bleh, I don't know why it's so hard....I felt pretty confident at home over the weekend, that he seemed sincere. Today I havent heard much from him, and I feel anxious....worried I guess that I'm not hearing from him because SHE is (that's happened before) and that it will start up all over again (that's certainly happened too...). So much for my new-found peace and detachement. it's still there, just a bit wobbly, I guess.
Dear dear Fizzle - I can understand the mixed feelings. I still get panic attacks, sometimes triggered by apparently nothing. Not so long ago, I caught a re-run of a 1984 Robert de Niro and Meryl Streep movie, Falling in Love. Both were married and pursued a relationship with each other. It was tough to watch, but impossible to flick over. Thankfully I was with a couple of girlfriends and not NG. But it made me think about our fears and how they control us. Other people's choices are simply that, ultimately it is our fears that hold us hostage.
I remember the roller-coaster ride, and in the end, I had to just sit down, list all the worst-case scenarios I could possibly imagine, and then have a plan for each of them. I'm sure it did not change the course of events, but it made a huge difference to how I felt on a day to day basis.
Hi Ellie, thanks for checking on me...and all of you. I've been in kind of a whirlwind and funk....yesterday was a tough day....for some weird reason I was really down, just kept crying. Actually I got a lot of details (unsolicited) from H...and it stirred up a lot of mud. I don't have time to post much right now, will try to update tomorrow or Wednesday. I do believe that H and monster have parted ways, for the moment at least...I got these two emails from him today:(excerpts from emails here): I'm just having a tough day (talks about work-related stuff) Deb, I sure love you, you've always been there for me through the thick and the thin of it. I can't say that about one other single person on this earth! Thanks for your love, care and support! Your H
when I replied I thanked him for his patience yesterday...then got this back... It's okay Deb, yesterday was just a strangely down day. Oh well, I agree maybe this weekend will be a really nice one! You don't have to worry about the monster, truly I've had it with her and told her as much! There is nothing she could say to sway me back, I see the liar for what she is! I love you and I'm sorry for all the crap earlier. Your H
So, I don't know....I have seen this so many times before, but other than this outburst, he seems so much more unemotional about her, that it does give me some hope that perhaps this is really, finally it. I sent an email back saying that I was guessing that she was in contact today, I havent heard anything back after that....but I can smell it a mile away after all this time.
We do actually have 2 activities planned (recreational besides sex) at H's idea, believe it or not....one for this weekend...one for in November....that is a big big change, although it will be family stuff, the kids with us, and probably his folks on one...but that is such a change from the days he hid out from any contact....
on the weight side, I have my fingers crossed....I started a diet called medifast a week ago today....I have actually managed to stay with it....and my weigh day isnt till tomorrow, but yesterday I was so discouraged I got on the scale....at the "heavy" time of day for me (I can weigh 10 lbs different at different times of day) and fully clothed ( I usually do it in my bday suit, scary as it is)and my weight was about 2 lbs lower than it had been. So we shall see. my fingers are crossed. and toes.
House is improving in teeny tiny increments. very teeny and tiny sometimes. but at least moving in the right direction. Finances, maybe a bit better...too soon to tell, except maybe I have a clearer picture of where to start.
Fizz - How are you finding the Medifast program? My H's nurse just lost a bunch of weight on it, and I was at a conference last weekend where a nutritionist made a presentation about it. Seems to work for a lot of people. I'm a little leary about the idea of doing it myself, because it contains a lot of soy protein which isn't great for those of us with thyroid disease, but I could sure see the advantage of having my meals all figured out for me. I wish you fabulous success with it!
As for H - maybe this was all just an extravagant hiccup on the road to reconciliation. Most returned spouses seem to have some difficulty cutting off contact with the OP - I guess your H just likes to take things to extremes! Was he always an overachiever like that?????
I still havent had time to update. hopefully tomorrow...but...about the medifast...I may love it. I weighed yesterday am....I lost 10 pounds in about 8 days. couldnt believe it. got on the scale, got off, got on, got off, repeated process about 6 times because I thought I was hallucinating. surprislingly, I've been much better able to stay with it than other stuff, not sure why. and I am not usually very hungry as long as i eat every 2 hours or so...yesterday I was out at a conference and not able to do that, not able to drink much water, and it was hard and I was hungry. I am hopeful that this may be what I need to get me going...most of the "food" is pretty good...I like soups and stuff like that though, so that helps, it would be hard if you didnt. the oatmeal is great (and I don't like oatmeal), choc. shakes and puddings are great...some of the soups i've found are much better if I make them the night before, add xtra seasonings, and refrigerate overnight, then I take them to work and add more hotwater. so, we will see. I think I can see a teeny bit of difference around my waist and neck already. I know I am terribly impatient, but the damned A has taken every ounce of anything I ever had in that dept...so I need to see progress in other areas of my life I tackle.
