GH, Kisses to you my friend Will do that assignment after this crazy working-weekend (may even get to jot some notes during the wee hours); must nap now for the night shift ahead. Thanks much for checking in.
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Is 43:18-19
If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time. Hab 2:3
My stretch of night shifts is over, and not a one was slow. Insensitive sick people, trying to crash on me and making me work HARD! But no one had a celestial discharge on my watch, so that is good! Not so good: I didn't get a chance to sit down and write out some thoughts for the BB. But I was reading thru my journal the other day, and thought some of the entries in there over the months could be insightful (or not?) for here.
From January 2006 (during the email affair, after the EA/PA, and H lost his job b/c of it). Various entries below, any italics is me clarifying stuff:
January 14th: Guard me against the flaming arrows of the enemy - deception, discouragement, pain & guilt that is undeserved. Give me Godly sorrow for my sins & true repentance. Therefore there is NO condemnation in Christ Jesus. He who is IN ME (and in H) is greater than he who is in the world. Help me cling to that when I cannot see out of this. Like NOW. There is basic pornography being elevated in this house (the sex-filled emails between them each night) and continued betrayal against our marriage vows before God. What am I supposed to DO with that, Lord? Take it? ...H doesn't want to hold MY hand during this. I promised FOREVER to what lies ahead, but this? Continuing IN MY HOME, since his promise has ended, regardless of vows made. I'm at fault too, but NOT for continued sin. You are holding on to me, or I would have surely changed the locks by now. Every time I get to the breaking point, you pull it back from utter ruin. Is that YOU, Lord, or the devil's deception to keep me taking this CRAP in my own house, under the SAME ROOF my children sleep in? Where is the man I married who couldn't get enough of me and now is FULL OF $HIT? Something to DO?! (he emailed OW that sex with me was 'awkward' and 'something to do') WTF, God; am I supposed to take that? LIES, LIES, LIES, God. Help me rise above the LIES in my home. Where is the balance? Supportive wife in the face of this mess? Or COMPLETE AND TOTAL IDIOT? Your hammer is coming down Lord.l..Do I run to get out of the way? Or stay here b/c I'm MARRIED TO IT? Guide my steps, please. Confusion is of the devil and I fall into confusion over this. True repentance would not knowingly continue to sin against God, would it? You can still be struggling and STOP IT anyway. Double life. Want to run away from it...Give me YOUR wisdom here, please.
January 16th: Nuggets today (what were little 'encouragements' from God during this time)~ Another spy-free day and God continues to mend my heart from pain of the details. Counseling went well. I defended H (unrelated to the A) and he apppreciated it. I slept on the sofa from 4am on, yet H asked me not to. We stopped for gas on the way to counseling, and H was pumping the gas ~ I could see his reflection in my side-view mirror & then noticed the printing on the mirror: "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear." It made me smile. Thank you Lord for what we don't see. That a slow work is still a work. That you are FOR us, so who can be against us? Keep bringing your Truth and illuminating the dark with it. Behold - he makes ALL THINGS NEW.
January 19th, Hell on earth: Who AM I really? Do I trust God to work it for good Romans 8:28, or not? I am NOT about being a fraud. I AM about being an emotional-idiot-stressball. I am NOT evil. I am NOT out to screw or be screwed (H's words, during his discovery that I turned him in to his boss). I pray against that mentality daily. Is God for me? I am unworthy, but not as fcuked up as H would believe me to be. Yes, he knows a lot of my deepest places, but not the intent of my heart - he has been SO incorrect on that issue. So what does that tell me? What/Who do I believe about myself? How do I stand up underneath this load and say 'thank you, sir, may I have another'? Who among us WOULDN'T crack? OMG, it's so much, and I'm expected to EAT IT. daily. WTF?
January 20th: A new day. His mercies are new every morning. We are fallen & broken & riddled with sin and STILL he makes all things new. I let go of all I've been pushing down, and it's new and unfamiliar - my old habits and reactions are familiar and rise up strong against the new, which hasn't found its strong foothold in me. Yet. I pray on the shield of faith so that I may defend myself against the flaming arrows of the evil one. So much hurt and rage on both sides of this bed ~ how can God work this for good? Will He? Does He want to? I can't get a handle on God's will here, it's like chasing a greased pig. I continue to be confused by the timing of His sword to my heart about 12 hours before I found out about OW, I got completely convicted to work on the state of my marriage. the irony. ~ talk about 'shaking my fist in the dark' <==(lyrics from Nichole Nordeman) Seems were always blowing/whatever we've got going/seems as though with all we've got/we haven't got a prayer "Just Once" on the radio alarm clock a minute ago. Scary appropriate. How ironic that I have laid it down and am still making grave errors. What is THAT about? I am not here in a vacuum either. ('what that's about' is that I hadn't laid it down completely. still haven't, really)
January 24th: the day H broke it off with OW 1John2:17 The world and it's desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Now God can work.
