Getting it OUT

I know that I've previously mentioned how I found out about The Man's affair with The One Who Threw Him Back (or Boobs McChesty if I'm feeling cranky and/or fat), but I didn't really get into it. Since it is the most recent wound, I avoided poking at it until I was pretty sure that it had healed.

Last fall, we took a trip with extended family. World's Most Amazing Baby got to spend a long weekend with two great-grandparents, all four of her grandparents, her dog, one of her cats and both of her parents. It was really a great experience to have all of us together for more than just a holiday meal.

Rather, it was a great experience until our last night there. We had been whooping it up after dinner with wine, music and games. Everyone else had gone to bed, but The Man and his mom stayed up way too late acting highly competitive and silly. By then, I was puttering around the perimeter tidying and making noises about how tired I was. I wandered over to The Man's laptop to check out the playlist that he had thrown together for the night. I pulled down the 'history' tab and was confronted by a log-in name that was unfamiliar to me, but seemed to reference an inside joke between The Man and myself. I paused briefly to check that The Man and his mom were paying no attention to me, then started clicking.

As it turns out, the screen name was for a playlist account that The Man and TOWTHB had shared. It was full of songs that I love and had introduced The Man to. It also had messages and photos... and a LONG letter from The Man to Her (dated before our daughter's birth) begging her to take him back, and detailing their relationship.

I was in shock. I felt duped. I felt betrayed. I felt like he had YET AGAIN given pieces of me away. Nicknames, songs... he took things from my life and gave them to someone else... I guess I could be flattered that I'm so awesome that everything about me is worth copying (HA!), but it really just felt like it depleted me.

I was also very deeply hurt to discover the true nature of their relationship. I had chosen to believe The Man when he told me that they were 'just friends'. I knew that their 'friendship' was allowing him to cross a line in that it was an outlet for him to receive flattery and to flirt, but I was pregnant and hormonal and wounded. I didn't want to believe that he could be selfish enough to start another affair after what we had been through. To find out that he had deliberately chosen to start another relationship while I was pregnant... all I could hear in my head was 'He didn't chose you. Look at that letter - he loved her. He would have stayed with her. She left him so he was stuck with you.' It played on a loop in my head.

I couldn't stop shaking. I wanted more information, but had no way of getting any. The Man was passed out. The interwebs were failing me. It was the middle of the damn night, and I had no cell phone reception, so I couldn't even call a friend.

I stayed awake all night. I drifted in and out of fitful sleep for an hour or so right before dawn. I woke The Man up and told him that I knew about 'her'. I asked him to tell me what happened. I imagined that I could see his mind racing as he tried to decipher how much I knew, how I had found out, exactly what he had to own up to and what he could conceal. In his defense, he was also still more than half asleep and really hung over. I battered him with accusations then left the house.

He avoided being alone with me for most of the morning. I finally cornered him. To his credit, he had been giving the whole thing serious thought. First, he was completely taken off guard by my anger. To him, the relationship had been over for so long that it was almost as though it hadn't happened, but he understood that I felt newly betrayed. Secondly, he said that when he wrote that letter, he was in one of the worst mental states of his life. He had immersed himself so deeply in the 'selfish jerk' persona, that he was almost unrecognizable. All he knew was that her attention was something that he wanted, and it was being denied to him. She wouldn't accept his calls, return his texts or read his e-mails. The letter was his last appeal to her, and she never replied. Fine. Then why was it still there? Oh, he didn't even think about it being a part of that account... he just really liked the playlist that he had put together (for her!!!), so he kept the account open and listened to it from time to time. Jerk. Third, he addressed my fear that he was 'stuck with me by default'. He swore that it just wasn't true - here with me was where he wanted to be. He admitted that it had taken a while for him to get back from Selfish Jerk Land, but he was ridiculously grateful every day that I had been willing to take him back when he had finally returned.

I asked him to close the account. Not because I believed that he still used it to communicate with her, but because if it was open, then there was a possibility that one day she would return to it. He agreed, then hesitated - he REALLY liked those songs, and it had taken him a long time to put the list together - seriously!? I walked over and pressed 'delete'.

The part of this that wounds me the most is the continued theme of giving bits of me away. During that time period, he chose to give these women nicknames, create on-line accounts to communicate with them, created playlists for them, showered them with romantic gestures... and through it all, he used memories of things that we had created and shared together over the years to impress them and win them over. As though I wasn't there. As though he had come up with these things on his own. Meanwhile, I would have wept with gratitude if he had put even part of that huge amount of effort into our relationship.

