a new normal

[may22]

Wayfarer, I totally heart you.

First-- I *was* able to let it go yesterday and relax and enjoy. Honestly, I feel like I needed to give myself permission in some weird way to put it on the shelf, and you and CW helped me to do that. I think this is an area I need to work on for myself a bit. I feel like it connects in a weird way to those feelings of guilt for not kicking my H out back in January. Like if I was a strong empowered woman I would have booted him to the curb and not considered taking him back till he was came crawling. And now I shouldn't let him get close unless/until he checks the boxes that I want him to check in the order I want him to check it. (Control, there we go again!)

Thinking on your post... I shouldn't be scared that we are going to sweep this under the rug. That simply won't happen. I refuse. That is a boundary for me. But. At the same time, it doesn't need to happen today. It will happen when the time is right. I am not going to let go of my need to get those open questions answered-- this is core to who I am, I always want the information so I can deal with it, whether it is good or bad or ugly. I do feel like I'm in some kind of stasis right now and would SOOOOO much rather have everything 100 percent out in the open, excise the pus from the wound, and start the healing process with that out of the way. I'm generally not someone who spends a lot of time worrying about the past. I think that is one of the reasons why this is so uncomfortable for me and I'm pushing so hard on wanting to dig in so we can move past. Yet another lesson for me to learn. That path isn't possible right now for me, because it depends on H. But there are other paths to healing for both me individually and us as a couple that we are pursuing, and I think I need to be open to those paths as well and recognize that they can have benefit too.

Yail, you said something about not writing my future before I get there and that meeting my H halfway in this is giving him the time to work through things at his own pace. This has stuck with me as well. I realized last night that even though this has been painful and uncomfortable for me, the time and space has been really helpful for him and for us as a couple. A little humbling to recognize the benefit to his approach on this, and the build up of all the positive interactions and connections we've been having through this whole quarantine situation without the drama and stress of talking about the A is helping us in a lot of ways.

But if you want to move past this and get to that MR 2.0 in full there really will come a time when you have to be alone with those feelings and process them and not drag him in to it, because your negative feelings about the A are going to go on far longer than his negative feelings about reinvesting in the MR.

That part at the end.... yes. wow. I totally get you and agree with you on all of this. I just can't quite do that in a way that is authentic to me without more info. That just isn't who I am and through all of this I want to be true to myself.

As to your vision of MR 2.0. I love ya, but I'm going call you on expectations. MR 2.0 is already started in sorts. MR 1.0 died long before you even knew it was dead. I'll give you that this is MR 2.0 beta testing. LOL. Working through the bugs and glitches in programming. But a year ago he was a warm body in your house. Now, right now, he's there, he's trying, in his way, but he's trying. You look at where you were a year ago and 2 years ago and see all this loss and pain. When I read that I thought, my god, look how far he's come. What a d!ck he was...couldn't even pull it together for a day, and today he's trying so hard and my May can't get out of her head long enough to see how badly he wants her to enjoy the day.

LOL. I was thinking about that, that M1.0 died before our 11th anniversary. And, you are right. I gotta get out of my own head on this and stop focusing on where we aren't and focus more on where we are and how far we've come.

I just want to warn you, that he is never going to say he's sorry exactly the way you want him to. He's never going to say I love you exactly the way you want him to. He never going to face his bs on your timeline or process it in the way you'd really like him to. It's all going to be on his time table and in his way at first. It a long road before he'll be ready to show and do things the way you'd like them to be, and then again he may never. This is a meet people where there at thing. He owes you a lot of explaining, and reassurances, and apologies, but there's a good chance all of that is going to come in his way and not yours. Are you going to be able to accept that? And the bigger question I have for you is, are you going to be able to set your pain, fear, anger, frustration etc. over all he's put you though long enough to see when he's giving you those things on his terms?

I think this is part of my H's aggravation around my approach (and TBH? If I'd been less like "well I read every book there is on the subject and am now a full-fledged expert, and in order for us to move forward these 3 things need to happen in this specific order so... you ready to step to it and get with the program??" we might actually be doing more of what I wanted). LOL. I mean, a relationship is made up of two people and part of what attracted us to each other in the first place is that we push/challenge each other and neither of us ever gets our own way. So I definitely get intellectually that M2.0 needs to be forged together, his way as much as mine. It is just easier said than done (right, sister?)

One thing that has been helping recently is to refocus on my original reasons for standing-- the kids-- and remind myself that I've been through a lot and would go through far worse for them. I just need to put on my big-girl pants, cultivate my patience and gratitude and let things happen at their own pace rather than forcing it along. Having all this extra time with them during this quarantine has been amazing. (And sometimes I think how much worse it could have been, if we had gone in a different direction back in January and separated.)

Anyway... the night ended up being really good. We had cocktails outside and I put on our playlist. He suggested a song for this year which was the perfect song. I (still a little in my head at this point) noted that we didn't have one from last year and guessed he wasn't really into picking one out at that time... he looked sad but didn't get defensive or anything, just looked at me. I cried when it got to the song we played at our wedding and he came over to hold me through the whole song. We cooked a great meal together, the kids made puppets and put on a puppet show as a surprise for us, we had a decadent dessert and then drank our beers out back after the kids went down. Had a nice and deep conversation about lots of things, not about our R but about us individually and friends and family the direction of the world and our community.

The spotify playlist (the one full of breakup/love songs that he'd shared with AP) came up (my bad) and he looked a little sheepish said you know, we've talked about this a couple of times, I want to delete it because I know it will help you but then to be honest? I truly haven't thought about it at all. So that is kind of good, isn't it? I said no worries, I'll delete it myself and he said no, let me, I think it means more that way. So we'll see if it actually gets deleted but again, comparing this exchange to the time we talked about it with the MC when he was basically like I can delete the playlist but that doesn't delete my FEELINGS all up-in-arms about it... we have come a long way. And when we went to bed he initiated and for the first time it felt like ML instead of just sex. And I don't think it was just me. He told me he loved me. It did feel a little bit like the start of M2.0.