he wasn't here either, but it was really good to "talk" to him. I had to get off the phone and get to work and I told him that it was really nice to "talk" to him for a while, he said you too, be careful. After the ash fell it looked like the moon outside.

I wish that I could just take back the last year, maybe put a stop to all this before it all went south. Really, after everything else fades, the anger, indignation, humiliation, what I'm left with is that I do still love him and I am terrified of a future without him. I don't want to push to hard, too early, and I don't even know if I want to push at all. I guess I'm scared to say it, but I'm also scared to not say it.

[karen43]

That sounds cool, but is it safe? We don't have any volcanoes in FL so sounds amazing, of course we get our share of hurricanes!!! Hope you're having a good weekend, br!!!!

[bluerain]

karen, its not exactly dangerous (usually! Ill knock on some wood!), the closest active one is about 80 miles away, this one is about 100 miles away. Usually as long as they are blowing off steam and pressure in smallish eruptions there is less of a danger of large eruptions. The town I work in has air-raid type sirens that are there in case of a tsunami. Mostly its just inconvenient to clean up after, you have to wear a dust mask if you are outside during an ashfall and it smells like sulfur, and its really bad for your car to drive during the ashfall. Not very good for your paint either, but the ash is really good for the soil. There are tons of little earthquakes though, some not so little ones too, about a month or so ago there was a 5.7 magnitude one, it made my house sway! No damage but some cracked paint though. I think that we are pretty good at taking it all in stride, it just comes with the territory.

And this has only happened twice in the 6 years that Ive lived here, so you have to deal with hurricanes way more often!

[bluerain]

Ive been able to chat with H for a little while about every other day, through text messaging. Mostly he talks about how depressed he is, and how he knows its all his fault. I have been so proud of myself for not saying your god dang right it is! I took the dog to the beach yesterday and sent a great pic of him , and another of my other dog. H thanked me for them, I said glad you liked them, Your welcome!

I'm glad that we are communicating again, and I am sorry that hes so sad, I wish that he realized that it didn't need to be like this.