Feeling like I am still moving forward

Back in April I did something that started out for him. As the days passed, I became aware it helped me more than anything and I believe in time it will benefit us.

I went through my computer and printed everything I had on him. All the emails he received, all his email address's, the list of all his sites and passwords for them. Then I deleted it all from my PC, even the sites I joined looking for him, all the bookmarks on my browsers to his sites, history in the browsers of where I have been and I gave it all to him. I told him I no longer want what he won’t give me. I had asked for the list of this and never got them, now I don’t want them.

I needed to give him the things I took from him that he did not want me to ever know about. I question how he can say he wants to be married to me, share his life with me and not share his life with me.

I talked to him about what I had been doing all morning when he got home and passed the pile of papers to him. I said more than once that I would back off and this time I must keep my word. I have to, not only to show him but to prove to myself that I mean what I say.

Doing this has helped me to stop driving myself crazy over what he has done. I do believe this had slowed him down from dealing with this. I more I pushed the more he would hold on to this.

I am still reading my book we ordered but find it hard some days so I don’t read on these days. I get emails from this site we started to work on, the one with this book. The last email I got had two days this week where they were doing teleconferences with couples who have been where we are. I registered for the first one but choice not to call in after we started to talk the other night. I just was not in the right mind set to deal with it. I registered for the second one just hours before it was to start.

We called in together and listened to their brief story. The word journey came up several times. I have been writing about my journey in a few places and this hit home. They talked about everyone going through this is on their own journey and the time it takes is very different for each.

Tammy talked about forgiveness, she had to forgive herself for staying in the marriage. I felt connected by this. I had said three years ago I would not stay if he cheated and here I am still staying. I need to work on this for me, forgive myself for staying. I need to take my own advice and stand behind my words from now on.

I have felt like I have been doing so much wrong here but I am doing this my way. The only way it will work for me, that I can live with. If continuing to live with him, sleep with him, love him is wrong than I am guilty. I won’t end my marriage until I know in my heart I have done all I can, right or wrong. I hope I learn the right things to do sooner rather than later.

Find yourself

Odd but true, find yourself within yourself. I have spent so much time questioning every aspect of my life. Lost at the thought my life with him has been a lie, a fairytale to only me. I have given myself to everyone around me and have suffered the loss of who I am in the process. With his infidelity came the loss of my marriage. What I believed we had is no long there.

The more I read in the marriage sites, men site, women site and relationship sites has only added more confusion to my life. I am limiting myself to just a few and giving it all I have in hopes of narrowing it down and illuminate the confusion.

The hardest thing to realize is HE has to do this his way with out me getting in the way. The more I talk the less he listens. The more my friend suggested what to read or watch about infidelity the less I wanted to do. It is a two way street. I have been sitting on the fence jumping back and forth to both side as the grief and sadness have moved me. It can't go on this way.

We spent one day talking about marriage from a site we found, weeks ago. This site touched me deeply, it is about a couple where she was cheated on, 18 years of marriage. I felt connected right away. In this site they talked about a book and we ordered it. He mentioned a video he found in a marriage site and we planed to watch it.

It took a few weeks before we watched the movie "Fireproof" it was a good movie and make me think about how couples treat each other. We made plans to watch it again. This is a slow process repairing our marriage and I have realized it will take more time than I even thought. Every site I have read talks about two plus years once you start. I was taken back by the thought of two years. It's been over a year since I found out about his infidelity and we have just begun. It takes what it takes, the question is can we make it?

I have said so many times that being a parent is the hardest job I have ever done. Now if we make it through this I believe surviving infidelity will be the hardest thing to do. But it takes team work, patients, talking and listening.

I have begun to read the book we ordered, feeling some of the aspects of my life in the pages. I believe it will give me the comfort of truly knowing I am not alone or at total fault here. It was just so easy to blame myself than to be angry at him, the man I adored so much. One never really sees it coming when they believe so much in the other spouse. When it happens it hits you harder than anything else in life.