Jealousy.

Years ago, I kept getting pregnant and having miscarriages. I wanted a baby sooo bad, and it just wasn't happening for me. During that time, pregnant women were EVERYWHERE ... on tv, in the grocery store, at restaurants .... I couldn't go anywhere without being reminded every second that I could not carry a baby.

I feel like that now.

Everywhere I go there are happy couples. They laugh, they joke, they share their "pearls of wisdom." Just like we used to do. I am so unbelievably jealous of these people who have found someone that loves them.

I want a new life. I want to be special to someone. I want to laugh with someone, I want someone to make me their priority. I am so sick of being alone. I have been alone, yet married, for years. He was always caught up in his own life, and he forgot about me. And then, in his perfect narcissist way, he turned it around to make it look like I was the one who forgot. I don't think he sees it even now.

There has to be more than this. This can't be all life is about ... there has to be more than sadness and loneliness. There has to be. Someday I hope I find it.

Stupid.

The man I married came back for a few days, to celebrate our youngest daughter's 4th birthday.

I guess it went well. No one got hit, but Momma did drop a few F-bombs when he was acting like a fool.

Here is the shit I live with every day:

Me: I am SO FRUSTRATED! I have so much to get done! I have to make sandwiches for the party, clean up the--

Him: We'll be back.

Me: But ... what? I was just talking to you, why are you--

Him: We'll be back.

Me: What's going on here? I'm trying to talk to you about how I feel and--

Him: I SAID, we'll be back!!

And then he leaves.

We discuss this later. "I was only trying to help you by getting out from under your feet."

Okay .... but why did you have to "fix" it? Why couldn't you have just LISTENED for once??


Another example.

He acts like he's really into me sexually, but only at night. Fine. I get it, we have a whole bunch of kids.

But for the last few months i have been totally denying him any, and he gets frustrated (but thankfully, does not act like it, or I would probably dot his eyes.)

The other night I decided to share intimacy with him. As we were just barely getting started, one of the children woke up. He went to tend to her, and I laid there and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally after an hour or so I go downstairs to find him, and he's passed out on the couch.

Now why would I want to share that part of myself with you, if it's so meaningless that you just fall asleep, after spending months without getting any?

And then I say stupid things, the first things that pop to my head, and they don't help matters at all.

I said, "You know, there are PLENTY of men out there that would kill to be with me!!"

Is this true? Doubtful. But it wasn't nice to say. It didn't help matters any.

I am so sick of being lonely. I wish I could find a man who truly loves me. But if I'm 100% honest with myself, what I really want is for him to truly love me.

I don't think he knows how. And I don't know how to deal with that.

Alone.

For a long time now, I have felt utterly and completely alone.

Here is a scenario -- if you cheated on your spouse for lengthy amount of time, but wanted to stay with your spouse and make it work, wouldn't you be extremely remorseful and spend a great deal of time trying to make them feel loved?

That's not how it's been in our house. I have communicated to my husband very clearly the ways I need him to behave to make me feel loved. He has communicated his needs as well. I have been working SO HARD to make him feel loved, doing everything I can think of to show him how I feel.

He, on the other hand, is so wrapped up in his own mental stuff that he cannot do the same for me.

And it hurts.

I have tried hard to explain how I feel to him, to make him see that I need to be a priority to him. He seems to understand when we're talking, but then I see no changes.

I am not the one who cheated. I am the one who was betrayed -- so why am I doing the ass-kissing around here?

A few nights ago, we had yet another conversation about how awful I feel about the behaviors I'm seeing. I was completely calm and rational, but he didn't like what I was saying, and he did something really, hideously awful to me. Worse than the cheating, worse than the beating, worse than the lies and backbiting that he's done to me since we first go married, worse than hiding money or controlling me or snooping into my private business. It was truly, truly terrible.

Not only that, but he told me, over and over, that I deserved to be cheated on.

I made him leave. He is no longer welcome in my home.

