Through the World Barefooted -- Gerda's LBS Guide

[Gerda]

P.S. I don't know if I ever wrote about this but I remember one time before BD, before I had faith, when I was asking H about his faith and what it meant for him and how he came by it. And I remember that he said, "You have no idea how badly I need it, how bad I am," or something like that. And I was like,"What? What do you mean? What did you do that was so bad?" I remember at the time thinking that he was suffering from some kind of misplaced Catholic guilt or from the wounds of his father making him feel like he was such a failure. Now I think that maybe he was in battle with this mental illness or this dark dark side of himself, and he knew it all along, but MLC was too great a pressure and he gave up.

He was also a man that I KNEW would never cheat, even after BD I remember thinking with relief that I wouldn't have to face that, whatever other flaws he had before and during MLC, but of course now I wonder if he was cheating before BD or even further back in the days of our marriage that seemed happy. We were literally always together so I don't think he could have. There was a time when S14 was a baby when we weren't getting along and H came to me all sad and asked if I had cheated on him and I was like...WHAAAA? How would I even have time?! I remember having this almost nice feeling of happiness that H cared if I would cheat on him!!! A sign of how low my self worth was already. Now I wonder if he thought of that, something I am incapable of and which I certainly never had time to do, because he was contemplating it even then, or had done it already. When he went crazy, he continued to accuse me of adultery or other lack of faithfulness just because of what a bad wife I was, without meaning I had actually been with another man.

I've been reflecting on the past to try to make meaning for my present and my future. I know that in some ways none of this matters but I am trying to figure out things about myself, what I did and didn't see, what I allowed, because of my own wounds and feelings of being unworthy of true love from a husband.