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Kiwi, no doubt about it, I know I harbor resentment. I know I feel I have been wronged, I know that I want H to acknowledge and tell me he is sorry. You know how that feels. I also know it will most likely never happen.




Oh, WCW, boy do I know how it feels! Confirmed PA and, according to the neighbors I've run into who think I really want to know this stuff, I think my STBX may be pregnant by OM...or at least trying. And they are living in my house while I'm in a crappy apartment. And she is doing her best to clean me out. You wanna talk about being wronged?!?!

I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds...given my situation, I totally understand being angry. I've thought more than once that if I ever met OM in a dark alley I would put a stop to all of this "right quick" if you know what I mean. And you know that I'm a fighter so I could do it too. I *struggle mightily* with anger. You know that I decked him and I've been so angry that I literally couldn't see straight...it really happens...not an exaggeration.

It sounds to me like when he backed off you got a little frustrated and maybe wanted to lash out at him...for him to hurt like you have been. Is that about right? If so, I *totally* understand that too. I think that that is probably pretty normal if not at all constructive when it comes to the DBing.

I can only tell you that my healthiest moments are when I'm able to let go of that anger and the feelings of being wronged and just let it be water under the bridge. Sometimes I feel like I've forgiven STBXW, even in the midst of her trying to take everything I have, and sometimes I swing back to seeing red. The important part is to recognize that that will happen and to have the skills to deal with it when it does. In my case, it is how I am trying to heal and move on. In your case, I think that you need to let go of that victimhood, even though you may be justified in feeling a victim, in order to make the next jump in your ability to DB. It sounds like he is very sensitive to what is going on in your head and might be scared to recommit because he doesn't want to be beat up emotionally. For the both of you, I think it would be great if you could let that anger go.

DonH and some of the others on this board have mentioned getting in touch with God. I'm not much for faith but I've been spending time learning to meditate and trying to really internalize some of the buddhist teachings about living in the joy of the moment. Recognizing that the external situations only make us unhappy if we let them. Whether the vehicle is Christian faith or buddhist philosophy or whatever, the destination is the same: being calm, being in control, and having perspective.

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So let's imagine, in a world of puff and fluff, that H starts coming back, I mean really coming back. H hugs me, then maybe a kiss, then he comes in our bed, and wants to be intimate, and he stays and wakes up with me in the morning. We hug goodbye, and he says he can't wait until we are both back home tonight. This goes on, a day, a week, a month. I win. I get him back. THEN WHAT? What will I do with him? I love the man, I love the life we created, but I am really doubting ME to be able to truly forgive the past. And he probably knows that about me, he knows me, he reads me, he's smart. And THAT is probably the biggest reason he won't try. And I can't, or don't know how, to change that, to change me, that somehow he can be comfortable enough to let me at least try to forgive. And can you believe this? here I am again wondering if HE will let ME try? is this warped?




Take control for yourself. Let go of the anger for yourself. Don't let him determine your course. Whether your H recommits or not, you will be much healthier for it. And, if you are successful at letting it go, the probability that your R will improve is much better. That's detachment and GAL. It is a win-win.

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Having said that, something else is changing. H is talking more, just general conversation stuff, nothing detailed or about him, but general. He even made a phone call in front of me to ask someone to come and help last night with some things, something I had offered to help with but he was going to do it himself. I debated, when they got started, if I should just join in and help too. I finished what I was doing, and before I left the barn/arena from riding a van pulled up to the barn, it was a friend that needed water because their well pump quit and it wouldn't get fixed until today. They left, I went to look up what was going with H's project. I poked in for a minute, talked a bit, left, and then a little later went back, and when I walked in H asked if I was helping, and I did. The three of us spent the next couple of hours working and discussing ideas about this project, like a future. Seemed almost normal.

After we got in the house, H asked who was in the van that drove thru the yard. Funny, he wondered who came to see me?

Sunday morning, we had a family get together and big breakfast at my folks place. It was great! I had let H know, sent him a copy of all the emails back and forth. I was getting ready to go, and he finally came in from outside. I asked if he was planning to come to breakfast, he walked down the hallway, looked at me, and said, 'yes, I was hoping to.' It was a little weird, like he half expected me to say he couldn't. I don't know, it was just different. We went, had a great time, laughed with, laughed at, got laughed at, it was good. Totally irrelevant to anything here but funny story, at least in my world. My sis is a dairy farmer, non-married, works her butt hard but has no knowledge of technology, even worse than me. No computer, no email, not a clue about any of it. We tease her a lot. Sunday, she walked in to moms with a suitcasey sort of thing, turns out it was an old manual typewriter she had borrowed from my mom. Joke of the day, it was sis's Amish laptop, and that's how she got her moomail. It was really funny yesterday, H's humor.

Tonight H came home from skiing, the most pleasant return from skiing this season. H sent me a link to a blogspot thing he made of pics from yesterdays breakfast. Good pics from his cell phone camera, and his captions are good. I was holding one of my great nieces on my lap, and she had a pacifier in her mouth looking direct into his camera with such a look on her face. The caption is "go ahead, I dare you to pull this thing out". It's great.




Somewhere on one my old threads someone mentioned that the things that we remember the most (the nights out, the vacations, etc.) end up being only about 5% of a marriage. We focus on the wrong things. The other 95% of the marriage (tending to the house, tending to the farm, folding clothes together, talking at dinner) are where the *real* bonds are made. Are you mourning the absence of the 5% and missing the opportunity to create good feelings during the 95%? Maybe not. It sounds like you guys have had some good interactions lately. But perhaps keep that 5/95 thing in mind?

I think there are some real improvements in your situation lately. I think that if you focus on making that 95% good you will be getting the 5% soon enough.

Hope that this doesn't come off as presumptious or anything like that. I'm just offering my perspective based on the post mortem of my marriage.