Don't Break Character

[Raine]

Respectfully, I disagree Raine. You have been "seasoned" a bit more. You're wiser. You're more relaxed and, well, you are more yourself. More authentic.

And that's when real relationships are made. When everyone involved is real.

I agree. I have been seasoned more, but I don't agree that I wasn't happy and secure before. I was pretty darn great before. But yes, this has made me a better person, when I know I was love, admired, respected by everyone before. I believe that even if I hadn't changed, H would still want who I was then, because he said he never could quit me. He couldn't quit the old me before he even knew this new me. I think who I was before got me through the dark periods pretty fast. I look at friends of mine who have gone through D and As and they are still in turmoil after 2.5 years. Still in that place I spent a month of my life. That deep, dark abyss. I know I've always been strong. I don't think I could have gotten where I am in life otherwise, not at my age. I feel like I was always real before. Now, now I'm not real. Now I'm still holding back the "real" for the time that the "real" doesn't live in anger.

You know the thing I'm struggling with is I felt like things were addressed. I felt like we communicated. We spent a lot of time together, we dated, did things with other adults, lots of family time. I thought we were doing everything we should be doing. We were always doing so much more than other couples. I felt we were so much closer than other couples.

You know, Raine, I am sure you had a great marriage before. I think maybe when we look back at stuff, sometimes, we may not see it exactly as we did when we were in it. I say that because you wrote:

I think that stagnation is what hurt us so much before.

Now thats not to say it wasnt an amazing marriage. Just that there may have been some stuff that needed tending. No marriage is perfect. They all need to be tended to and should always be seen as a living thing.

This is part of the cycle I'm struggling with. I go back and forth. I see the stagnation, but then I see the justification for it. We were both moving very fast career wise. I was juggling that with young kids, who I will never put in daycare. I can see all that and see how we weren't not focusing on the marriage.

But then I look and say, "Hold on there. That's not true!" We went out together once a week. We had people over at the house at least once a week. We did family vacations. We went to church. We went shopping together, ran errands together. I did so many nice, thoughtful things for him. He did nice, thoughtful things for me. If we weren't working, we were together. We have lots of friends. Everyone wanted to hang out with us. We went to bed together. We shared so many common interests. We would watch tv together and a 20 minute show would take us an hour to get through, because we had to pause it to talk about it. And I look at my other friends with kids and think, we were doing a heck of a lot more than they were. We were not living separate lives with separate friends like they are.

Yes, I can see the negatives. I can see when I got frustrated with him. I can see my resentment for my perception of his lack of appreciation. I can see me focusing on major projects where I wouldn't go to bed until 4 am. And I'm thinking, I was doing this for "us." And now I'm thinking, he was probably in our bed, waiting for me to come to bed, talking to one of them...

So it's hard. I see our relationship then being way better than others, but, it wasn't good enough. It would have been good enough for the majority, but it wasn't good enough for us, to prevent this. And I know, CRISIS, and I know it would have happened to whoever he married, but I still struggle with that.

And this "struggle," what's playing out in my mind right now, is new to me. It's taking me back before my MLC discovery, my "a ha" moments. I'm back to trying to reconcile where it all went wrong. And despite the crisis blame target, I think that's a good thing. Just as he is trying to reconcile in himself how he could have done what he did to me and the family, I'm trying to reconcile it all too.

I trust that it was crisis and depression. I don't trust what he tells me all the time, because he's not truthful about the past. And because I don't trust what he says, I don't trust that the crisis is just a one and done.

Yes, I'm in it. I think I tend to sound negative on here, cause I lay it all out there. But I am very happy and positive. Honestly if another BD ever happened again, I would be more shocked now than I was the first time. No, I don't think he is going anywhere or thinking of anyone but me.

FY, I'm quite positive about LBB and sympathetic. H is and has been quite negative about LBB for a very long time. We have hung out a heck of a lot with LBB and crew. I deserve gold medals for the amount of time I've spent with that group. But H is drifting back towards old friends, more mature friends, more relatable. I don't discourage and have been supportive. H has reached out to LBB, who hasn't responded. I don't think neither H or I are up for Jr High games of pouting and silent treatments. I have embraced his friends and gone out of my way to include them and invite them. His friends end up becoming our friends most of the time. We never did become isolated from others in our R. We always had people wanting to hang out with us. It was making sure we had time just the two of us, without other couples, that was more difficult to find.