It's Complicated! Part 4

[glamgirl]

Thanks TL.

Well it's Friday night and I am feeling down. Some old music that h and I used to listen too, triggered a crying attack. Making me think, how did my life go so wrong and wondering where is my future.

H came over for a few hours. He put a toy kitchen together for d5 that she got for her birthday, while I ran some errands. It felt good to just be away by myself for a few hours.

I feel so lonely in the house. I had a dream last night or should I say nightmare that some guy I had a glass of wine with had a key to our home and I found him sleeping on the kitchen floor. My alarm awoke me from the dream, that it seemed so real. Not sure what any of that means, if anything.

This is so horrible. Here I am having strange dreams about strange men. I don't want to be dating, I just want my h back home. How can that happen? Tears!

[Silent Chrleader]

Hey, Sweetie!!

OK, I'm thinking you may be dealing with some of the same crap I think I've been dealing with.......and that's hormones!!! [Or as my Aunt Shirley used to say..."My Hors are Moanin'!"].

I was sooooo down the first two weeks of this month and then the past week....FLIP....and I'm doing just fine! And this was the week of Valentines day and my anniversary! You'd think it would have been the other way around! I have talked to my Dr and he thinks hormones are most definitely an issue.

And I've had some disturbances with sleeping too!

I know I don't need to remind you how far you've come in your sitch. You are one of the most patient, generous, warm, giving woman I have ever "met"!! And I bet this cycling your H is doing now is barely a blip on the radar screen compared to what he's probably done in the past. It certainly doesn't deserve even a fraction of your pain!

Anyway, my point is just to suggest that some of these fears you are having may just be your brain messin' with you (perhaps a little like your H's brain still stirs him around!). And as I know you have comforted him many times and told him it was OK, you may need to learn to give some of that understanding to yourself! Do ya' know what I mean? I don't think I am explaining this very well......

I really do think you are "in the home stretch" with your H, and you are going to get there!! But you need to remember to save for yourself some of that compassion and patience which you give your H so un-reservedly.

You are an amazing woman, Glam!!! Don't ever forget that!!

[[[[[[[[[[hugs]]]]]]]]]]

[glamgirl]

Thank you so much SC. I appreciate your kind words. I just woke up from another strange dream.

In this dream I am married to a really nice looking police officer. Now men in uniform have never been my type, I prefer men in suits with a tie.

My dream h was taking my family out to dinner at PF Changs which was a blend of my own family and my ex h's family. It was in my hometown state as well and my dream h paid for everything.

Ironically I did a little shopping at the mall near our home last night and I drove by PF Changs thinking I wanted to take the kids their soon. Yesterday I took the kids out for Thai food and dessert. We had so much fun.

I am not so sure what to think of all these weird dreams. They kind of scare me though.

[Silent Chrleader]

Good morning, GG!

I took a Psych class at college where we studied sleep and dreams. The reality is that dreams "mean" really nothing. It is simply the brain "exercising" itself. Studies have shown that while we are in REM sleep, the parts of the brain we used during that day are very active.

Basically, it's sorta like a computer where you may enter stuff into a data base, and then have to run some sort of an electronic "posting" process to actually file it in the archives of your brain. And your brain, like any file system, puts similar things together. If you remember your dream, it just means that you were awakened while you were in REM sleep (i.e. you woke up before your brain was finished processing whatever pit of information it was working on), and you may bring with you into consciousness some little bit of raw data that was just stored in the same area of your brain. It doesn't really "mean" anything.

A good example I remember my professor using is that apparently it is not uncommon for women to have dreams of being raped where they actually are "enjoying" it. This is obviously a very disturbing thing!! But, after research, scientist have found that what this dream is indicative of is just attraction to the idea of sex without the responsibility of sex. In real life we have to worry about issues like STDs and contraception and how our bodies aren't perfect.....but in the dream world, if we are "forced" to do it, we have none of these responsibilities and can just "enjoy" ourselves. This explains why this particular dream is most common in single women not in a committed relationship. That's a vulnerable place to be for a woman. Interesting, huh!

And, I have always been a complete sucker for a uniform!! Especially a military one!! The marine corps dress blues give me goose bumps!!! But then my Dad was a 22 year Marine so I was indoctrinated into that early! I remember my H when we were dating, picking me up from school dressed in his summer whites, looking like "an officer and a gentleman"........yep, goose bumps!!

Hope you have a good weekend! I am just planning to read and relax!!