Something that is weird though. I can't explain this, but....I feel for the most part better after a week and 1/2 on that diet. I dont' know how/why that would be, but sometimes before I was so tired and draggy. now I'm not...I get tired, but it doesnt seem to be the "constant" stuff. hard to explain. The only thing I can think is that the stuff is so fortified with nutrients, maybe I'm getting something now that was lacking. There's no other explanation. Cost is a worry, but somehow maybe I cant figure that out.
Slowly, thanks, it helps a lot to know that you still get panick attacks sometimes. It is weird and catches me off guard, but sometimes when things are going well I find myself being overwhelmed with hard, upsetting -and panicky-feelings. sappy music in the grocery store really drives me up the wall, of all things. I am going to try listing out the worst-case possiblities as you mentioned.
gotta run, maybe I can get back for a bit this evening or in am.... I did have an email from H, he hacked into monsters personal ad on the net and really messed with it...sent f-off emails to guys, and changed her password. sigh. That concerns me, because he's been so emotionally detached from her the last month. he says he's just sick of her s--t...but still, if he gets that angry, there must be something under it. Then again, there's the guy I dated many many years ago who still infuriates me and makes my skin crawl just to see him...perhaps it's in that category.
Hi Livenlearn, thanks for checking in on me. I havent been here for a while, obviously....And today I am not quite sure how I'm doing. I've been thinking that I/we are doing well....but today has been a hard day, actually the last week or so has been kinda tough. it's an anniversary....in several ways. Today is the 28th anniversary of our 1st date....yes, I know, what a sentimental sap I am, but I still recall, still have the planner I wrote the date in all those years ago. AND it is ALSO the 3rd anniversary of the day i found out about H's A....after months of wondering what on earth was going on with him. So, I'm kinda all over the place today and have been for a week. i am finding it hard to put all the shock and horror of that awful time out of my mind and keep it there. it keeps creeping back in, and bringing with it lots of doubt and fear and pain. Lord that was an awful time. I'm surprised in a way that I made it through.
I've seen monster a lot the last week also, and it doesnt help. I'm sure she must remember this day, also.
I am working hard to focus on the happy anniversary, our 1st date. I bought 2 little figurines, one that represents each of us, with our "pet" identities for each other from that time. I am going to buy a little heart and wrap each of them, # the order they should be unwrapped in, and put them in a plastic bottle to send in his lunch tomorrow....it will be a "message in a bottle"....hopefully fun and a surprise for H that focuses on "good stuff"...
and thankfully, blessedly, there IS a lot of "good stuff" these days....H is slowly, very very slowly sometimes it seems, coming out of his shell. by that I mean that he is actually planning some things to do...he went with the kids and I to look at a bike for my b-day....the weekend after that, he organized and executed a campout for all of us (that is a lot of work!) and this weekend, at his suggestion, we are going to go to the little town where his office is located, and just take a stroll to look at the fall folliage, he says it's beautiful. I think this is big because I know he and monster used to go there and walk, and for the last several years he's mentioned it to me but never followed through...and of course I didnt push, just went my own way...but I was always disappointe it never happened. In mid november, we are taking a long weekend trip to a neighboring state to visit some military musuems (his parents and the kids are coming too) but this is also his idea, he's mentioned it over the years and then would always discard the idea. it's a gift to his dad for his b-day and fathersday.
H is in general much more patient and loving and demonstrative towards me....and is becoming more of a father to the kids. He commented to me after the campout that he'd just realized how much less he/we did with S14 than we did w/D24 (true, so sad but true) but that was going to be changing....
H still talks about monster quite a bit, but he has a different "outlook" towards her....I can feel it....hard to explain. he's commented several times, as recently as last night, that "now I can see her manipulativeness...for some reason I never could before. Now it makes me sick and angry". He has also commented that this past summer (when I was going pretty batty, from some "instinct" that kept telling me something was going on still when he and observable reality for the most part said it wasnt) that when she was professing her undying love for him, how he was her soulmate and all that bs, that she was also carrying on w/ guys on the internet, coming on to them just as she was to him. h hacked her emails.....of course, it's obvious that she WANTED him to hack them, or she would have picked a password he wouldnt have know, or at least changed it after he got in, which she never did. H can now see that.
He's said that "it never really got going again this time, because things were so much better between us that she couldnt get her claws in"....Evidently they started back up in early April....she showed up at the out-of-town office and got him to go to lunch with her....she had approached him in early december last year, also.... and they agreed to "try again" (urp) until her birthday....h said he met her at mcdonalds for coffee around the time of her bday (I still can't figure out when they pulled all this off, I'm guessing when I'm at work on Friday am's and she calls in sick) and she got down on her knees in McDonalds and asked him to marry her....he was shocked and said no, no way, it wasnt working....and she started bawling and pitching a fit in public, that it was the 3rd time she'd proposed and he kept breaking her heart turning her down...and she bawled and screamed about how could he hurt her like this on her birthday. H was so embarrassed he asked her if they should just go, and she screamed and bawled louder, so he left her there..
