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.

Personal Journal entry today -

April 3rd 2009 Friday -

I am here, where do I start? I spent a lot of time last night thinking over the last year. A year, wow. I thought about the last few days and what I have said to him as well as what he said to me. He said he gets close to talking to me but backs off. He said he can’t talk to me about how much he hurt me. But I have already been hurt and I am still hurting. I need him to show me he cares about us by talking to me about this to stop the hurt and heal. I don’t think he realizes how much this is continuing to hurt me.

I asked last summer for all access and never got it. I did get access to a few emails and new sites he joined as he went along. But never full access. I asked a few months ago for a list of all sites & passwords, again nothing. I asked again recently and got his reply of oh yes I need to do that and got nothing. I found out he still had some other emails accounts he had not gotten rid of nor had he given me access.

I said I would back off if that’s what he needed, stop bringing it up, stop talking about it. He said he did not want me to do that. But last night I needed to say a few more things and when he got home I mentioned I had a bad night but said he wouldn’t want to hear about it. I could tell by the look on his face he didn’t want to hear about it. He said great probably not. I felt the gut punch from the other room. It hit me, he does not nor will he ever deal with this, I no longer believe he will ever talk to me or give me all access. I see he has never been open with me and so here I am.

He did ask one more time what was wrong but I said I wasn't going there. I felt I had nothing to say that would do either of us any good. I felt for a moment that I understand his feelings of not being able to talk to me. I could not talk to him but the reason I can’t do it is because he is showing me he's not willing to talk to me. I think he is not willing to talk to me because he does not know how to say - it’s over.

His actions speak louder than words here. He never came forward on his own to talk to me and he never gave me any of what I asked for. He has given me more reasons to distrust him than he has to trust him.

I back away, I can’t force him to work on our marriage and I see he is not willing to do so. It just doesn’t get any clearer than this. So where do I go from here? I wish I knew and all I can do now is live one day at a time. Life is too short and this has been so hard already. But I just can’t do it alone.

He has shown me his unwillingness to work on this with me. Is it over? I can’t answer that now but I will have to find my way to a decision soon.

It's been a year now, that's hard to believe!

I haven't written here for sometime now. I find it hard to do because the last thing I want to do is face it every day. This quote I saw in an email of his and makes be wonder - Life is too short to live the same day over. I have felt this way for so long now. I live the same day over and over. It makes me sad. I also wonder what this meant to him.

I just want to cry today. I have so much going on in my mind. I wish I could clean out my mind like one would do to a closet or cabinet. Toss out the things one dose not need or want any more. Just toss it out and move forward without giving it another thought. Thoughts and feels are not that easy to toss out. Having so much time on my hands does not help. I struggle with this, I watch him move forward with his life and know that I sit and watch mine stand still.

There is another quote I saw just yesterday that has me very upset. (What have I got to lose). It was in an email he sent to someone and they replied to him with - (OH WHAT THE HELL!!!! Im going for broke.....as you said, what HAVE i got to lose? * wink*). I guess he thought very little about me and what he would lose by his actions.

This email is from 2005, in fact it was just a few days before our anniversary. Why am I going back so far? Because I have no answers to the burning questions in my mind. I question why I just can't let go. I can't, I need to find peace for myself. I look for answers to the past in hopes of finding why this all happened in the first place. I wonder if I will ever have them or if I will ever feel free from the pain this has caused me.

I have given more than I get and now I want more. I know this could cause me to lose my marriage but he had needs and went where ever he wanted to, to fill them at any cost. I face the fact that it may be lost already or it may help me let go.

I had lost my access to him email back in February due to my adding his accounts to mine on my computer. I had no idea that he was no longer getting any of it because it was all coming to me. He gave me back this access on March 6th, after a long discussion about it feeling like a punishment for doing something wrong.

I had not been in his email since he took it away until yesterday. I went to just one of his accounts and looked back through his old emails, this time starting with the oldest stuff. Back when I first found my way into his email, almost a year ago I looked at the emails from the current day back to about 4 months. Since then I have only looked back from the current day to a few days past. I have forced myself to not search him out or look for trouble. But this is not why I look this week.

We talk more when I ask the questions or struggle with what has happened. I feel he may never just open up on his own. I feel he hasn't searched for the answers within himself, based only on what I see and hear from him. He may very well have searched and found or already know and not want to share it with me. I guess no more. I have stated my position to him, that I deserve better than what I have gotten from him in this marriage. I need and want the things he sought out in others but I want them with him.

She is healing......

Life can be funny. Not in a laughing way but how strange things work. It was only five months ago, yet five months felt like a lifetime. One can’t follow a guide line for what you go through or how things will be or work out. We all go down similar paths yet they can be so different. I read that it could take months, sometimes years or even a lifetime to get over your spouses infidelity. This shocked me to the point of never feeling right again. I was scared to think it would hurt so much for so long. How would I survive months, years of this pain and hard ache? I was not dealing well after just a few months.

