You make your own path as you step...

[optimist]

Thank you for visiting Pam, kitti, Kackie, Cathy, Christine, Deb, and Acorn (WOW, Acorn dropped by!). I am fine. I am thinking how to best handle the S in front of our D but apart from that, I really feel calm and detached.

H will pick us up at 9 pm and we are leaving for Houston at 10:30. Tomorrow is his birthday and then comes Sunday.

I do think he needs the space, I can feel him detaching too. But that is not bad... and it hurts less, definitively. And it will be a novelty for him: he has never done what he really wants to do, just what he is expected to do or what is his duty... He told me once that marrying me was the only thing he had ever done really for himself...

Nobody can be happy if it is not from within. We cannot give each other happiness but we can give peace. He needs to find his own happiness before we can have a hope for a R. He lives in a city he does not particularly like, has a job he dislikes and is exposed everyday to all sort of pressures... Add to that the death of most of his family (only his sister is left) in less than 5 years and his getting into the 40s (turns 43 tomorrow)...

I have purposefully refrained from calling my H's life crisis a MLC. I think that if I label him with any kind of psychological term, I am reducing him to a set of expected responses, and maybe subconsciously shifting my 50% of responsibility for the debacle. It is his problem not mine.

The problems in our R were created by both of us. We grew apart, not parallel and occasionally entwined. We were afraid of being rejected by the other, so we stopped communicating. His A was an extremely wrong and stupid decision in his part (I am not going to accept blame for that: I too was lonely and did not sleep with anyone) in which he tried to find happiness somewhere else. But of course we cannot get happiness from others, so he ended up more stressed and more unhappy.

I guess I am rambling... I have decided to stop being controlling and see what happens.

What does controlling mean? Controlling behavior is the need to have people, places and life with "shoulds" and "ought to be." Not expressing your feelings honestly, but with self-centerdness and manipulation of the environment around you. Feeling okay if things are the way you want them to be regardless of the needs or desires of others. It is a behavior that comes from fear -- fear of the unknown, of "falling apart" if people and situations are not the way you want them to be. It is a symptom of a family or systems dysfunction.

I found a neat little hand painted card for H's birthday. It says "I will go anywhere provided it is forward" And it is true. I will learn from the past, but I cannot let it shape my future.

I am a bit sad today for reasons that have nothing to do with my M. I received an e-mail from my mother yesterday: my brother and his W just lost a baby for the third time in 2 years. They do not seem able to get a pregnancy beyond the 3rd month. I ache so much for them... they've wanted a baby so much and for so long...