Hi Mal and Will,

Sounds like both of you are enjoying the holidays. Far cry from a couple of years ago huh?

"So much hope"??? Mal, I guess I didn't look at it that way. I thought the prognosis was more like "guarded". Whatever that means...but then, I've always been somewhat pessimistic. Lord knows I'm still pretty frustrated with where we are now versus where I think we could be.

I keep wanting it to be great...but it's not there yet and I still wonder if it will ever be that. It is getting better though. My rollercoaster h#ll is pretty much over. Went through that for the last couple of years. Now we are coasting in but it remains to be seen if we'll exit from the same side of the car when we reach the platform.

W seems to be doing really well. She's looking for a job, had her third interview with one place and will probably get hired shortly after the holidays. She seems to like this area, likes being closer to her family, and has lost that haunted look she's been wearing for the past three years. If nothing else, that makes it all worth it. It was really scary there for a while.

I guess you are right about that patience stuff. Looking back, I pretty much think that's the only part of this I did OK with. Definitely haven't been the best DBer out there. Just had staying power. No matter how many times I screwed up...just tried again. In my case, maybe that will be enough. We'll see.

The piecing part is hard though. Dealing with everything that happened, trying to build the trust back up, working through some of my own resentments of what happened. I'm just now realizing how much I pushed to the back burner when she was so obviously mixed up. It's more difficult now that the crisis seems to have passed.

I want it "fixed" now. I'm tired of "working" on it. There always seems to be another hurdle. One more thing she still has to deal with before we can be OK.

We go back to the C tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to that. It's been about 3 months of sessions now. W talks about how much better things are going and I seem to focus more on what's not happening. Last time, the C told me I'm not being fair and not being supportive. That ticked me off. I'm no saint and I'm not looking for an award or anything, but for someone who didn't witness the things that went on in our lives to tell me I haven't done enough really set me off. But, like Ellie said, it doesn't do a lot of good to focus on my list of complaints so I'm working on trying to be more upbeat.

I just get tired of it sometimes and have trouble shaking the feeling that I'm the only one compromising here.

But the sun still comes up and I manage to muddle through most days. Sooner or later I'll figure this stuff out...or not. I still have my friend Jack and there are several good cigar shops in this town.....life ain't too bad right now.

OK, enough rambling. Y'all be good and have a Happy New Year!

jstx