The Big Hill

[Pudmuddle]

Thanks a bunch Betsey for checking in on me. It's hard to know if the concern is real or not...more below in my most recent rant.

Aa, thanks for stopping by. We all have the ups and downs too, we can't be sunshine and rainbows all the time especially with all the traumatic stress we are going through too. Let yourself be down once in a while, it helps to heal.

Ang, I try not to overthink this, but as we all know that is DIFFICULT. See rant below.


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Just kickin' around some thoughts today.

Have a very slight cold/sinus thing going on, but it seems to be affecting my mood. So I've been very quiet and introspective the past few days.

Since my H has given me two seriously good hugs lately, it kind of got my mind to racing. About what? Well, I am having issues with trusting what I am seeing right now. Perhaps trusting myself enough to know if he is pulling one over on me again or if it is on the path to sincerity.

For those of you that don't know, he had done this type of A awhile ago, but back when we were attempting to have an open relationship. I see now, since he initiated this OR request, that this was his way of cheating on me but making it look like it was ok. This was his way of dealing with when I attempted to have an EA with someone at work because I was so lonely for my H emotionally. (Didn't work by the way, one-sided on my part, but still the attempt was hurtful). I honestly thought at the time that the open relationship was an experiment on his part to find what he was looking for. But after we had decided, yes both together, that this was not what our marriage should be built on, nor did we believe it made either of us feel any better, he chose to continue seeing someone behind my back and did so in secrecy for quite a while, without my knowing. I trusted him to believe in what we had told each other., that we would never do this to each other again because it felt so awful.

After I discovered his 1st A, I at the time decided to continue seeing a divorced male friend from work. Hence we both had PAs. Mine was more of a revenge A because I was so hurt by H. After I found out about H's 1st A, and then the months that followed where I was db'ing and he wanted to return, he stopped seeing her and broke it off. The guy I was with saw me more as a booty call and would call occasionally and I took a few months to break it off with him, after my H broke his A off. (Plus the guy was a complete mental case about R's).

I think H was hurt that I took awhile to let go of this guy but he never told me this and I was insensitive to his feelings too because of the hurt inside. Because a few months after I had closed that chapter, he mentioned that a female friend of his at work asked if we were still in an OR, and he said yes! And they had discussions on how to get together and have s3x, which never transpired because she ended up moving out of state. But still at that point, I was more than hurt and betrayed.

So at this point, I'm like wtf? I keep thinking we are done with his way of handling hurt and pain by running off with others and then I get another bomb in my face. I think, no I know, that I did not like myself enough at that time (7 years ago) to know what my values were and I was so mixed up by his choices of having an OR and seeing OW and all the secrecy and lies.

So fast forward, here we are again. Our marriage was going downhill and he again chooses to solve OUR issues by running off with someone else because they had a 'mutual attraction'. wtf. People say he doesn't 'choose' this behavior and I find that very difficult to understand. Doesn't he choose to deal with his pain by finding someone outside the marriage for a temporary bandaid?

And the idea that he has done this more than once is a disturbing pattern to me. Will he ever find it in himself to really look deep inside and WANT to fix those things that are painful and hurting? I am not sure. At this point, I don't trust that he knows how to fix this in himself. Or how to even begin doing this.

So I am more worried about knowing how to set boundaries with him again, IF we should get to a reconciliation point and have those boundaries actually mean something to him this time. I can see now that in the past I was not strong enough to set boundaries with him. Even though I do remember discussing boundaries with him, it's like it didn't stick somehow. For example, when I had told him weeks ago that if he wanted this lifestyle he needed to move out and live it, he never did anything about it. He is still here, he is still (appearing) happy as a clam, and as far as I know, still seeing Floormop...So does he not take me seriously about having boundaries that we both must agree to? Is it something I portray that he doesn't take our marriage seriously anymore? I wonder about this because it did not seem to take last time and I don't want to repeat this again.

This is why I have such a strong urge to set more boundaries with him. To show him that I am serious about our marriage and serious about him working through this in his own way, but getting some help for his runaway issues. Ick.

Any comments, deep questions or experiences on this welcome.