Has anyone seen my get-up-and-go?

[Dawn of Hope]

Yep, trying to understand MLCers is quite the exercise in futility. I think they realize sooner or later that moving out and distancing themselves doesn't actually solve all of their problems, and disentangling themselves from the spouse is a rather long and complicated process, and maybe not as easy as they thought! Poor misguided creatures.

Just a little journaling...recently I was talking to my mother, who knows about all of this stuff and has been very supportive, and out of the blue she mentioned that she had been looking at H's and my personal website, which H set up 10 or 12 years ago but hasn't been updated in at least 3 years. The main feature of this website is a travelogue H wrote about a trip he and I took to the beaches of Florida, back in the fall of 1997. My mother was talking about some of the things H wrote in the travelogue and contrasting them with his current attitude and actions. These are the passages H wrote that she specifically mentioned:

"You must understand one thing. People who have children often get enjoyment from taking them to the beach or the park or the playground and watching them play. Dawn and I don't have children, but I have Dawn. As an artist, she is very experiential, much like a child. Like most of us adults, she reigns in her unbounded curiosity when we are with other people, particularly those she does not know. But here, on a quiet beach with few people around, Dawn the artist takes over and she greets each new sight and experience with wonder. For my part, I spend this time watching her and enjoying seeing the world through her eyes."

And from the epilogue of the travelogue, in a section written in May of 1999:
"Dawn and I celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary this month. We are still madly in love and pray that we always will be!"

As my mother was pointing out, H sure sounded like a man in love with me and happy to be M to me, and she was telling me that she couldn't understand how he could now be claiming that things had been so bad between us almost from the very beginning of our M. I talked to her a little about the whole MLC "revision of R history" thing, but I felt a little hypocritical, because I don't entirely understand it either.

I understand that when a MLCer's feelings for their spouse change, they have to change the way they remember their R with their spouse in order to justify to themselves their walking away, but I don't really understand how the MLCer can become such a totally different person in so many ways to what they were before. I mean, yeah, people change over time, sure, but what is it that makes an honest, straightforward person, with a deep faith and strong sense of commitment and of right and wrong, turn into a liar and cheater who walks away from the most heartfelt commitments he chose to make? I don't spend that much time thinking about this stuff any more, because it is crazymaker material, but it does still bother me some. As I said at the beginning of this post, trying to understand MLCers is futile, but I confess that I haven't entirely put this to rest in my mind.

I reread H's entire travelogue tonight, while looking for the quotations I wanted to put into this post. It just made me a little sad, instead of devastating me and leaving me in a flood of tears, as would have been the case shortly post-bomb. I think I have managed to put a thick wall around my emotions for the most part, because mostly I feel sort of neutral these days, but there are things that can pull that wall down in a flash. Apparently this travelogue wasn't one of those things, for which I am grateful, because I would rather feel neutral than go through any more of that excruciating pain. I constantly feel like the pain is just waiting for a chink to appear in the wall, and then it will swarm over me and I will be swept away on the horror and agony again.

I think about reconciliation every day. I hang on to the Biblical promises I see, especially as discussed by Charlyne Steinkamp et al. I truly believe that God has the desire and the ability to restore all M's, that God wants all covenant spouses to stay together and love each other unconditionally and help each other get to heaven (as one premarital counselor put it to H and me when we were engaged). I believe that God hates D and it isn't part of God's "first choice" plan for anyone, although God can make lemonade out of the most bitter lemons. I believe that God has a good plan for me and for H, for our future and God's glory. I don't believe that human free will can get in the way of God's plan for our greater good (and in fact I would like to never hear the phrase "free will" ever again).

The only thing that causes me to stumble in trying to say, "Well, it's only a matter of time before God restores our M, so I will just start praising God now for the restoration even though it's still in my future," is that I am unsure whether God will choose to restore _our_ M. I think of the faults I have in my walk with God (like not having regular devotional time) and wonder if that is stopping progress on God restoring my M.

I guess I am afraid that God expects me to jump through certain hoops in order to get the reward of a restored M, and I'm not doing so well with the hoops. I do my best, but sometimes I fall way short. I have a long history of feeling that if I am anything less than perfect in a particular area, I don't deserve any kind of a reward no matter how hard I try. Second place is no better than dead last. Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I give up too easily and have trouble getting things done??!

I am also afraid that God is going to choose not to restore our M, for some reason that I am not going to understand before I pass through the Pearly Gates. It doesn't make sense to me, given what I read in the Bible, but so many people do NOT get a restored M out of the sitch that I would have to be an idiot not to acknowledge the concept. What is the difference between people whose M's are restored, and those who end up permanently estranged? I can think of a long list of things that _aren't_ different between the two groups...but I don't know what _does_ make the difference. Is it that those who are restored always have one person who refused to give up on the hope of reconciliation, no matter how hopeless it seemed? I don't know.

I suppose that some of those reading, probably those not interested in religion and those who have reconciled themselves to the idea that D may be necessary in some cases even for a person of faith, will dislike this line of discussion. And it can be a huge can of worms, and it opens up an entire ballpark of philosophical/religious possibilities.

I don't expect to get everything figured out, and I really don't want to start any arguments, but I am speaking out of my own exhaustion with plugging away and trying to do the right thing even though the returns are distinctly negative (although I fully acknowledge that it could be a whole lot worse). I know I wouldn't feel better if I were nasty to H, but I'm just so tired. Partly I'm physically tired right now, because I haven't been getting enough sleep for quite some time now (stupid screwed-up headcase sleep patterns!), but I'm also mentally and emotionally exhausted.

<sigh> I hate to end on a down note, but I think the bag is about empty for now. I hope someone has some insight and/or something to cheer me up. Thank you for listening.

Peace,
Dawn