Sorry I've been MIA. My cable got turned off (which really isn't such a bad thing. lol) and I was limited to when I could get to my friend's. Plus, my kids are going full bore these days & it's hard for me to have a cohesive thought process that lasts more than 5 minutes. It's very frustrating. I keep feeling like I'm going to get deep in thought and write and then *yank* the fish hooks in my jaw are going to get pulled by one of the 4 cherubs living under my roof. :-)
I hate not having internet 24/7, though, because so many times I needed to get on here and run something by you guys or just read until the "storm" passed or something. Now I have time and can't remember what the heck I wanted to say.
I'll just write what comes to mind (this should be interesting. lol): Okay, I did the 2 steps forward, 3 steps back approach over the weekend. Not my finer moment. I was doing good until I saw the wooden boxes in the closet where I keep the love letters, cards and pictures (you know the ones I sent to Iraq to do my part to boost morale for one particular soldier. teehee). I sat down and started going through the box that was all stuff from my H. I laughed and cried and smiled and got the warm fuzzies, etc. Wow, dude was in looovvveee. With me. Go figure. It wasn't just cards and letters from the beginning (and dag, I forgot what a romantic he was back then) but even more recent stuff (up to about 2 years ago). I was reading things and saying, "Yeah, God...him, right there, that's the guy I'm looking for. Could you get him back for me? Thanks." :-) Then I got wondering what ever happened to all the cards and letters I had sent to him in Basic and during deployments. So, I texted him. Never got an answer about basic but was reminded that he had to burn the letters in Iraq for my safety.
I was feeling silly and started texting him funny, giddy stuff. Even took goofy pics of the kids with my phone and sent them. Never got any replies. Started getting scared that he was on a date. I gave up and went about my business. A few hours later, I get a text that says, "sorry, my phone was off by accident" (which I know happens if he drops it on a hard surface) and then he proceeded to tell me that he was feeling better (he had strep). Well, by the time I got that message, I had a couple of glasses of wine and made the dreaded mistake of "drunk texting" him. I had had a few hours for my crazy imagination to have a field day. I read more letters and started wondering if he talks to every woman he wants to be with that way. Then I decided (in my lovely intoxicated state) that I wasn't anything special to him...ever. Mind you, he has never said that. In fact, quite the opposite. But I've never been able to reconcile that with the fact that he has pursued other women online (and most recently, face to face)quite often over the years.
Well, the long and short of it is that we spent several hours on the phone, either talking or texting. We'd switch to texting if either one of us was starting to lose their cool then go back to talking when we calmed down. He let me talk for long periods of time and he really listened. I told him about how I was feeling, reading the letters and emails (I'd print out the really good ones so I'd have a copy in the letter box to read over and over when he was down range)and how much I missed him (yeah, I know...big no-no). Then I was reminiscing with him about some happy or funny times. All in all, the conversations weren't too bad. We let each other talk and we tried listening. Some of the things hurt me but he didn't sound like he was trying to be hurtful, just honest about his feelings. So I let him talk and tried not to interrupt (hard thing for me to do because I'm quite the Chatty Cathy).
There were some comments he made and with his general demeanor that made me think that he has seriously been rethinking the big D. He said that he found himself being very cautious around me because whenever we would separate in the past (nowhere near as long as this, though), we'd make up, things would go really well for awhile and then something bad would happen and a little thing would escalate into a big thing. He said that we are 2 passionate people and our interactions are emotionally charged, good or bad. That's a lot of the problem. He really misses the kids, too. He is going to try to come up here on Saturday because D8 is in a big dance recital. But with the gas prices, it costs a lot for him to put gas in his truck to make that drive.
When the nights' conversations finally ended, he was angry because I had been asking him about OW that he had a couple of dates with and he was fine at first but then I asked him a question and he got it in his head that I was trying to twist his words and trap him so he hung up. I called back and was very calm with him and told him that it wasn't what he was thinking and would he please take a deep breath and calm down. He said he didn't want to talk anymore because it always comes back to other women with me and that no matter what he said, it was like beating a dead horse and that he "knew" I needed to tell myself that I was never anything special to him and that his words and love weren't real, yada yada.... He said something (somewhere in this conversation, I'm not sure which part) about needing to date to help him move on or something to that effect. And I said, "so then you would be okay with me dating someone and/or having sex" (bad, I know, very immature). That made him very mad and he hung up and texted, "F...you". Then he wrote, "as long as they stay away from my kids". I replied with some choice sarcasm (I've got it down to an art, unfortunately).
He said that he was able to move on because he "knew" he had give the marriage a 110%. Say what?? I really had to bite my tongue then. I said that that wasn't true and that neither one of us did. I told him that we didn't really put the time into finding out what spoke love to the other one. I gave him the titles of a couple of books (guess which ones? :-) ) to see what I meant and to understand that divorce is not the solution. Told him about Dr. Harley's book, "His Needs, Her Needs" about the top 5 needs of men and women. I said that we both had needed more instruction and application and that we thought that our passion would lead us.
Finally said goodnight to each other. Next day, he texted that he wanted to try to make it to D8's recital but was worried about the gas, etc.
