tired of this

[A_goodman]

I have been a little unsettled lately. Ever since the incident after MC a couple of weeks ago, I have had a strange apprehensive feeling. It was vague at first, but I have really tried to be introspective and nail it down. I think I've figured it out and it has been weird to consider.

I think the fog is rolling in on me too.

After actually telling her to her face that I wasn't sure if I was still in love with her, I spent all night with an internal dialog running in my head. It was mostly self pity, but there were glimmers of something else. Something more omminous. It wasn't that I didn't love my wife anymore, but that maybe I never did. WTF?

Luckilly, it didn't pop out on me at once. By bits, I've been experiencing a host of WAW script feelings and rationalizations.
Thank God, I've been here for months learning. I can recognize these feelings for what they are. Even so, they ARE very convincing.

Part of my mind is trying to convince the rest of me that: "I was never happy. not really anyway." and "Maybe we were never right for each other." Things that always annoyed me are beginninng to take on a larger life and I'm having a hard time actually remembering how I felt when I was happy. I know I was, and that it wasn't a sham, but as this drags out, the happy memories are becomming dimmer and dimmer.

I will NEVER tell myself that "the kids will be better off", or any other such rubbish, but most of the other parts of the script have run accross my mind off and on for the last few weeks. Ever since that one seminal moment. My "bomb" if you will.

The funny thing is, that I can make a rational argument against it all. Last week at MC, W bemoaned that she felt like I was full of it because I always said I was happy before this. She did not and still doesn't believe it.

I asked MC if he was a car guy. I asked him if he would be happy if I gave him a brand new Z06 Vette. Of course he said yes. So I asked if he would still be happy with it if I broke off the knobs on the radio. He said: yep. OK what if I also made a small scratch in the paint job. Right by the door handle, so he'd see it every day. Still yep. OK, what if he got a flat. Those are not standard tires. Probably run 4-5 hundred bucks a pop. Would he bitch a little? probably. But, would he still be happy. Yes. Deleriously happy. Hell, it's a Z06 forcryinoutloud. That's how I answered her disbelief that I was happy. EVEN though there are things I didn't always like, she was my Z06.

But this is bigger than a knob, a scratch and a flat. for 6 months I haven't had a blissfull moment with her. All this time of impending doom, of, at first, resentment and then acceptance of this, of detesting her for imperiling our children's happiness is taking it's toll.

I am a better man now. I have lost 40 lbs and counting. I am even closer with my kids now. I am no longer a doormat in any way. Plus, by studying here, I have learned to empathize and understand that she is hurt and confused. I've owned my faults and tried to change. I have developed some outside interests and have many many things that I want to do. In many ways I'm the old me again. But the pall that has fallen over us is playing tricks on MY mind now. Did any of the vets run into this? are any of my contemporaries fighting it now?

IS THE FOG CONTAGIOUS?