I have given it my all, done all I can to make this marriage work despite everything, but I can see now that it's not going anywhere and I can't continue to give my all when he will not.

Now I have been no angel. Don't get me wrong. Since finding out about the affair, I have done more than my fair share of yelling, screaming, crying, lashing out.

But I DID NOT DESERVE TO BE CHEATED ON. Period. Because before I found out that my husband wasn't man enough to be faithful, I was a damn good wife.

He tells everyone that will listen that I was a terrible wife, a horrible mother. But he is a LIAR. I have always given 200%, as much as I was ever capable of, to my husband and family. And I think in his heart, he knows that. But for some reason, he feels that he needs to bring me down in order to elevate himself, and that's kind of messed up and infantile.

I didn't deserve any of this.

But for what he did to me the other day, he absolutely deserves to live separate from me.

Perhaps in a few months we can revisit this. Perhaps if he gets very serious psychiatric care we can look at trying to make things work.

I truly feel that I gave it my best shot. I do not feel bad about making him live away from me. Right now, this is best for all of us, but especially for our children.

I am a good person. Perhaps some day those who mean the most to me will see that.

Hatred.

"Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule." -- Shakyamuni Buddha


I know this quote is true, and I try. I really, really try. I try to identify my hatred and isolate it, and then eliminate it.


But I can't help how I feel, and what I feel is that I need to get some sort of retribution. I HATE her, and I HATE my husband for falling into her trap, and I HATE myself for being so gullible and blind, going along living my life and thinking he truly loved me.

I wish it was all over with, I wish I could stop thinking about it, I wish I had a new life.

I wish I could move on.

Intrusive.

I hate my thoughts sometimes. They are so intrusive and I try not to fight them - I try to let them go, without judging them as bad or good or intrusive .... but they keep coming and it's hard.

Sometimes I can't make my mind stop "seeing" my husband having sex with a morbidly obese grandmother in my house while I slept, nine months pregnant, curled up with my babies. It just keeps replaying, over and over, and it makes me sick and it makes me want to lash out and smack him. (Or worse, sometimes.)

Klonopin helps. But that's just for emergencies.

I need to find new coping skills.

Words.

Today I found, unexpectedly, a card my husband gave me in early 2003 - a few months after we met and a few months before we were married.

It made me cry, because of the words he wrote.

If I had only known.

Perhaps if he had remembered, he wouldn't have had an affair.

Here is what he wrote to me:

Rose,
I love you cannot even justify the feelings I have grown to have for you. You mean so much to me & I hope you can see that. I think about you (us) all the time. The life we have & the life we are looking forward to. I know I can be a "slimhead" sometimes & hope you can forgive me for that. I look forward to your touch when we are apart. You are my future and I look forward to it. I am so proud that you are happy. I like when your smiling & not being a turtle. Ha, ha! but to wrap this up all I can say is
From the bottom of my heart,
I love you!

Yours always,
Nathan

New love. I remember that feeling well. I still had that "new love" feeling for him, even after all these years together. I would get flutters in my heart when it was time for him to come home from work, and I missed him while he was gone. Our intimate life was amazing, always full of love and true soul connection.

I had no idea that he had someone else on the side. I didn't know he preferred the company of another woman over me. (He says he didn't prefer her company, but that's hard to believe. If he had preferred mine, he wouldn't have given those moments to me.)

How did we come to this?

How did we get here?

Pulling apart the tangles of our life together, I can see that there were times when I was not as attentive to him as he would have liked. But during that time, I had a nearly two year old, a nearly one year old, and a baby due any day. I wasn't attentive to him because I was attending to our very young children.

I still don't know where to go from here, as far as my marriage is concerned. I don't know if I'll stay with him or divorce him. I do know that I don't really want to be with anyone else, but for now, all of that is still undecided.

It hurts. His words that he wrote so long ago really, really hurt. Because even though I know it isn't true, it feels like they are lies.

Art.

I would like to share with you some of my artwork. I have been very creative lately, and it feels good to get in touch with that side of my brain for once.