Afterall...this is MY life II

[heatherg]

There is a lot being said here about boundaries, I know I still have a lot to learn. However, I am learning every day to be clearer and clearer about my position on things. I am not convinced that I haven't done a relatively good job on the porn issue. Saying I am not clear on the issue is not true-I am clear on the issue. I am not necessarily clear on the whys of the issue, but that is not uncommon and does not mean I'm a doormat. I have taken time out to do nothing....although you may see that as failure to enforce my boundary, I see it as a huge improvement over where I used to be because I used to 'react' to just about EVERYthing. I am growing, taking time to just feel what I'm feeling, stand by what I feel, consider my options. Corri, you know where I've been, so surely you must see the improvement in that?

A rather monumental event happened the other night, I am still trying to process it....I have such mixed emotions about it. But my emotions are being dealt with separately from my behavior on the outside. It is now time to act 'as if' and I'll tell you what happened.

Monday night I went to bed with my kids and H stayed up-Mondays and Fridays are "H's nights", he stays up late, drinks, watches movies, plays video games, whatever. I just go to bed. My son wakes me up at about 12:40am for a drink of water. I get up....and catch my H sitting on the living room floor in front of the tv, ahem, putting himself back into his pants....very quickly. The DVD player had been shut off in time, but don't think I didn't know what was just going on. I just acted like I didn't notice, got my son a drink and brought the glass back out to the counter. By that time, H had gotten up and tried to busy himself down the hallway. I went to the DVD player, got out what I needed and snapped it in half. I took it down the hallway and said 'Don't ever bring this [censored] into my house again'. He said 'Fck you'. I just walked away. I was shaking, my heart was racing. I am telling you, I could have thrown a car.
I went for a walk. Calmed down some. I came back and talked to H. Much was said, all in a very calm and controlled manner. We were both obviously trying to point our effort at damage control to our M rather than cast daggers at one another. All in all, it came out very well. H told me it was completely, ridiculously preferable to be with me and I assured him I would be available-if he promised no more porn behind my back. No more seeking out pictures of naked women. Sexual satisfaction will be kept inside our M....I don't have negative feelings toward satisfying yourself from time to time, but without aid from porn. He agreed to try it after thinking of every reason in the book why it wasn't going to work.

Corri, when I snapped that DVD in half, on some level, even through my cloud of anger and hurt and disbelief, I thought of you. I did not feel like I had the authority to do that the first time I found that disc because I was snooping and it was not my property. I can tell you I had no difficulty with it on Monday night.

I am feeling oddly disconnected about the happenings....finding my H in that position is not one of my fonder memories. This all would have been so much more meaningful if he had just told me the truth the first time when I asked him about porn a few months ago and he lied. I felt so loving toward him and we were in a really, really good place. I don't exactly feel loving right now.....finding him like that just gave me a visual to everything I've been thinking about all these months. It's just numbing me, making me feel totally distanced from him. But this is a great accomplishment for our M and I will act 'as if' until this initial emotional turmoil dies down. I know it will. We've already resumed much of our affections toward one another.....but I still feel very separate. Maybe that's a good thing.