Hey, Phoenix, thanks. I know you're right, overall things are sooooo much better. I guess I'm just having a hard time that after all this time, they stilla arent where I want them, and I still have a hard time when he pulls back and gets cranky and distant, because it stirs up all the hard stuff and corresponding anxiety from the pre-bomb days when I KNEW he was having an A but he adamantly denied it. and then the awful times when I knew where he was and what he was doing.
now, I do have proof of how much better things are. I havent yet had the guts to go back and read my old threads, they are so painful. BUT, I have almost every email I've gotten from H since about the time I registered on this board in a file on my work computer (not smart, I'm sure) and I read some of them this morning. OUCH!!!! talk about pain. but they are sooooo helpful. I look back and see that his emails were short, businesslike, and to the point. NO affection for the most part. I remember what a HUGE thing it was when he even started emailing me. I would have never dreamed then that I'd get a couple a day with ILY's in them and signed "Your H". I also know now when H and monster had their breakups, and looking back I can see that even in the few weeks they were apart in there, H seldom was warm with me...my guess is he was still waiting to see if she'd call him back (he's told me this)..I think of the hundreds, there may have been 2 or 3 that were warm, and only during breakup times. To my credit, I see that I did a good job after the time I registered here, of BACKING OFF and "being a friend"...mine are friendly but not 'mushy" or "pushy". There are a couple around the 1st week in December of 03 that are, but that's before I registered here and learned all this good stuff
I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, but I keep my old calendars/planners. For the last 2 years I've pretty much marked down when we've ml....and how it went is indicated by code (I know, I truly am obsessive) and I even looked back through some of that yesterday. What I see is that the times that mystified me that h was so amourous (ML 2/3 times/day) were usually RIGHT before and right after he had some big kind of "thing" (trip, activity, etc.,) going on with monster. Only now in hindsight do I have precise knowledged of when these things took place, but between my emails and calendars, it sure documents a pattern.
OUCH OUCH OUCH again but there is proof positive in stark black and white, of how far we have come.
H is still grumpy about work, and it still scares me, but even his grumpiness is DIFFERENT now, partially in that now he talks about it with me, clarifies what is causeing it, and this morning even told me he has concerns about how it affects me.
May someday I will have the courage to go back through my old threads.
