Hi, D ~ head is fine, stomach is a little iffy. More coffee should help, so hopefully I won't ramble for a really long time \:\)

We still have a really long way to go, but he was really open yesterday and I feel hopeful. I worked so hard to be okay with his leaving and not loving me any more - not that I was okay, but I could see that I might be at some point - and the thought of having to do that AGAIN is almost more than I can bear, should he decide once more that he doesn't love me, or if he can't stay 'clean'.

I will ask him about counselling (H and S left early this morning for yet another baseball tournament), but I don't think he'll want to go that route. Have you ever read The Women's Room, by Marilyn French? Two of the characters have a falling out, and the one who has been 'abandoned' does a lot of analysis about the situation, getting to the point that "she understood it so well that it didn't hurt her anymore". I feel like that a lot of the time - until I really let myself touch the pain of it, which I am not doing very often - I can look at our marriage and totally understand why my H made the choices that he did, especially when I factor in my knowledge about his childhood. I think the more I know, the less I'll speculate, so if he doesn't want to talk to a counsellor, I would really like to continue to examine our history together. I wasn't perfect yesterday by any means, but I did manage to just listen for the most part, and knowing him as well as I do and with the amount of reading I've done lately (and over the years), I think we might make better progress just on our own. The thing that can't happen is nothing, no form of processing at all.

I had lots of times when I felt like I was settling, like there was someone else out there who would be a better match for me, without all those flaws my H has. He said that something he has come to realize lately is that no one/no relationship will be perfect, something that it took me a while to get to as well. Sure, the fit might be better in some ways, but there will always be areas that grate - it's a matter of adjusting to the differences in a way that respects both partners. Realizing that it's okay that I'm not perfect has apparently freed him from the 'need' to keep looking for that perfect person/relationship.

I'm not really into joining things (except for book club, I guess - that's been going on for over 10 years now!), but H and I need to make time together a priority - just get it on the schedule, and do something. My biggest struggle is really the guilt I feel doing things without the kids. That's a small price to pay for keeping their family intact, though - I'll have to start looking at it that way instead: that we're spending time together to give them the solid home we both want them to have, not taking anything away from them.

H said yesterday that he accepted that there would be no way to preserve his relationship with the kids in its present state if he moved out, no matter how hard he tried. That things would change and not for the better.

You are so right about there not being any guarantees. There never are - I could drop dead right in the middle of this word. Didn't though - whew! I read something recently about buddhists 'practicing dying/death' all the time, which I take to mean that they consciously maintain that awareness, that everything is temporary, that the rest of us put a lot of effort into ignoring. With that mindset, you have to be able to be grateful for this moment, instead of living in fear of the next one, in order to avoid turning into a pitiful wreck wimpering under the coffee table.

Two butterflies just flew around in front of my window - I'm regularly grateful for being able to work looking out into my backyard, at the sky, the trees and the 'wildlife'. We do have some pretty frisky squirrels... More butterflies! Lots this year - people must not be spraying as much poison around.

Well, I'm apparently rambling instead of making coffee, so I will go do that. Thanks for stopping by - I really appreciate the time you take to offer your comments.

Crawfish, hey? Now I'll be able to pass for native if I ever get down that way \:\)