NikkiB #16

[NikB]

Thanks again everyone for your posts and support!! Apologies in advance, this is kind of long between replies and journaling.

Ourcrisis
Thanks, the empathy definitely helps! Interesting how our sitches are reversed, a bit. H was actually not being secretive about it at all at first - but he also kept justifying why it was OK, rather than telling me he was going to further reduce contact. I think that's where the friction came in. During one conversation he asked if I wanted him to be honest and my reply was "I'd rather have you not doing anything that you would need to worry about being honest about" (or something like that). I think that's when the hiding started.

Ellie
Yeah, I guess I knew to expect it but it's harder than I thought. It's hard that he still seems to see no real problem with it (more on that in a minute). I start feeling like I'm crazy. I totally agree with you that I should not have said anything, but I screwed up and talked to him about it last night. Overall an OK talk but I wish I had waited as you suggested. With them working together I KNOW there will be more contact than I want, no matter what, so I will just have to deal with that.

Oldtimer
I have such a hard time looking at it that way. I know I SHOULD look at it that way, but it's hard to do that and keep my self respect at the same time. When I was thinking of it as "things I'll need to forgive if we reconcile" it was much easier. Now it's flat out "H is choosing to both be with me and hurt me, and I am putting up with it." (which starts to sound in my head like... "and I have so little self respect I'm letting it happen, just like I did all last year"). I know, I need to snap out of it, just venting and trying to work it out here a bit.

SuperDad
Thanks for the hug!! You know... on the snooping... while I mostly agree I think there's a point where it's not ALL bad (during Piecing - during LRT I've never seen it be a good thing). In my case yes, in a way it does bring me closer to my goal. My goal isn't just "be back with H" - it's be in a marriage with H that is based on trust, caring, mutual respect, etc. Pretending this wasn't going on was really eating at me because I had this gut feeling something was wrong. So... if my snooping had led me to "the calls have stopped" then I would have dismissed my fears about it as just that, empty fears. Instead I found out that I'm not crazy, my fears/instincts were in fact correct, and there is something more that needs to be handled/dealt with as we move forward. I hope that makes sense. And of course the flip side is, it's not very trusting and respectful of me to snoop... so I do see that there are two sides to it.

Absolutely, in LRT or the "not sure" stage there is NO good to come from pushing on the EA. As we're piecing though I really will need H to acknowledge, at some point, that what happened was wrong. He really hangs on the "but I never slept with her" and I just want to shake him sometimes! I need him to acknowledge it so that I don't have to constantly live in fear that it will happen again because there was "nothing wrong with it." He will sometimes border on saying there was a problem but it's always just something like her flirting too much with him or generally being a destructive person.. never really gets to the core of the issue. I don't "hound" him on it and don't plan to, but it's one of those future R/M goals that I have. I don't even care if he outright says "This was wrong," but I need him to stop justifying it as OK.

And I know.. I feel bad even complaining about this when I am SO fortunate to be where I am, I feel almost guilty when I read the newcomers threads and see everyone struggling in the middle of this stuff. That's actually why I moved over here to Piecing. The "struggles" are very different.

ST
Thank you! I feel exactly like you do... how do we really know? I guess at some point it's that leap of faith but I'm not there yet. And good point about just hiding it better. I hope I didn't push him to do that because I did talk to him about it.

Thank you for the fish advice too! I need to get a better water test kit. I have the nitrite/nitrate and ammonia strips but I think I should get the full test kit to get a better idea what's going on. Sadly I am now down to 2 fish. The one with fin rot started getting some kind of fungus all over itself yesterday, so I moved it into a separate "quarantine" tank (bucket actually, but with a filter and a screen over the top). I treated it with some fishy medicine and it seemed to be doing better by last night - but sometime during the night it jumped out of a very small gap between the screen and the side of the bucket. H found it on the floor this morning. Poor thing, I feel bad. Kind of second guessing if I should have moved it into the bucket but... too late now. And it may have saved the other two fish (who now have NO potential "escape" areas in the top of their tank!).

Nick
Thanks for checking in! Hope DR is helpful for you. Hey now you know one thing about fish - they can be quite determined when it comes to jumping out of their tanks!

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So on to a bit of journaling. Saturday was pretty good as I mentioned with the races, had a lot of fun there! H was really excited that I went, and we had a blast watching the movie of it over and over.