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Is 43:18-19
If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time. Hab 2:3
January 27th:(H had just broken up with OW a few days prior) Tall, seeminglyly insurmountable mountain ahead/in front/on top of me.
Past = crap to overcome Present = pain/betrayal, he-loves-another to overcome Future = can it BE overcome?
God, REVEAL yourself in me, through me, for me, in spite of me.
HEAL me.
January 30th: Long road. Discouraged. Sad. Sometimes I'm prepared for long and arduous and sometimes I'm just NOT. I want it OVER. I want to be on the other side. I want to SEE GOD HERE. FEEL HIM. FIND LOVE AND HOLD IT. The days, hours ... minutes are LONG. I ache to change the past. I ache to hold my husband and smell the safety in him. I have no safety there ~ I want to weep into next week from that loss. Large hacking sobs from my toes. Want to be held and comforted. Want. Want. Need. Desire. Long for. Ache. Oh, where is my God of comfort? my Healer? my Redeemer? my God of Hope? I mourn and grieve.
January 31st: What I would not give to go back and LIVE these years again, from this perspective I have now. My prayer is to LIVE now, from now on, CORRECTLY and REAL. To work it out - to have GOD WORK THROUGH ME. Finally, to live OPEN and unzipped. Yes, that scares me. But never changing is scary too. To live more of THIS, reaping more of the same? NOT. NOT. NOT. CAN'T. WON'T. PLEASE GOD NOT MORE OF THIS INTERNAL LIFE. Open the inner & clean it out for You. for my family.
February 10th: a quote from Larry Crabb~ 'When the top priority of our live becomes "I will not hurt now" we must understand at that point that we are not pursuing God ...Any effort to relieve that necessary ache leads us away from God ... Self-protection and loving others are absolutely incompatible. When my purpose in a relationship is to keep myself from looking bad, from feeling bad, from hurting, from being embarassed, from having my disappointment re-accentuated - then my purpose is to protect myself, and I'm not there for the other person.
another quote from Lottie K. Hillard~ 'To refuse to be vunerable is to refuse to receive love. In the pursuit of my self-protection, there were some significant people I had failed to love... My self-protection had come in handy when I was a child, but I had paid a high price. I had taken control, kept the world out, denied my need for anyone, became my own strength. I had pushed away my very life.'
So how do you finally change from what you are when you are ready to do it? When you don't know how to, how do you do it? I know I want to change, I am ready to walk out of this fog and struggle with being who God intended me to be. What I do NOT know is HOW. STEPS. The DAILY. HOURLY. WHAT TO DO. What NOT to do. I am LOST and lonely. I need His grace to be sufficient.
February 24th: One month OW-free. Tiny baby steps by God's grace. I brought home a carnation for H to say 'thank you'. I went to bed early and he came upstairs to say goodnight & kissed me on the cheek. I was pleasantly surprised and equally saddened to be so surprised. Lord, please help me trust the nice things that happen w/out immediately doubting them.
OW contatcted him via email ~ he did not reply, forwarded me the email, and told me not to worry about it: "I am where I need to be. I don't want to be where I don't need to be." I want to trust this ~ so many emotions run wild thru me and fluctuate daily. Some days I am stronger - some days I am weaker - some days I cannot foresee the happy ending that my heart so desires. I SO need the Lord in every part of this.
(March 12th, we ML by me initiating and it was definitely NOT just 'something to do' - ha. And yet, there is no more ML for another 2+ months. sigh.)