So it’s funny that he would make a gesture to renew our vows a few weeks ago and I was thrilled beyond words. He could have been just trying to make good, but he was so moved when we stood there receipting our vows, the look on his face, the tears in his eyes and the way he was so moved by what he was saying to me. I believed him totally. I smiled uncontrollable I could feel his words through my whole body. I believe he meant every thing he said and that he will do right by me the rest of his life or mine. Every thing was so right last week and every thing since we arrived home.

One has to find the point of it being done, over and put things away in the past where it belongs. I will never forget what has happened after all it brought us so much closer. It was also a wake up call for the both of us. I will continue to work on me and in time I believe he will find answers to why this has happened to him and us. I no longer blame myself for what happened or think that it was done just to me. I can be loved and deserve to be loved. Things happen, life goes on and once you forgive someone they need to know you mean it. I do and I won’t punish him or myself any longer for something I can’t change. All I can really do is take care of me and be the best I can be. I am healing, I hope any one who reads this can find their way to a forgiving place and be happy any way they can. If two people are meant to be together it will work out.

Two steps forward, one step back.

I’ve been up since 3:30 AM. Sleep is a luxury I don’t have. A few weeks ago I had to see the psychiatrist at counseling and I was given an antidepressant. It has helped but it doesn’t take away the painful thoughts of his infidelity. I really did not want to take them but I am much calmer, not crying with every painful thought but the need to know things are still haunting me. I hate to go, I hate the place I have to go to and I hate that I have to take antidepressants because of what has happened but I will continue to go for me. I need this for me. I can only do what I need to for me anymore. That means take the med's, go to counseling and open up when I am there.

I have opened up a little about what I am going through without the words "he cheated". The counselor talked about relationships what makes them work and what makes them fail. I feel like she was trying to get me personally to open up. It worked. I have talked about trust, honesty and loyalty. I saw myself on the board under what makes a relationship work with two areas I need to work on. I saw him mostly on the side of fail with a few areas that did not fit him. There were some areas on the work side that did fit him as well. That gives me some hope for us.

One can not explain what it is like to any degree of full understanding, when your spouse cheats. Each and every one of us will react in similar ways but also very different. The only common thread is we were betrayed by infidelity.

I wouldn’t be in this place of mass confusion if he hadn’t cheated and that makes me even more upset. My lack of sleep, my crying, depression, low self worth are all multiplied by his actions. My obsession with what he has done over runs my mind. He dishonest ways has caused me to question every thing. I search for clarity in my mind and him any where I can.

I feel like I am trying to hard to get past this. My struggle these days is with myself. The steps I take, the set backs I face. I guess as long as I always move forward more than back I will get there. But where is there? I am not sure of this at this time but I will keep trying to learn from what I do. I have hope and have not given up on my life yet or my marriage. Some how it will all work out for the best for me.

Opening up on a higher level

I am stepping put on that limb today and adding this page from my personal journal to She Writes To Heal. Why? Because I have written about things after they have happened and my thoughts are clearer then, today it is raw, writing as I think, you can’t get any closer than this to my thoughts.

Today is our anniversary. I am lost and I feel the need today more than ever to know why this happened. I search internet journals, knowing I won’t find his lost journal but hope to understand him more. He said he had a journal he was writing online and someone responded to him, they had a connection because they were both unhappy. He said they emailed each other and talked on the phone.

Why had he not come to me when he was in such a bad place in him life? I want to know what he was going through to cause him to cheat. He must have been in a lot of pain but was he? Was he just selfish? He could have made so many other choices so why this one? I don’t see him suffering by this, why does he not open up to me. Has he not truly gone to the place of acceptance of what he has done.

Am I that unapproachable. Have I shown him in the past that I would be so judgmental to him that he won’t open up? Or is he just going through life alone, giving only as little as necessary. I wish I could shut off my mind for the day and enjoy him. But I can’t help thinking he can’t, won’t or doesn’t know how to be in a personal relationship. What is he afraid of?

I feel he needs to go to counseling more than I. I know right from wrong when it come to marriage and commitment to one person. I have shared more of myself to him than he has to me. Are guys really not deep, feeling human beings. I know he has feelings, I have seen them in him for other people. His tender side, his compassion to strangers is more obvious than his feeling towards me. I need him to show me his inner most personal self.

In counseling yesterday we talked about talking to other the way we want to be talked to and treating others the way we want to be treated. I have always treated him with love and I once told him if I treated him the way he treated me, he wouldn't like me. If I stop sharing myself with him and thought only of myself, how far would we drift apart? I can't beg him to share himself with me and I can't keep trying to repair the damage alone. I feel I must let go of things and see what happens.