Sunday I took care of my fish, and did some stuff on my own for awhile. Early afternoon H came in and told me about a surprise birthday party coming up for one of the girls in that same group who had the last party. I was excited about it and said "Sounds fun!" but H was acting really weird. Finally about 2 hours later he came and told me "I am just telling you this because I don't think it's fair for you to be surprised, there's a good chance that [OW] will be at this party. She didn't come to the last one specifically because you were going and she knew you wouldn't appreciate her being around."

I really don't know how to respond to stuff like that.. a million things run through my head such as 1. thanks for telling me , 2. I can't believe you even considered NOT telling me; 3. that was nice of her but I still don't like her; 4. am I supposed to be all grateful or something?; 5. why in the heck are you and OW talking about me at all??... and there's more, but you get the gist. I thanked him for telling me and he responded with "So...??" and I said "I'll just have to think about it."

It bugged me ALL day. And yeah, I know, I let it and should not have. I just hate that I feel like the crazy overly jealous woman who can't deal with this "just a friend" - especially when she's so nice and respectful that she didn't come to a party just so I wouldn't be uncomfortable. (yeah right... I've seen her in action, she is far from nice and respectful to me or any other woman in general, but it really bugs me that H is seeing it as such a wonderful gesture).

By last night I had gotten very quiet and withdrawn, just trying to avoid confrontation (bad, bad, bad old pattern). H kept asking what was wrong and finally I told him that I couldn't stop thinking about the party. It got us talking about the OW more and back into "You know nothing ever happened with her, right?" and I said "That's not true, something happened. I believe you didn't sleep with her though." (for anyone who's read my sitch for awhile, sound familiar???).

I then said "So since we're on the subject I just have to ask. Why do you call her almost every day at lunch time and after work? Is it to coordinate where you're meeting each other or something?" H said "I don't do that!" and I said "Babe I see the phone bill, you do." He said "I used to call her every day but I don't anymore, just sometimes." I said "I do appreciate and thank you for cutting back so much, I know you used to call her a lot more. But I'm not OK with you calling her at all. I don't understand why you have ANY reason to call her." He tried to deny calling her that often again and then asked me to show him the bill - website was down yesterday so I couldn't show him then. I won't push it but will print it out if he asks again.

I decided maybe it's time to get a nagging question out of my head so I said "Did you come back home because you wanted to be with me, or because you wanted your life here back? The house, the garage, all that." He said "Both. But I understand what you're saying and I did come back because of you." I thanked him for that and said "I just love you so much and I am so afraid of losing you again. I'm scared to bring this stuff up because I don't want you to run away." He said "I know, and I won't." I said "So here's what I don't understand - you're back here because of me, but your friendship with [OW] is so important to you that you're willing to hurt me and hurt our marriage by contacting her?" H replied "But she's just a friend."

At that point I was looking around for a brick wall to go bang my head against but I couldn't find one. I didn't even really respond, there was no point.

He brought up the party again and I asked if he would go without me if I decided not to go - he said no, it wasn't that important - so I was glad for that.

I stayed calm for the most part and I think overall it was an OK conversation. I REALLY need to get the focus back on myself though. I let this mess up my PMA partly for one day and completely for another day, I let it turn me into a needy, not-fun-to-be-around wife, and ultimately it lead to a conversation that is WAY too familiar.

Sorry to dwell so much on the negative, but thanks for letting me get all that out!!

On the positive side...

- I'm going out of town for work tonight and won't be back til very late tomorrow night. Need the break, so that's good! Tomorrow night I have dinner w/my brother and SIL, which should be a lot of fun.

- I thought I wouldn't see H after this morning until late tomorrow or Weds AM, but he stayed in bed and snuggled for an extra 20 minutes or so, so I could "save up" for while I'm out of town. Awwww!!!!

- H is coming home from work early just so he can say bye to me before I leave. Wow!

- This is not so positive in that the fish died... but H was so sweet about it this morning. We have been kind of jokingly doing a "fishy head count" every morning. Yesterday he proudly came to me and said "I counted, there's still 3, you don't have to count today!" I thought that was really cute. This morning he went to make coffee then came back to the bedroom and looked really concerned. It took him about a minute to finally say "Your fish jumped out of his tank last night." I asked how because it was covered and he said he must have squeezed through a hole. Then he said "I'm sorry. You tried really hard, you took good care of him." and gave me a really big hug. Now really.. these are carnival gold fish, they aren't ever really expected to live that long right? But he knew I'd gotten a little bit attached and I thought it was sweet that he took it so seriously.

So today I'm working on getting re-focused on my PMA and on shaking the rest of this stuff off for now. I will re-evaluate in a month as everyone suggested. Reminder to self: 99.9% positive is a very, very good place to be!!