Peicing hurts like hell and is harder than...

[LoginName]

Maybe y'all can tell me if I'm kidding myself here, if I'm thinking straight, what I should be thinking.

My sitch is good,and probably getting better. I feel a little like I shouldn't put my problems here because so many are facing much worse. But, I'll throw this out here anyway.

This morning, I was thinking about my future and started to think about my job. I'll be 50 in just a few years, then 60, etc :-) is this a job I could keep as I age? Will I have security of anykind? The company is small and in the housing construction market, so you know times aren't great.

I started this job a little over a month before my W left. When I took this job, I had an offer from another company that would have probably been more secure. The job I did take, I thought would challenge me more and give me a chance to break out of the rut I was in. Luckily, the job I took was very flexible with my work hours.

When my W left, I was able to stay home, get the kids to school, on the bus, be home when they got home.

What would I have done if my job didn't allow me to do that? How could I have taken care of the kids and kept them safe? She gave me 3 days notice that she was leaving. There was no time to make arrangements.

Luckily I was able to keep the kids safe, and keep them feeling safe.

But thinking of this, I'm really getting angry. How could she do that to her kids? I can understand her leaving me, but how could she leave her kids???? What kind of a woman is this? Can I trust her now?

I've told her I've forgiven her. I thought I had. But this morning, I'm mad and I'm thinking she needs to pay for this somehow. She has everything she wants, she hasn't suffered during this (except the pain of leaving her OM). (OK, OK, I know that's unfair, but is it largely true? She hasn't told me or shown me her suffering during the last year).

Have I forgiven her? Should I? Does she need to face what she did?

Should I talk to her about this and ask her what she felt, feels? Maybe I'm assuming things I shouldn't, assuming what her feelings and thoughts are. Maybe she has suffered.

And of course, like all of us LBS, I get the speech about how she is afraid I'll always hold this over her head. How ironic that we LBSers are asked to be strong, be patient, and then when the WAS comes back, we are asked to forget it ever happened and forgive. Maybe that's the hardest part.

I've so much less to forgive than many (although I worry that the story isn't over yet, it seems that almost every spouse who has an A reconnects with the OP eventually, sometimes more than once before it's all over). I did really think I'd forgiven. Now I can't tell. I've got a little (lot?) of anger still in me. What do I do with that anger?

thanks for listening. It helps to get it out, in writing or speaking. I feel less anger already. But still: she left her kids?!?!? I still don't get it.