Don't Trade Our Love For Tea & Sympathy

[theoden]

BI,

Thanks for the words on Valentine's say. We agreed to a "make-up

date" the following Saturday.

We had a nice date last night. Saw a play and went our for drinks.

You're welcome to put it on the blog.

Hey...you're doing great. There's hope for your marriage. Your husband just feels like his whole life is shit. A good job close to you might really be the trick. Cut the travel crap. Hey he's a man and needs to feel like one, again, that's all. He needs to GAL.

--Theoden

[soreheart]

BI
I wanted to ask you, how do you stop yourself snooping. I know its not good, infact when ever I do do it and find something out I feel horrid after, but the reason I do it is because I do not want to be left in the dark, I would rather be hurt now and face the truth then to bury my head in the sand.
H assures me that the OW does not contact him, but I know she does, the message left on his phone today was first a joke, and then telling him how she liked his text. I deleted the voicemail as I don't want him talking to her, but it just makes me aware that they are still in contact & he is lying once again to me. One thing for you is that your H did break it off, I know a couple of months after you found out, but he broke it off - not you telling him to.

[believing_isaiah43]

Well, honey, you just stop. And I can't claim sainthood here, b/c I've still peeked in his email account on occasion. You KNOW it does no good, and there is no reward from it. But if you're like me, you are scared out of your mind subconsciously that you are going to get "blindsided" again.

And I feel like Scarlett O'Hara on the hill with that turnip saying "As God is my witness, I will never go hungry again!" Except I'm holding an email password saying "I will never be blindsided again!"

But it's just a fantasy. I could still be blindsided at any time, tomorrow, next week, even 40 minutes from now ... and it's SO difficult to think that way about the one person on earth I just never ever EVER doubted in that way, prior to now.

It's like a vase that's broken. You can glue it up again, but it will always "have been broken" - no more do we have the luxury of an R that is untainted, unbroken. Sure it can be repaired, but not to the point of Never Broken. You know?

I think this is just us working out the kinks in our thinking, this snooping thing.

Now then. I realize I am blessed beyond measure that the OW is out of the picture. Completely. Not just Sort Of. I would get my fcuking redneck ON, if she were still contacting him, & he was denying it. If I had to deal with that, I may be institutionalized from insanity (or jailed for murder) by now.

You know, soreheart, I was 'poor me'-ing myself with the other posters whose S's are still saying ILY and still ML and all the trappings I so desire. But you have reminded me of the blessing I do have that H stopped the A abruptly and on his own (not that I wasn't being a bi-otch about it on occasion because, again, no one will be nominating me for sainthood in this lifetime). He gives most of the credit to God for doing the right thing, b/c 'he never could have done it in his own strength' (which is a double-edged sword to hear, as you might imagine).

My now-suspicious-of-him heart wonders if he misses her deep down (when he has said over and over that he doesn't and knowing her ruined his life, etc), and since he has no passion for me, where did he put it? Is it buried for someone else? kind of thinking. NONproductive thinking.

I'm off on a tangent here, sorry. I have no idea if you've gleaned jack from my rambling. On one hand, just STOP the snooping, you can't control his behavior, only yours, blah blah. On the other hand, if it were me, I know I couldn't bite my tongue about that sh!t and would probably make a mess of things by confronting him. I hope other wise people give you better advice, b/c it's only by God's grace alone that my emotional outbursts haven't completely wrecked this M. They almost have, actually. The outcome remains to be seen, here, but we would be further along, I believe, if I hadn't been such a psycho on one occasion too many.

[MuddleThrough]

If I can just butt in here and add my two cents - I think there are two good reasons for not snooping:

1. Snooping causes you to expend energy that would be best used GingAL - and you inevitably hurt yourself with what you find
2. You are often looking for information to make judgments about where your spouse is. You will never be able to come about this knowledge this way because you never know the level of honesty w/the OP, or with themself. It's disrespectful and will lead you in the wrong direction to judge intentions from observations, etc., and snooping is a more disrespectful way of doing this. It's an invasion of privacy in order to obtain information that is then used in a way that doesn't get you any closer to your goal.