March 17th: H had lunch in City X with Friend (who had also had an A and lost his job about 2 yrs ago. Reconciled with wife and just had 2nd child), and finally found someone to really talk to about his story. I'm glad for him, I'm also conflicted with waves of anger & sadness/betrayal. Had to get in the car and leave the house to watch the sunset. Alternately listened to Sarah McLachlan & Jars of Clay and wept. And I don't entirely understand why...Comfort by H waiting at the door to apologize when I walked in, him having tried to call my (turned off-) cell phone twice and hugging me. All good things. And yet. And yet. I don't trust what is, compared to what was. I want someone enamored and in love with me. I WANT WHAT HE GAVE TO HER, and all I feel that I have is willful obedience. I have to ASK for proximity, a touch, any of that ~ when it is completely 2nd nature for me. I just LOOK at him and want to touch or be close to him. That's not reciprocated & I don't know how to live okay with that. I want patience - but I've also been fcuking patient for years w/ no physical comfort/affection. This makes me hypersensitive to what is NOT. And he came to bed at 3am; three-fcuking-A-M. I don't care if he was curing cancer, your wife is upstairs and you don't need 5-6 hours downstairs to "relax" or whatever. Could you look outside yourself to how that makes me feel? I had total PTSD OW flashbacks and had to finally go sleep on the sofa I was so furious. God, please give me peace & comfort.
Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. 1Peter1:22
Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. 1Peter3:7
(April 4th was our 10th anniversary, and who contacts him via email? OW. Here's what she wrote:
"Hi- I'm sorry that you want nothing to do with me. I ran across an email from you the other day and it made me miss my friend. Hope all is well. OW"
On my anniversary. Oh, if thoughts could kill a human. So H forwards the email to me with this note: "I did not respond, or want to, but I wanted to send you this. I will block her email from this account. I should have done that sooner. Please take this in stride. Believe me when I tell you that this did not move me at all. I want you to believe that I want nothing to do with her. I hope that one day you will know and believe that. I am here, and I am staying. No regrets and no second thoughts about being right here in Our City with you and our children. Your Husband, H"
SO: after he came to also tell me in person, I said "I'm contacting her" and he said that was fine with him to do whatever I wanted but he wasn't getting near it. So I mulled over what to do (email? phone call? hit man named Guido?) and what to say that wasn't a novel of a tirade.
In the end, I forwarded H's email (with hers attached) to OW, with this email at the top from me 2 days after her email was sent:
"OW,
As you can see below, H & I want you to stop your repeated attempts to contact him. We are both committed to our marriage and by the grace of God, we will survive this.
Please do not ever contact my husband again or I will be forced to contact yours, and I do not wish to do that.
believing_isaiah43"
Ya'll. If I were an OW, and heard from the wife, that would shut me up quick-like. Oh, but NO. This chick has some serious testosterone between her legs. No more than 3 hours later, I get a REPLY in my inbox. I saw her name, and almost needed nitroglycerin and a defibrillator. I thought I was having a heart attack, my heart was pounding so furiously in my chest when I saw her name in my inbox.
Here's what she wrote: "I apologize. We are on vacation and I had too much to drink. I should not have tried to contact him as I am working on my marriage as well. It was stupid and I promise you it will not happen again. I am glad that you both are committed to working it out and will pray that you do."
Harlot. Liar. Wicked Evil Hussy. Anyway, there you go. H said she's either sincere or I scared her to death. We both agreed that I scared her to death, but I just couldn't believe she wrote back; she is definitely Ms. Last Word. She was that way with H, too. =======
Well, we're thru January to early April. I'll continue more tomorrow. As we know about me, this can make me gnaw on the crazy-bone if I think too much about it in one sitting.
Hope these long posts don't bore the fool out of you, and someone actually reads them and perhaps gets something from them. But if it's just for me too, that's okay. It's helpful to see how far we've come, but also difficult to see how far I still have to go personally. groan
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Is 43:18-19
If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time. Hab 2:3
Quote: and someone actually reads them and perhaps gets something from them
Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. 1Peter1:22
Hey there BI! Good to hear from ya again. Thanks for the posts and history.
I wanna hear more about now....how are things going with the 2 of you? The dynamics?
And, just to be a pest, let's get back to the issues in teh M that took you here....you started on this before you left, so how about picking it up again? How is your progress in personal change coming along? What were YOUR issues in M, and has H been changing?
Keep thinking.....there IS a way out of this, you are lucky to have H back and wanting to stay and committed to NOT lying...you have a LOT of power to make this work, if that is what you want. If it is, then be deliberate in each of your actions, your efforts, and you will see progress faster.
How about seeing a C about the A stuff....it's hard to face all that, and it might help. I'm thinking of the same thing now....for my sake.
I too am one who contacted OW and her H. First call to OW H was, "keep your W away from my H", and then I hung up. Next call was to OW that I knew of the EA and that I was the one who was going to win and triumph over what had been done to my marriage. Hers ended in D, my continues,17yrs strong. She's on her second marriage due to PA with this man. He knows of her EA w/my H. They all worked together. Go figure? I've been down this same road as you and had the as feelings and talks with God. May God bless you durning this ever ending healing.
