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

[Dawn of Hope]

MWG, Glam,
Thanks for checking on me and offering your words of wisdom!

MWG, it helps to get your perspective--I don't feel so bad about not being able to forgive instantly! It is difficult reading Charlyne's messages about forgiving your WAS every day for whatever they may have done, and knowing that I haven't been able to forgive H yet for some things that happened years ago! Also, you have a point about Jesus and ultimatums. That helps too.

Glam, tonight I went to that website you recommended and started looking around. I think I am going to need to spend some time soaking it all up and turning it over in my mind. Thank you for suggesting it.

Actually, I may have been unclear about the not saying goodbye thing; it is not that he just looks me in the eye and walks out without speaking. It's that if I'm asleep he no longer wakes me to say goodbye, and if I'm somewhere in the house where he won't see me on his way out, he doesn't always seek me out to tell me he's leaving. If I'm awake and he sees me on his way out, he does tell me goodbye. When he first stopped saying goodbye to me when leaving for work, I would wake up later and think I must have been so tired when he left that I didn't remember him telling me goodbye, but after this happened a few days in a row, I realized he was just quietly leaving without waking me. That was a bit bothersome, but not really surprising. I never criticize him or complain about anything he does or doesn't do...not to his face, anyway, and I'm trying to minimize how much I do it with other people. With him I just try to act as if whatever he does is fine with me.

I think he is confused about why I am being as nice to him as I am, when even though he (apparently) feels that everything he is doing is perfectly justified, he has to know that I am not happy about the sitch, even though I don't say anything to him about it anymore unless I can't figure out a way around doing so. I have been convinced all along that if I weren't being so nice to him, and not trying to fence him in with boundaries at all, he would have moved out long ago, but he's still here, 11 months (and two days) after the bomb.

So many people have said that if they were in my shoes, they would throw his clothes on the lawn and change the locks. I can't believe it's never occurred to him that some people would have that sort of reaction (in fact, for a while he kept asking me if I planned to kill him in his sleep!), but I have continued to be as nice to him as I can manage. Initially I was doing it because I was so scared and desperate, but not any more. Now I do it because I choose to rise above that level, and choose to be the better person. I haven't snooped in months (and I feel better all the way around because of that); now I just need to learn to forgive him and to control my bad-mouthing him to other people!

So...I had a good weekend. I didn't learn a whole lot in my workshop that was really new to me, but I enjoyed myself anyway; got to play a bit with tools and fun products. Saturday I had a lovely dinner and visit with my long-lost friend (the one who got D because he decided he was gay). I also met his partner, who is very nice. Why is it that gay men seem to be, on average, some of the best conversationalists around? They seem to listen better, pay more attention, and be more interested and responsive, and less egocentric, than the average straight man, or even the average woman, I think! Better than me, certainly, although I don't consider myself average! No offense intended to straight men or anyone else, but this has been my experience, and I have met a lot of gay men in the last ten years, because my H is heavily involved in community theatre, and I think there's been at least one gay man in every one of the 30 or so productions he's done in that time (actually he started 10 years ago, but those 30 shows have been crammed into 7 years, because he took 2002 off from theatre, and then the show he is in now is the first one after a 2-year hiatus). Anyway...lot of easy-to-talk-to gay men out there, in my opinion! I think that is part of what makes so many women say "all the good men are either gay or married!"

I have a few work things to take care of this week, plus yoga class tonight, teaching my calligraphy class tomorrow night, and calligraphy study group the next night, and hopefully I'll get a chance to do some homework, because my out-of-town bi-monthly class meets this coming weekend, so I need to get myself on the road very, VERY early on Friday morning. (Bi-monthly means every other month, right? I think so, and semi-monthly is twice a month. I always have to think about this stuff.) Finances have been tightening up a bit, but hopefully I will be catching up on the bills little by little pretty soon.

Well, it's ridiculously late (or early, depending on how you look at it...5:30 a.m.), so I am going to hie me off to bed. I have my moments here and there, but on average I am feeling stronger and more capable bit by bit all the time. My self-esteem is unbelievably improved from where it was for years, up to about January. Now I just need to actually follow through on more of these things I think would be a good idea for me!

Thank you all for being here for me!

Peace,
Dawn