This is one of our last big hurdles in getting past that time. I want that kind of effort. I want to feel pursued and wooed. I feel loved, but knowing that he put more effort into other relationships continues to really hurt. I'm not asking for diamonds, but I am asking for a level of thoughtfulness that doesn't come easily to him. We butted heads about this again recently. We may or may not have broken through to the next level on this one. I feel like he finally heard me. I hope that he did. I hope that I really heard what he had to say as well.

Snowball

This is shaping up to be One Of Those Weeks. The kind of week where tiny things snowball into one giant crummy week. So I'm gonna whine about it.

I don't feel good. I have felt bad for a week or two, but it was low-grade crappiness rather than anything awful. I assumed that I'm developing allergies since my symptoms are all sinus related. Over the weekend it blossomed into a cough, drainage, congestion, headache, sore throat and nausea... oh and occasional dizziness. Blech. Since I'm (finally) not nursing anymore, I can take medicine (yay!), but it all seems to just make me feel fuzzy and dehydrated instead of better.

Our new pool guy quit. Even better, he quit by not showing up or calling and now refusing to answer our calls. We were kind of depending on him, and have been a bit busy of late, so we're on the verge of having algae AGAIN after having just spent our entire savings account to clean up the last algae outbreak.

All of my clothes are worn out. Most have tiny holes, sweat stains and/or don't fit. It's too hot for this shit. Since we emptied our savings account for the pool, I'm stuck with what I have.

We're trying to plan a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for my in-laws. It's like herding cats. So frustrated!

My daughter doesn't feel great either. She has chosen to act like a jerk pretty much every time we leave the house. Yesterday she BIT me when it was time to leave the museum.

My stupid 20-year high school reunion is this fall. I was peripherally involved in the planning until people started acting like they are 18 instead of 38. Now any warm and fuzzy thoughts that I had about having some laughs with a few old acquaintances have turned into bitter musings. I think I'll skip it.

Apparently I'm more upset about my recent miscarriages than I thought. Since finding out that my friend is expecting and due when I would nave been, I've been off-kilter and out of sorts.

I miss my husband. He's been so busy that even when he's home, he's so tired that he's not really here... and he's going to be out of town for our 15th anniversary. Poop.

The garden that my mama and I have been so excited about has a few serious bug issues. We may lose half (or more) of it before it even blooms.

I'm going to go take a nap. Everything looks better after a nap, right?

:-) ... :-/

According to one of my good friends, at least a portion of hell has frozen over. She's the friend who always stated very firmly that she would never, never, never have kids. Period. End of story... She's due in November - hence the frozen hell.

I'm so excited for her! I've always thought that if she changed her mind, she'd make an amazing mother. I never faulted her for her decision to be child-less, but she's so loving and amazing that I kind of felt like she would be depriving herself of an incredible experience if she stuck to her guns on this one.

Now, since she dropped this bombshell on me by text, I haven't had the chance to discuss ANY of this with her like was this a surprise or planned? How is she feeling? When can I start buying stuff? I'm sure that this type of talk is exactly why she chose texting as her mode of notification, and why she is not answering the phone now... dang it! :-P

We would have been due at the same time.

Stand UP!

So, in case you were wondering, the emotional and physical toll of two miscarriages in two months is (drum roll please) TEN FUCKING POUNDS. That's right. Ten pounds. I can feel it on my thighs and tummy and I can SEE it under my chin and on my arms (and of course allllllllll around my butt). I don't feel like myself right now. I'm tired and dragged out and I've felt sick for weeks. I need a nap and a vitamin and some damn exercise.

When I feel like this, it's easy to drag myself down to a place where I run through betrayals like a litany. I use them as reasons to wallow and as tools to beat myself up with. It's hard to block those thoughts. It's much easier to let them run rampant and trample my joy.

I'm fighting this harder than I ever have before. I'm putting myself and my family up on a plateau higher than the muck of despair. I'm arming myself with love and light to beat back the nastiness. I refuse to carry this weight as an physical manifestation of sorrow and self doubt. It's time to start walking.

*sigh*

The alarm on my cell phone went off at 11:00 today. 'Midwife Appt.' was the message that flashed. Tomorrow I would have been 10 weeks pregnant. Tomorrow I would have heard my baby's heartbeat for the first time.

I braced myself for a wave of sadness. It didn't come. Instead, I felt exhausted. So drained that I felt like I needed to nap immediately. I packed up my daughter and her things, and took leave of our friends. We made it home, had lunch and are puttering quietly until nap time. Now I feel sad. Not devastated, but sad. That baby wasn't mine to keep. The next one will be.

The Man asked me just a few days ago when we were going to start trying again. He wasn't sure when it would be 'o.k.' or even if I was ready. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I do feel ready. I feel calm and happy when I think about our next child. I don't feel anxious or stressed about making it happen on a time table. I feel assured that it will happen when it's supposed to.