I am titanium

[Raine]

"The things that people in love do to each other they remember, and if they stay together it's not because they forget, it's because they forgive."

I've gone back and started reading reachingHigher's thread, starting with Where the rubber meets the road.... I read that originally at the time, but I was in such a different place. My sitch was in such a different place. And now I'm reading it and seeing so many parallels. But I am not trusting anything. And I realize that is the best place to be anyway. I see my posts in that thread back to rH and realize at that time 10 months ago, I had tons of hope. I didn't know anything compared to what I know now. And I still feel like there is tons I don't know and may never know. It is interesting to go back and read that and see how rH's H was still so much on the fence and seeing all of the emotions he had, how tears came to the surface easily. This is what I'm experiencing with my H right now too.

He continues to be more attentive and aware than ever before, even before MLC. He has offered to watch the two youngest, even the baby, so I could go and play with a group I would classify as "his" friends. I have never left him with the baby. He is calling the boys daily from work to check on them and make sure they're doing homework. He is calling me too daily, but there is always some reason for it, some question to ask that has nothing to do with me.

H and I spent all of last weekend together. About seven hours of that was in the car. And lots and lots of stuff came up. Trying to push down the anger and hurt and resentment is far more difficult than I ever imagined.

He controlled the music the entire time, and he had albums picked out he had saved just for this. Lots of songs about hope. A song he has played for me before when we were S that talks about there's no point in trying to change his mind, but if I ever call, he'll come running and fight to be at my door. He talked for awhile about this song. He said that he never realized how this song was him until I pointed it out to him. I never said otherwise, but I never pointed this out to him before. He did back during S. He is the one that pointed out how it related to him and that I should focus on the he would come running more than the mind made up part. Fact of the matter is, I'm his wife. I shouldn't have to call. I and the kids should not have had to go through what we did without him. But we did. And I'm not asking.

It's becoming very apparent to me that H too is a fixer. He likes to fix, solve, make others happy, even at the cost of his own happiness. But there is a clear feeling there towards me that I don't need him anymore. I don't need him to fix me. I don't need him to make me happy. And his slew of OW all did. All are messed up, insecure, Daddy issues, etc. A fixer needs someone to fix just as much as the other needs to be fixed.

We got into it a bit during this time too. Not fighting or angry, but he said one thing and it was an opening, and I dug in. All related to this concept of him being a fixer and part of that being that he likes to compliment other women. I had complimented a stranger and he told me he liked that I did that, cause he wanted to, but felt he couldn't. He was being sensitive to me. He is aware that I have sensitivities in that area and he is being careful about that. And somehow that convo start ended up at me saying I feel like the only reason he friended these two EAs on FB is because they were easy. He said absolutely not. Yeah, whatever. He doesn't know that I know about it reaching that point with them, so of course the hiding it just makes me more annoyed. I don't know how I went that far with it, but just a testament to the bottled up hurt and anger I'm feeling towards him and all of this. Innocent is not innocent anymore. That so much of me and my easy going nature has been destroyed by this. That things that would never bother me before, bother me. I don't want that. I don't like being like that. The one thing I thought I had with him was honesty, and to feel like the last three years have been full of lies, that's really difficult for me.

Lots of random stuff came up. Almost like he too has been holding things in he wants to tell me, but waiting for some moment to do so. He told me that he has never felt like he settled for me when he married me. I told him I never doubted that. I said I never felt I did either. He then said, "But you do now." I said, "No, not even now. I'm just sorry you got to the place you're in." We both ended up getting emotional. He said we shouldn't talk about stuff because we both just get upset. He also said he tells people what he thinks they want to hear so he can end the conversation.

He started talking more about counseling. I get the sense he told the C about the cheating and about the fear of being judged for it. He said that the C said that no one should judge him. H talked about it not as a right or wrong but as a taking control. That H did what he did to take control and made decisions that were his.

H said that it wasn't all about me being the one controlling his life but that he felt he had no control of anything.

I told him that there are lots of things I have done wrong. That I have hurt people. That for me to judge someone else means that I should then be judged too. And I don't want that. I said that I need to make amends and seek forgiveness, mainly for myself, so that I don't need to live with that.