That one time last summer he called her/she called him while she was walking at the mall, and they got into a fight, and she threw such a screaming fit he could hear a little kid in the background saying "mommy what's wrong with that lady"? very fearfully.
I still find I am haunted by some of the letters between them I dug up, with H saying he didnt have "those" feelings for me (this was just last summer)....but I keep focusing on what we all know here, that feelings can change, and on what I might need to do to change them. Of course, who knows what the actual facts are....god knows what they would have said.
monster, meanwhile, seems to be kinda off the deep end. As I mentioned, H's office in this building got moved to the same hall as her's (sigh) and now she is kinda stalking in my opinion. I had an email from him yesterday that she had walked by his door flipping her hair so many times that he was going to need a fire extinguisher to put out the flames in the carpet. H said that he left his office to use the restroom in another hall, and ran into her....she went into an office near that hallway, and when he came back by about 5 minutes later, she came out of that office, as though she had been waiting there for him to come back by. That at one time in the afternoon, his door was open, and he got a "really creepy feeling" and looked up to see a shadow in the doorway, as if someone was standing just to the side of it out of view. that he waited/watched a couple of minutes and it didnt move, so he shut and locked the door, that he didnt want her coming in. He claims he has told her "no contact" period, professional or otherwise, because she used "necessary professional contact" as a way to hook him back in before (uh-huh, I knew she would) so now he just addresses any email to the med department as a whole, so it is not private, and her supervisor responds. Evidently monster complained a lot about it, and he told her that if she didnt accept it, they would need to meet with HR to explain why something else needed to be worked out to eliminate contact and did she want that....which hmmmm, evidently she didnt. Oh, yeah, he said that she told him this summer that the movie "brokeback mountain" was "their" story and that he needed to watch it to understand. He told her no way, ever....H says she watches all these sappy movies and he thinks actually confuses them with reality, in that she believes that's way things are actually supposed to work.
I still have moments when it is hard to not be anxious, to trust that it FINALLY IS over. I have to get really stern with myself. it is so hard, there have been so many starts and stops. so many. BUT it does help that h is pretty good now about reassuring over and over that it is, that he's relieved and glad and never going anywhere. last nite I commented that I still hate the thought of him being with her, and he said "I'm not, at all"...I told him I meant before, and he said I had nothing to worry about ever again.
As expected, by H's report, monster threatened that she would turn him in for sexual harrassment if he didnt "comply" with her....."wishes"????....evidently, H told her to to go for it, he still has all of her emails and "stuff" that would make it obvious that it was a consentual situation.... (well, he thinks he does, obviously doesnt know how much of it I've confiscated, maybe I'll need to put them back???) and that if she doesnt leave him alone and comply with the no contact, that he will not only go to HR but get a restraining order. Evidently she backed off some then, but still the stalking behavior seems to be going on.
I am so thankful that for the most part (aside from a few very bad slip-ups)I've been able to keep myself out of the fray. monsters fit throwing and pressuring and drama is really what finally cooked her goose with H. He truly seems to not be able to stand her now. and is incredibly resentful. unemotionally so, it's hard to describe.... on other fronts....still working on decluttering the house...oddly, it got "out of hand" I swear when the kids were living with us...It was pretty well organized when all this was first going on....progress is slow, but it's there. Our bedroom is nearly ready to paint, maybe I will get it started this weekend, but we have to replace some barn siding, and of course our out-of-town stroll is TOP PRIORITY!!!! the medifast diet started out great for me, I dropped 14 lbs in 2 weeks, but i kinda got off it my b-day weekend and camping, and have to get back on. Some of the stuff really upsets my stomach, though, so I need to get different items. I've also found some very similar items locally that taste better, dont' upset my stomach, and are much cheaper. so I'm "shopping around"... and yes, speaking of birthdays, I turned 52, cant' believe it.
S14 had a tough spell with his blood glucose going very high (a friend brought in a bunch of sugary stuff, and S didnt do what he needed to do to manage) and very nearly ended up back in the hospital, BUT we managed to avoid it, and hopefully S learned an important lesson.
And, on Oct 9, we found out we're gonna be grandparents. not sure when, probably June. H's response to me was "I wasnt quite ready to hear that", and I kinda have a teeny bit of fear that it could push him back in the tunnel some, but I know he mentioned months ago that he was looking forward to that....
so, there you have the continuing saga of my soap opera. I just am sooooooooo much hoping that this episode is about over, and the next one ready to go.
I do need to get back to posting though, I find it challenging to deal with the hurt and fear that sometimes hits me still. A lot of hurt finds it's way to the surface sometimes. Now that I let myself sense it, I am amazed that he could do this, and be so deceitful, and take up with some one like "that".....and the fear.....that if she could hoover him back in before, she can do it again. Although he swears NEVER again, that he is SICK of her and that he sees what a HELL ON EARTH life with her would be....how she is detrimental to his physical and emotional health....
