Run with me through rows of Speeding Cars

[Mamabear]

Very interesting and insightful reading.
I too am a slave to my emotions. I react without thinking. Always has given me very good advice in the past and I am trying to lovingly detach myself from the sitch and work on being the best me that I can be. Will post more on my thread later in the day.

[believing_isaiah43]

I have not run away in the face of adversity, really. It's just so much to process and I have a sick kid (D had it last week, now S). I can think of a few issues, A14, to answer quickly in order to give you guys something to chew on.

I come from an abusive home (physically by one stepfather, sexually by another, and my mother didn't protect me). So, that's a whole pot of worms but let me address a few things that fermented in me from that time.

A) Men in authority obviously were not people I respected, and I felt I needed to always protect myself, trust no one, and had no clue obviously what a decent adult R/M looks like.

B) That segues into my apparent 'competition' in Rs. Yeah, I worship you in the beginning, as long as you worship me too, and then it gets tricky. I tend to want to 'win', not ever admit wrong, or God-forbid really be vunerable, or emotionally intimate. (although as you all know, physical intimacy is just fine thank you. I guess my way of feeling validated, as that's how so many people always showed interest in me. Physically. I modeled and did pageants, and all that kind of stuff for 'surface' approval as well) Then there's the whole sarcasm issue, or veiled verbal daggers in lieu of outright disrespect. Just non-supportive; more to falsely elevate myself to feel better. Because somehow if H was fabulous and wonderful, then I couldn't be? something convoluted like that. don't have it all worked out in my head as to what exactly was going on, obviously.

C) Everytime H pursued this type of R ("real", "let's strip bare and come clean" were some of the scary-to-me words he used), it was so dang FOREIGN to me, I felt like he was asking me to hand him my pancreas. I'd do/say something to appease him, or in general avoid it, and then go back to my surface status quo. b/c I didn't frankly know what the hell he was talking about.

Well, there's some fodder about my FOO and M to start. Discuss.

[NotMarried]

BI43,

I have to wonder if I'm not sleepwalking and my subconscious is making these posts in the middle of the night! I can identify with so much that you say about yourself.

So many of the things you post about yourself could be me...you seem to have a better way of saying them than I do!

Reacting without thinking....avoiding emotional intimacy and vulnerability...parents with issues (alcoholic father, mother that took the abuse)...damn, the list goes on.

I don't usually have much to offer in the way of advice, just wanted to say I'm avidly following along and hope to learn from you at the same time.

Have a great day!

[believing_isaiah43]

Hi Friends,

I'm working night shifts all weekend (just worked 14 hrs last night - ACK!) so I've not been around to post more of the saga. Had a really interesting week though! Will try to catch up with you guys early next week. Hope you are having a good holiday weekend, and seeing some light in the darkness.

[believing_isaiah43]

Ya'll. I worked 3 night shifts in a row and then got sick, sick, sick. Still am. Just semi-coherent between fever peaks. ugh. Have not left the BB, just cannot form words yet. We're supposed to leave for a week at the beach (our family and the inlaws) this saturday, so I'm praying to be better by then.

Will come back and hunt for my thread when all is well, and continue the journey!

[always_14]

Feel better....we're looking forward to an update, especially after the trip with family! Remember, patience, patience!

[Walking]

Hi Believing

I've been thinking about you. Hope all is OK with you and H and I wish you a wonderful time at the beach (hard for me to imagine because it's 4 degrees and raining where I'm sitting!!!)

Remember to be kind to yourself

Virginia

[always_14]

Hey girl....we know you're busy with work and things at home, but give us an update. PLEASE. We care, and want to help....so get back on the wagon.

[believing_isaiah43]

WOW. I didn't even have to hunt down my thread in the bowels of the archives thanks to you, Always. We returned from the beach on Saturday, I worked Sunday night shift, MC session on Monday afternoon, worked Tuesday day shift, and today (Wed) is H's 40th birthday. MADNESS. I promise to catch up with life in general.

The most recent:
2 weeks before the beach, things were going SO well with us (H even came to bed and initiated kissing & ML at 2am! Hello? Thought I was dreaming for the first few minutes) Well, that was the last good stuff for weeks.