That being said, the only real legitimate reasons to snoop are to make sure there's NO contact - what that contact is over is not the issue (you can't get in their heads and fix their thinking) - or making sure that marital assets are not being used to further the affair.

[believing_isaiah43]

You may ALWAYS butt in Muddle

I used the quote in your signature on my blog post last night, by the way. I've been saving it. Think I even sent it to H one time last year.

[Heywyre]

I agree that snooping is not right, however as far as the invasion of privacy is concerned I would have to comment on that.

What is the "invasion" affects someone else - i.e. ME!!! A perfect example was H the other day. We got into a huge discussion (heated of course) over his visa bill. We have always paid both his and mine off each month, now I see his has been at 7-10,000 for the past few months (that I know of). I never checked before but registered our joint account online because of direct deposits I was getting from a new employer. There, in full view, was the balance on his account. I can't access the details of where the money went, but I had a fit (inside that is). When I calmed down I confronted him. Why? because even though it is his credit card, it comes out of a joint account - his and MINE!! So half that visa bill is my money - plain and simple. Therefore I have a right to know. We ended up with him saying he would walk away from the R if I pressed him any further on it but I thought "hmmm, if that's all our R is worth to you right now, I'm gonna fight back" so I called him on it and he admitted it was spent on the OW. However, yesterday I brought it up at the C office again. He said "it was the principal of the matter". H wasn't too pleased but I was thrilled because the C agreed with me basically and told H that when he is confronted with something that makes him vulnerable, he evades it and uses confrontation, anger etc to deal with it, it had nothing to do with principal and everything to do with him not feeling in control.

Then, after we left the office, H got violently ill (food poisoning from something he ate earlier) - hmmm, wonder if someone is trying to tell him something. As a matter of fact, he was rather nice to me today, even brought me a tea at work

[believing_isaiah43]

H and D7 came back from the grocery store this afternoon, and D7 rushed in with a bunch of tulips: "mommy, i got you flowers for Valentine's Day. Tulips are your favorite!" which is true. I made a big deal of it to her, hugged her and asked if they were from her and she said yes.

H came in after her and I said "D brought me tulips!" and he looked at me like I was stupid and said "I know, I was with her"
well, duh.

I put them in a vase on the table and thanked D again. Have no idea whether that's "it" for vday; guess I'll know tomorrow.

Have ya'll realized how HARD it is to find a v-day card for your H/W? OMGosh, I must have spent the better part of an hour trying to find one that wasn't grossly inappropriate ("our love is better than ever" kind of sap) or stupid ("for a special friend"). I almost gave up and bought him a non-V card with a smiley face on it, then got him a humorous one instead. Two lions with a sheep in between them holding an "I love ewe" sign. Inside says "Read between the lions". har har. Ya'll seriously. That was the best I could find that wasn't formal script and gold foil about My Husband, The Love Of My Life. Damn. That sucked. I hadn't had to 'filter' like that before, and it was depressing as hell.

Ugh.

On a brighter (maybe?) note, H read the blog today -thank you again Theo for the 2nd comment you posted, it was great but H hasn't mentioned anything. Maybe later he will? I will NOT prompt him to talk about it, but wish he would get closer to my page in the book about us. sigh.

[Heywyre]

I know !!! I had the same problem trying to find a card - you would think Hallmark would make cards for people like us. After all, there seems to be a lot of us

The one I got says something about not being in a normal relationship - I couldn't get to the checkout fast enough - lol

[Aud31]

I'm with you on the card thing...had a tough time here too. All I could think about was the super-intimate valentine card from OW to H I stumbled on a couple of years ago...

[jamespb75]

I just got a card for our Son, That was good enough for me. I think I'll write Hallmark with a card idea.

I love you, but I'm not in love with you....
I want to be with you, but I am having an affair....
I fell out of love with you, and into love with someone else...
(enough excuses, I got more)
So here it is HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, because i have to
or (not sure what would fit better)