Had a lot of time to think yesterday while in the outpatient surgery waiting room as hubby had a hernia repaired. (He’s doing fine, btw.) I don’t think often these days about his long-ago affair since I decided eventually to stay with him. But sometimes it still pops up unpredictably. We aren’t sleeping together. He is down on himself physically,… Read more →
Category: Vulnerability
It felt like torture. Every time.
I went through one completely tortuous medical procedure over and over when I was a child. I can remember the pain and the helplessness to this day. I can even remember the name of the nurse, what the waiting room looked like, and the color and taste of the medicine they gave me. This was when I was in… Read more →
Me, my thoughts, and my little red swimsuit
When I was a little girl, sometime in the first year after my daddy died, my grandmother took me and my mother on a short family trip to a beach a few hours drive from our home. I have pictures of them and me, squinting in the sun and digging our feet into the warm sand. I think the goal… Read more →
How not to cook a frog
I had a bittersweet talk with my husband this morning. Bittersweet because I love him, and he’s trying, but I don’t think he can or will really hear me. I finally mentioned that I had been thinking for about a week off and on about an aspect of his affair. I recalled how he feared his affair partner’s husband would… Read more →
Things I would like to say to my husband today
I don’t want to beat a dead horse and say these things to a husband who already knows how hurt I am and has heard all these already anyway. So I’m saying it here instead: Dear Husband: At first you didn’t even think of it as an affair, as you were “just friends.” Then you had “reasons” for it —… Read more →
The thoughts go marching round and round, hurrah
Communication makes such a difference. I’ve come full circle from hurting over the weekend to feeling at least a little better today. I had a miserable weekend, emotionally speaking. Haven’t had one of those in a while, but it hit me hard. It was bad enough that I checked the Facebook page of the woman who my husband had an… Read more →
Dream a little hateful dream of me
Had a dream Friday night that my husband — in a voice dripping with contempt — told me that I was an asshole. The sneer on his face didn’t fade when I looked at him, shocked and hurt. My older daughter (from a previous marriage) was standing nearby, and in a moment I learned he was dumping me and marrying… Read more →
Leap of faith, fearing danger
I grew up about five miles from town, on a lightly populated rural road. Very few kids to play with unless I got someone to cart me into town. Then I went to kindergarten, and being with all the other children was wonderful. It was a private class in a woman’s home because kindergarten programs were not common in schools back… Read more →
Mental struggles over his affair
I don’t want to convict my husband in the court of public opinion — or even in our private lives — about his affair or other problems in our marriage. He has many fine qualities. That makes it doubly hard for me to mentally and emotionally reconcile his long-term infidelity with the kind man I’ve known for decades. We met… Read more →
Not ready to make nice
One of the most shocking things my husband did during his affair was simply something he said about me. I have not forgiven it. Here’s the context. I think I came out as an atheist around the same time I decided two things: I really, truly was one, and it was time I admitted it. I believe that was around… Read more →