Same Sitch. New Approach. Motivated. Feeling Good.

[Chris73]

Recovering this morning from an awesome GAL weekend. 2 nights in a row of going out and playing guitar. Saturday night was an open mic/song circle, last night was an open blues jam. Had a blast both nights, made some new friends, and forgot about my troubles for a while.

W's behavior has been interesting lately. She's pulling back a bit and becoming slightly argumentative in our conversations. Nothing that would start a fight, but just enough for me to notice. I haven't changed my behavior at all... Still pleasant, still trying to connect, still remaining neutral with her social life choices, and staying out of her business. So I think she's probably testing me a bit. Trying to get me to show some of my old behaviors. So far it hasn't worked. If she starts to debate me on something I respond with some sort of validation and let the topic drop.

Yesterday she and a girlfriend drove down to Baltimore for an overnight. They met up with other "girlfriends" once they got down there. Were there men involved? Who knows. She would say "no" if I asked her, but I wouldn't believe her anyway. So I'm trying hard not to care that much (or at the very least, interrupt my thoughts with something positive if my mind starts going down a bad path).

Ultimately, I don't think knowing the truth would be of any benefit to me. Trust has been broken, she's not doing anything to try to rebuild it, and if she really IS involved in a romantic relationship with someone else she's definitely keeping it a secret from most of the people in her life, and relationships with foundations based in deception never last.

In other news, after a lot of soul-searching I decided to tell my mother about my sitch. I know this is typically frowned upon but the level of deception was getting out of hand. My mom has done so much over the past 8 years to help and support our family and suddenly she's being cut out of the loop without any good reason. Trying to make up excuses for why the dynamic had changed was becoming arduous, so I sat her down yesterday and gave her the story in broad strokes. No discussion about cheating or any of the other things that might change her opinion of my W, but simply that we're having problems and that my W is unhappy.

Obviously she was upset, but also very supportive. I swore her to secrecy and insisted that her behavior toward my W should not change at all, and I trust that she will abide by this. She a very wise, compassionate, and level-headed woman. It's great to have another support person in my corner and I'm happy to get rid of the stress of hiding it from her. The news wasn't a surprise to her. Anyone who spends as much time interacting with our family as my mom does would notice that something is wrong.

Anyway, time will tell if I made the right decision. It's definitely a betrayal of my W's confidence and probably a bit selfish of me to unburden some of this on to my mother. But I think continuing to lie and leaving her in the dark to wonder what was going on wasn't really fair.