amd, Pink, Martha - I've been carrying around your feedback for a day now, trying to work through why is it that this is still important to me.
There must be some pay-off or you wouldn't still be hanging on to it, would you?
Honestly, nothing came to mind immediately. But the more I thought about it, the more the question made sense. There is work and growth here. I look back at the whole 23 year relationship, and see it now with a sense of detachment. Its like it happened to someone else, someone who was only half awake about what it meant to be in a relationship. To some extent, it was too good to be true, and I suppose with hindsight, I can now say, it was because we were both, or at least I was, going through the motions. I see myself hugging a constant reminder of an awakening, an experience that I am still trying to work through. If I let go of the 'compelling event' i.e. being lied to, then my future growth will have to be based on my own motivations, not an external trigger of being lied to by someone I had put way too much trust in.
See! Look at what you did to me? You lied to ME
I've changed the emphasis a little here. I know we all lie, little white lies, some whopping ommisions, sometimes because it is easier. But this is the person who promised never to lie to me. So how deep is his love? Am I taking a risk that there will be other promises he will break? The fact that he will not sit down, and talk through what the affair means to him, now with hindsight, the fact that he still seems to want to just brush the whole 12 months under the rug, makes me very nervous that there is still work to be done here, and I can only do so much by myself.
