I just wanted to post this because it's fresh on my mind and I want to make sure I memorialize it before it becomes just an every day moment in my life that I don't remember. Last night I was up super late finishing up my final paper and presentation for the class in my master's program (Each semester is broken down into two 8 week speed run courses vs the traditional 2 concurrent 16 week courses). H texted me this morning his typical morning "I love you" but he added "I want to tell you I'm so proud of you." I asked why. He tells me he appreciates me a lot and that he loves me. I get "you're my best friend" pretty regularly but proud isn't something I usually hear. I aske H why he was proud of me. He said "Going back to school. Wearing yourself thin and still holding down the house." I'm going to be honest. It made me tear up.

Before I got here, before I read DR. After BD but before I kicked H out of the MR we had a rough night. Not me screaming into my phone in a mall parking lot rough, but rough. I told H I can make changes. I said I can weather this storm if I needed to let it play. I can and will do whatever I need to to save this marriage no matter how much pride or ego I had to swallow to get there. He looked me straight in the eye and said "yeah right." I asked why he said that. He told me I wasn't capable of any of that. I told him I can do anything I put my mind to. I always have, and I always will. If I choose it I make it happen. Then I asked if he really didn't believe I could do what I put my mind too. He said he'd never seen it. Mind you this man was at my college graduation party. He was there because my best friend and I threw our party together, and as you may or may not remember she's the one who set us up. He was with me when I was promoted at my old employer, twice. He was with me when I got my new job in a much healthier environment. He watched me push through dealing with my step dad when my was sick, and even when we only had days left. He watched me run 5ks and 10ks knowing full well this short curvy body was never, ever meant for running. But in that affair fog or what have he could look me in the face and tell me he'd never seen me accomplish anything.

Fast forward to a year ago. H had been quite unceremoniously dumped by OW a couple weeks prior. H was openly looking for apartments, and repeatedly told me it didn't matter that the affair was over there was nothing left in this MR for him. However he couldn't keep his hands off me, and was becoming more like the man I had known every day. I had no idea where I stood with him. I had no idea where we would be in a year. And completely unbeknownst to him I was already signed up to start my Master's program in May.

Seeing how far we've come since the ugliness and uncertainty is so big. Honestly, H openly praising me for working really hard for myself and our future is something that would've been rare in MR 1.0. That H showered me with love and affection but rarely if ever praised my work ethic, ambition and drive. That H often felt insecure about those aspects of who I am. That H often saw my ambition as a threat to his masculinity not necessarily in the traditional sense, but as a provider. H's job provided us to live in relative comfort with or without my income, but his job is manual and the one he took as job during his "gap" year, which ended up not being a gap. H tries to behave as if the money is more important than fulfillment, but I know it's not. Just his ability to move past all that stuff and prioritize my feelings over something like this is really a big leap into MR 2.0.