H deep in A & MLC, need support 4 roller coaster!

[Dawn of Hope]

Glam, MWG!
My homegirls! Okay, that just sounds wrong...! Guess I'm the wrong color to qualify to use that kind of terminology.

Thanks for popping in! Yeah, sorry he is with OW again too, but I wasn't expecting it to end any time soon. Sigh. Well, at least he let me know, even if it was at the last possible moment, as usual these days. I was pretty sure he was going to call me and tell me something like that, so even if I had heard the phone ringing, I wouldn't have picked it up. I could be polite about it, but why should I force myself if I can just avoid the whole thing by not answering the phone? I do sometimes wonder if he is just being courteous or if he thinks I would call the police or something if he didn't come home all night without advance warning.

I try not to think about it too much, but I do wonder if this is starting to get old for him...the sneaking around, living a double life, the financial drain, the guilt that he probably won't even admit to himself yet, etc. I mean, I'm guessing that when he and OW are together he is all happy, because he's still on that romance/sex-induced high, probably, but the rest of the time he seems to be trying to hide his misery. I certainly don't see anything happy from him except when he's interacting with other people, but he's always been good at putting on masks when necessary. People on this board often talk about how they see their MLCers cycling, or acting like everything is hunky-dory, but I haven't seen that with my H at all. With him it's a veil of cool politeness over what seems to be deep unhappiness.

Glam, I have to say that if it weren't for being totally convinced that this (standing) is definitely what God wants me to do, I'd have tossed his things out the door months ago. It's a good thing for him that I don't believe love is a feeling (I believe it is primarily an action, and feeling follows action), because I don't FEEL much love for him these days. The kind of love I have for him doesn't depend on feelings, I have discovered. It is the kind of love that gets you to do right by someone simply because it is right, not because you really believe it is going to benefit you. Sometimes I feel sort of like Abraham following orders to put Isaac to the sacrifice. Except that I wish God spoke to me a little more clearly.

I do have to say that H still surprises me sometimes by doing something for me that I wasn't expecting. A week or so ago, he fixed a flat on my bike that I had been planning to take to a repair shop. I had mentioned it to him in passing (not asking anything of him) and he said that wasn't necessary, he would fix it. Well, it took over a month of good biking weather for him to get around to it, but he did (I was too busy to do much biking anyway). I thanked him and actually initiated a quick kiss, which I haven't done in months. He seemed a bit surprised, but didn't push me away, and I can't tell if it was a good thing in his mind or not. Anyway, yesterday he started working on fixing a special chair that I have been using in my work for over a decade, which just broke beyond what I wanted to mess with a few days ago, and I was going to just try to find another like it. Again, I mentioned this to him in passing, and he started talking about taking a look at it, and I told him, "Sure, if you want, but I don't want you to feel obligated; I was just going to throw it out." He said, "It's okay, I don't feel obligated; I'll see what I can do with it." Well, these are nice things, but I'm not all starry-eyed about it actually meaning he's moving in the right direction. After all, he's almost certainly in bed with OW at this very moment. Ugh. Topic change...

I do need to figure out how to forgive him and release my anger constructively. I need to check out that website that Glam mentioned a while ago. I also have books on forgiveness that I need to read. I do pray about it quite a lot, but haven't heard a lot of feedback from God...unless it's coming through these other routes and I'm not recognizing it as such.

Right now, though, I need to get back to work! Yes, it's 5 a.m., I'm a night owl with a completely wacked-out sleep schedule! So, back to the drawing board (literally!)...

Peace,
Dawn