Piecing Advice

[SDFoundGirl]

In two weeks it will be a year since stage one of the bomb. The one where H picked me up from my school when I got home from a week trip with my students and told me, "We need to talk." The one where he didn't tell me everything, the one where he told me what he wanted. And for a month afterward, I did my best, and it all culminated with him withdrawing more and nearly leaving. Left my head spinning, confused, because for the first time, he'd asked me for something, I was giving it to him, and he wasn't happy.

I see now where his head was, why that happened, and I don't even regret it. But still...I'm a few days from the class trip again, two weeks from that anniversary, and I find myself withdrawing a little bit....

But it's different now. Today in MC I told H I knew I'd been pulling back and had taken some time to think about why; MC said it was totally normal for me to be feeling this way. I also talked about what *I* needed, and H was nothing but wonderful. We are in such a different place than we were a year ago, and that is something to celebrate. *I* am in a totally different universe, a much happier, confident person. It was worth it.

It was worth it though I anticipate a really hard summer as I acknowledge the milestones...a year since I finally found out he didn't love me anymore in June, a year since he wrote me a letter, asked me to let him go, told me he didn't know if he'd ever loved me, and almost moved out last July; a year since about a week after that when I discovered the love letters he was writing to another woman; a year since an awkward anniversary and birthday; a year since I almost let him go completely and almost decided to move on with another man. A year since...so many of them, so fresh in my mind, like a wound that stuck to the band-aid once I'd finally worked up the nerve to pull it off. A year of milestones only I have, that my husband doesn't quite understand.

And though I'm happy, there's still a long way to go before I heal, before I don't think about LW everyday, before I don't wonder who is calling him on his phone, before I feel like I can trust him 100% again. For anyone lurking here, this is slow. Acknowledge your feelings instead of trying to hide them; they're there for a reason. But instead of being reactive, do something about it. Ask yourself WHY you're having those feelings and figure out a way to make it better.

Today I asked for a lot of things I need to feel loved, and H said he would do whatever it takes. I have to remember he's a Good Man no matter what happened during the summer of 2006. We've both changed a lot.

I just wanted to chronicle this here so I could remember.

SD