[[[[[[hugs]]]]]]

[glamgirl]

Thanks SC for that dream insight. I have not had any bizarre dreams like you mentioned and I can say I am glad I have not, now those would scare me even more.

I have always been attracted to men in suits. I used to love attending business functions with my h where he was all dressed in a suit and tie or tux. I just adored him. Something about men in power. I don't know.

I am planning on washing the car today and watching movies and a little cleaning. I baked some cookies earlier today and trying to eat healthy. I picked up some meals at Trader Joe's yesterday.

[Silent Chrleader]

I love Trader Joes!!!! We are supposed to be possibly getting one near where I live......WooHoo!!

[glamgirl]

Ok I must be in dream central. Another dream last night. This one was that I noticed h started wearing his wedding ring again. In my dream I didn't say a thing.

This has been the most devastating to me. After all this happened my h removed his ring and I haven't seen it since. To me, that means I am not m, don't want to be m, and definitely want to show the world that I am not m.

Me, I stayed strong and wear mine proudly just like the day we m.

I really struggle with this, any insight?

[plentyhope]

Glam,

That's a great dream. To me, it means that your H is working on the marriage again. My H took his ring off the day after he moved out. It was to say "I am no longer married. I am free." because he only wore the wedding ring for me and to ward off women.

I took mine off temporarily at the beginning and then put it back on about 8 months after the separation. It's still on and I think my H hates seeing it.

I think it's awesome that you are wearing yours. Don't let what he's doing with his wedding ring influence what you do with yours. I am sure your H is veyr happy that you are wearing yours. It may just take him a while longer to put his back on. And maybe he's not wearing it yet for fear of you thinking he's back already... Maybe he's afraid of pressure.

[Silent Chrleader]

Hey, Glam!

Insight.......well, according to my psych professor, it just means that you are waking up during REM sleep, meaning nothing more than that you are just not sleeping well. Oh, and waking up, and not being able to get back to sleep, is actually a symptom of clinical depression.

I know what you mean about the ring. My H took his off right when we seperated, so I took mine off at that time and gave it to him and told him to give it back to me when/if he was ready to come home and give our M the justice it deserves.......I have often thought about whether or not this was the right thing to do. At the time, I thought it just sent him the message that I was not going to just "wait around" but move on with my life. But, I will not ask for it back since I think that would be a backslide in his eyes. But, still I do miss it.

Another dynamic regarding the rings in my particular sitch is that we had bought new rings just a year before we split. I had wanted to get matching bands. When we were married, we couldn't affored anything and got a three ring set that only cost about $300. For our 5th anniversary, we had replaced those with a bridal set with rubies for me and a man's ring with rubies for H. H always had trouble with his because it had a space under it that allowed moisture and he worked with chemical and had a problem with his finger always breaking out, so we just got him a gold band one day at Wal-mart to wear "everyday".

After our 20th anniversary, I had wanted to get some matching bands that were more indicative of "where we were at" in our M, which I thought was now a solid connected stood the test of time marriage. We talked about all types of options like designing our own bands, or maybe having our two sets of rings "melted down" and re-made into something that meant something to us. H is not big on "sentiment" and had always done the guy thing of "what's wrong with the rings we have".....which I now see as significant, but at the time, I just put it down to normal behavior for him.

Well, and this is a weird twist, actually the OW had suggested a jeweler to H where she and her H had got their wedding rings, so H and I went and checked it out, and there we found a one-of-a-kind ring for me that we liked. It was MUCH more expensive and "glitzy" than I had planned (I really only wanted some sort of matching bands), but H liked it (it was the only one we had ever found that he really liked), so we had a matching men's ring designed for him, and that's what we wore the last year before the split.

H has since used the whole ring thing as an example of how he had never really been "into" the M, and how we had fooled ourselves. I still have our original set, and the bridal set I wore for almost 20 years, and have thought about putting that one back on, but that doesn't feel right for me.

Sometimes I think H is right and it is all indicative that I really just fooled myself for 28 years.......for all I know, H could have pawned the thing.......I haven't asked and I'm not going to. I'm not sure even if we were to reconcile whether I would want that particular ring back anyway.

[Truelove]

Hi glamgirl,

I hope you had a good week-end despite your dreams.

I was thinking of you yesterday since I heard a song "Silent Wings" by Tina Turner. I finally listened to the words and it made me tear up as it could have been written for me.

Have a good week.