As you remember, I worked 3 straight night shifts (which puts me asleep during the day and out of the 'family' loop for days), then got WAY sick right after that, completely DND (damn near dead) for five days. H had to do ALL the end-of-school stuff (teacher gifts, programs, etc) for the entire week.

One night I was (rarely) awake and downstairs to get a drink in the kitchen. H is at his desk and I went up to hug him and thank him for all he's doing and he says "I miss you" and I replied the same. Such a nice, unexpected thing to happen. I was just so content with that, in the midst of the circumstances.

Then the day before we left for the beach, I finally turn the corner, health-wise, and apparently I also turn the corner into psycho wife. She makes appearances occasionally, but really, at the worst times. H describes it as similar to a walk-by knifing. I just stab him with an ugly word/jab and keep going. "Oh did I do that? Sorry" Can we all say Latent Hostility? ugh. So we have an argument about that, and I completely forget that I've sent him the link that was posted here to the blog about "One Man's Affair" from his viewpoint, and didn't tell/warn him it was coming. So that night he goes to check email and there's that. He gets to the part where the guy has to tell his wife and can't read any more. Honestly, I thought he was closer to a place where he'd be okay with reading that, what he could relate to, etc. Apparently, he's not far enough away from it yet, and I just pushed his face in it, and rewound him to wallow in his shame again. go, me. ugh. SO, the next day we leave for the beach. woo. not the best way to start a vacation.

Here's a study in our contrasts. The week things are going so well, I get this email from H:

"I listened to this song, 'All These Years', by Sawyer Brown, tonight, and while the story itself is not completely accurate to our situation (although you could turn the genders around to make me the one who had the affair), it is moving, and presents a situation similar to you and me. And it gives hope, which is what I like about it. It is also a very beautiful song and melody. You should download it. I have attached it.

She likes adventure with security
And more than one man can provide
She planned adventure feeling sure that he
Would not be home 'til after five
He turned on the lights and turned them off again,

And said the one thing he could say

All these years
Where have I been
I've been down the road to work and home again
And I'm still here
Until I'm gone
And don't you rub it in too hard that I've been wrong
All these years

She said, "You're not the man you used to be"
And He said, "Neither is this guy"
She said, "There's some things you refuse to see...
But I guess sometimes so do I"
She made no excuse why she was lying there,

She said the one thing she could say

All these years
What have I done?
I made your supper and your daughter and your son
Still I'm here,
And still confused
But I can finally see how much I stand to lose
All these years...

I'm still here
And so confused
But I can finally see how much I stand to lose,
All these years.

Love,
H"

So the night he reads all the affair stuff, he emails me the lyrics to this song. ouch:

The Queen and The Soldier (Suzanne Vega)

The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door
He said, "I am not fighting for you any more"
The queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before
And slowly she let him inside.

He said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill
And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill
But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will
Only first I am asking you why."

Down the long narrow hall he was led
Into her rooms with her tapestries red
And she never once took the crown from her head
She asked him there to sit down.

He said, "I see you now, and you are so very young
But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won
And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun
And now will you tell me why?"

Well, the young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye
She said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try"
But her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry
But she closed herself up like a fan.

And she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread
It cuts me inside, and often I've bled"
He laid his hand then on top of her head
And he bowed her down to the ground.

"Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel
As you are living here alone, and you are never revealed
But I won't march again on your battlefield"
And he took her to the window to see.

And the sun, it was gold, though the sky, it was gray
And she wanted more than she ever could say
But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away
And would not look at his face again.

And he said, "I want to live as an honest man
To get all I deserve and to give all I can
And to love a young woman who I don't understand
Your highness, your ways are very strange."

But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break
And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached
She took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait
She would only be a moment inside.

Out in the distance her order was heard
And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word
And while the queen went on strangeling in the solitude she preferred
The battle continued on
------------------------

Can't write too much at once, or it gets me all crazy-fied here in the real world. Ya'll know. Will post more tomorrow. Missed ya; will try to catch up on threads for a bit!

[believing_isaiah43]

Hmm... did I scare everyone away with one-too-many song lyrics?

Hello? ::tap, tap::: Is this thing on?
Testing..

Ya'll. I go into another run of 3 12hr night shifts in a row starting tomorrow (groan), so this will be detrimental to my posting for a few more days. But I did run across a few words today I thought were timely. The first from my daily Bible verse:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

and a quote I found today:

"Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is." -Mark Twain