Happy Boxing Day all!

Oh, wait, only us Canuks and the Brits will get that one!

Thought it was appropo to start a new thread before the old one locks out.

Also today was a pretty eventful one!

Not sure I'll get all the details in as it's 2:45 a.m.

Well CJ surprised me with his gift choices this year...an electric toothbrush and waterpick flosser (I'm a bit fanatical about my teeth), a vibrating bath pillow (made me want to pee! ) an awesome new printer with scanner and photocopy abilities (no DVD player!)....and, get this one Pam...a Foot Massager!!! ...No Kidding! And he hasn't been on the bb since July!

The absolute best however was the letter he wrote to me. Unsolicited.

Here's the gist:

He's 100% certain he loves me...he loved me even last year when he SAID he did not!! ...He THOUGHT he loved OW, and a lot of other things that turned out to be false.

He has NOT been in contact with her since Feb, he does NOT misse her...she was a fantasy and an escape...not reality.

He apologized again, said he sees us together for the long haul, that nothing and no one can come between us.

He ended the letter with a list of things he loves about me... ...suggested we take a ballroom dancing course (if me feet can take it)...he looked into it, starts jan 12th! This is something I'd always wanted to do.

He ended with "I love you, S, and I always will".

We had a lovely dinner at my folks with my my sibs, their kids and grandkid...


Then, on the ride home, it all went to hell in a hand basket.

I was driving as CJ had had a few snorts with Dad. On the way CJ tells me about an interaction he had with J (the friend I had a screaming match with on the phone about her controllingness) at the party last night.

J had walked up to CJ and said: "All’s forgiven!"…so CJ said ‘What do you mean?’ and J repeated ‘All’s forgiven!’ ….and CJ said “What do you mean J?’”

Just the way he said this, the tone, something, I blurted out that he sounded like a prick there. Of course he knew J was referring to our phone call blow-out and the subsequent e-mail…but he DID have a point in that J wasn’t being clear, and what did she have to forgive HIM for anyway?

But it seemed to me like in the car, CJ just wasn’t hearing me… Eventually I was actually agreeing with him, she deserved as much….etc…but he just fixated on me calling him a “prick”…and since I mentioned I could smell the booze on his breath…he became “a drunk” too!

The argument continued at home…much to my amazement as it seemed to me, and I said so, that this was the stupidest argument we’d ever had! I even shouted “Yeah, I’m ready to pick J over you!” He felt I was defending, her, that I should be supporting him… he was SO emotional about this.

He said “I didn’t call you a b!tch when you were in that phone call with J!” I said “No, but you could have ‘cause I really let her have it!…Same thing, she had it coming.”

Something was up here folks, not right, out of proportion.

I was yelling, he was yelling, in tears (at the outrage of me calling him a prick and not supporting him?) and I slipped….I threw IT in his face.

I said that He had indeed called ME worse than b!tch or prick…how about “cheater?” Referring to the infamous e-mail he fabricated for OW about my alleged “affairs”.

CJ said that this would forever be held over his head, and I angry, said he’d hold this “prick” word over MY head till the end of time. (Like the one time I called him an idiot )

It was just surreal. CJ was silent, and in tears as we sat in the back room. I said that I didn’t want our Christmas to end this way. I asked what I could do to make it better…I apologized for saying he sounded like a prick, I just got that sense when he told the story the first time (he repeated it all the way home).

Tears fell down his cheeks in a slow trickle as he said, gazing at the wall…"But I have been a prick… I HAVE been a prick."

I said, “I know…I’ve been on the receiving end of some of that but I could as easily say that I have been a bitch, a cold bitch, a mean bitch, a loud bitch, a sarcastic bitch…

I was hoping this might somehow ease this self torment he’d plummeted into…I mean if we’re going to dig up the past, let’s not forget MY little foibles!

I followed him into the living room and sat with him on the couch. He was silent, far away, in self-recrimination mode. I put his legs up over my lap and asked him how far along he was with his self forgiveness…like a %…..Silence. Minutes go by....

I ask him how far along he thinks I am? …..Silence …..I ask him if he does or doesn’t want to talk, or do the math thing. Silence. No eye contact the entire time,

Then for the first time, for a SECOND, his silence, no eye contact and lack of responses through me back to Aug 22 2002, and bomb #1…the exact same look, the same silence and I said…”Now this JUST hit me, but when you said that you “have been a prick”…you WERE talking in the distant past tense right”…

As what if he meant that he was STILL hiding something from me? Man for a second my stomach dropped! He looked at me with such pain and said “Even after that letter I wrote you this morning?”….I just shrugged and told him it was just a flashback due to his non-responsess…did he want me to leave him alone?….Silence….

Finally I ask him if his level of self forgiveness is above or below 50%…he snorted wetly and said “Way below”. NOT GOOD!!!

I looked at him (he was not facing me this entire time) and said “Would it help you to know that my % is above 50%…60%…70%…80%….90%…I’d like to think it was higher but after tonight, it’s clear I’m not quite there yet.

His response was a bit of a let down to be honest. Without looking at me he said “No, it doesn’t help…but it doesn’t hurt to know”.

I finally got the whole picture behind why my using the word “prick” had been such a big deal to CJ...remember me saying I thought it was a rather silly argument?

On the couch I explained to him that for ME…that word refers to behaviour that is intentionally sarcastic, or bugging…. Our pal D is the perfect example…he can argue with you with a condescending tone…or make repeated inane queries…THAT is what I think of when I use that word.

I asked CJ if his definition, perhaps was broader…since I’d thought of a lot of words to describe what he’d done but “prick” wasn’t really one of them.

Well it turns out that “Prick” that EXACT word is what CJ has been calling himself, dwelling on having been such a “prick” etc….”

I asked CJ what his lack of self forgiveness was about. He said that it got back to core beliefs…one of his being that he was a GOOD PERSON. That he had moral fibre (a minimum he said??), that he was “above all that”, that he wouldn’t do the things he did.

I suggested that there was an element of pride there. He took great exception to this word. I’m not sure he understood what I meant.

I told him about many of us LBS on the bb grappling with the pride or self righteousness of NOT having been the one to stray, of being the ones who were moral and good.

I asked him if he believed that ANYONE could be vulnerable to an A, given the right circumstances…He thought about it, and said “Yes, vulnerable, but not everyone would ACT on it.” True.

I went back to his core belief…I told him that MY belief is that he IS a good person, he WAS a good person…but he DID some bad things. Our families, our friends without exception knew and know this. I told him that if I didn’t believe he was a good person, I wouldn’t stay with him, I wouldn’t be here right now.

He said, "on the scale of badness, wrongness, evilness what I did"...…and I, in bad form, cut him off and say…well you didn’t kill or maim anyone…but then caught myself and invited him to finish.

He said “what I did is UP there…and it’s hard to deal with…and it doesn’t matter what ANYONE else thinks or feels…it’s how I feel”.

I asked him if he could see a time when he COULD integrate this…he said he hoped so, but couldn’t envision it….he said, as in his letter, (where he mentioned his lack of self forgiveness) that it didn’t change how he felt about me or us. I said that it DOES have an impact on me…how could it not?

My January trip to Chapters is going to include a tome or two on forgiveness, as my man needs some help!

We ended with a kiss and ILY’s and I came here to journal. Bet I missed 40% of it none-the-less.

I Just got finished writing a 3 page letter for CJ to find when he wakes up...what a day!!

Thanks for staying with this mammoth post!

Shiny