Believing your posts are beautifully written and convey the anguish we feel as we travel this surprising journey - but it's done.
It's happened, there is nothing you can do about it now. It is over. Your husband is home. You are in a position that many on this board would envy and yet you seem to let the negatives outweigh the positives of your sitch.
The questions I think you should ask yourself and seek answers to here on this board are
1. What did I contribute to this crisis (you can only ask and answer that about yourself because you don't have any control over anyone else - even your H) 2. What can I do rebuild my life and/or marriage 3. What are the deal breakers for me.
You have mentioned several times that there was limited passion in your marriage. Is that going to be a big enough issue in the future for you to become so dissatisfied with your marriage that you become a WAW? Or is there something you can do to address that now.
You've mentioned that you have problems with letting people get too close to you - including your husband - what can you do to change or remedy that?
Quote: My prayer is to LIVE now, from now on, CORRECTLY and REAL. To work it out - to have GOD WORK THROUGH ME. Finally, to live OPEN and unzipped. Yes, that scares me. But never changing is scary too. To live more of THIS, reaping more of the same? NOT. NOT. NOT. CAN'T. WON'T. PLEASE GOD NOT MORE OF THIS INTERNAL LIFE. Open the inner & clean it out for You. for my family.
How are you addressing this important observation you made about yourself?
Quote: So how do you finally change from what you are when you are ready to do it? When you don't know how to, how do you do it? I know I want to change, I am ready to walk out of this fog and struggle with being who God intended me to be. What I do NOT know is HOW. STEPS. The DAILY. HOURLY. WHAT TO DO. What NOT to do. I am LOST and lonely. I need His grace to be sufficient.
That is so powerful - "I know I want to change" that my friend is your first step.
The steps - are first and foremost KNOW that you can change. Stop sabotaging yourself by ending sentences "What NOT to do. I am LOST and lonely. " Turn it around and say to yourself "I have all the answers within me, God has given me all the answers I need to be the woman I want to be".
Have you had any individual counselling? Read any books? I think I recommended "You can Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay - I can't recommend it highly enough.
There are lots and lots of resources out there to help you change/heal when you want to. It's not hard work Believing - it's an exciting journey, it doesn't have to take a long time - it's simply a decision.
Believe that and you can do it.
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
Hi guys, thanks so much for your insight/encouragement. I was trying to back up and get you all to where we are, hence the journal entries b/c I didn't have time to recreate the wheel post-wise (For posting purposes, I wish I had a desk job with internet access, but instead I'm running like a refugee for 12 hours at a time thru the hospital!)
H & I are in MC, and still butting heads in our R - this is mostly my fault; my fear-filled, self-protective fault that throws up my defenses. As I told our C yesterday, I read every book I can get my hands on and grasp the theories, but find I can't put feet to my thoughts. I can't/don't/won't walk the walk, you know?
Anyway, I really want to post more (and have time to REFLECT and really THINK hard thoughts more) but I'm working like a hostage for the next week, so I'm hoping for a slow weekend at work where I can think and form ideas that I want to post here. I hope you know I'm not trying to deflect, I was posting my journal entries from when I time to THINK about stuff more. Right now I'm reacting more than I'd like b/c I haven't been able to get my $hit in a pile and form/re-commit to a game plan in my heart, if that makes sense. That's made for some crappy discussions, and major frustration on H's part, and I have to keep running to work which is exhausting.
Yes, I am amazed some days about where we were in Dec/Jan and where we are today. When I reflect on that, it's not too short of astounding. And I find myself not trusting it; some other poster (can't remember who) posted something that hit me:
Quote: I also have this hidden fear that one day he'll just say "you know, this isn't just working, I tried but I don't feel anything"
And that keeps me in don't-be-vunerable mode (not like i need a lot of help to stay there, no arm twisting needed here). And I keep thinking, 'if I could just jump in feet first and quit just putting a toe in the water, and not worry about if he leaves or not...no matter what, an effort like that would NOT be time wasted' ...but again, I can't seem to find a way to put feet to my thoughts.
So that's a quick recap of where we are, without enough introspection I realize. Just again want to thank all who keep following, and I hope to give you more to chew on as I am able. I seem to need big chunks of time to be introspective and form the words around what I discover, and those chunks of time are not happening enough yet. groan.
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Is 43:18-19
If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time. Hab 2:3
by me initiating and it was definitely NOT just 'something to do' - ha. And yet, there is no more ML for another 2+ months. sigh.)