Day 6 and family still together.
I’m feeling good… except hungry… we’ll see how long that lasts.
Yesterday ended up being a really good day… all things considered. My wife made plans for a family outing for next weekend. And she has an old friend in town too and wanted to know if I was cool with going out to dinner with him sometime this week. This is a good thing right? Long term planning? Especially since you’re not sure if the person is planning to leave you or not. Anyway, I’m feeling good about it.
The real kicker was when I went to bed last night though. My wife had laid out my work clothes for the next day. As cheese as it sounds, this has been a loving ritual of hers off and on through our relationship. Seeing the clothes hanging there in the dark made me well up a bit. She is simply remarkable. But, I am not taking her for granted at all.
Via email today she expressed some things to me. How hard this is for her. That she doesn’t know what to do. She’s torn. She likes the “me” that she sees coming out from not drinking. She’s not worried about being snapped at or put down… she’s seeing the guy she wants to be with again and wants to support that… but can bring herself to do it. “Why did it have to go this far? For you to cheat on me before you realized there was a problem?”
She’s so right. Why? Because now the trust is gone. She told me she’s been thinking about installing key stroke recording programs and spying on my email and facebook accounts to make sure I wasn’t talking to that girl anymore… but at the same time she knows that she can’t live like that… but she can’t trust me either.
All I know is that I have seen the light. Did I really have to get this deep into the crap to figure out I had a problem? Maybe… Was cheating on my wife the best thing I could have done for the future of me and my family? I don’t know. Things happen for a reason. And things haven’t been right with me and my wife for well over a year. The two of us have been vying for control of the marriage. Last November my wife told me that she didn’t love me anymore. The next morning my wife said we should give it 6 more months… but neither of us did anything to try and fix things. Then my wife thought having another baby would fix things… that of course didn’t work)… and shortly after conception she told me she still didn’t love me and left for two months. Two months later we found out that my next assignment was going to be in a war zone… at which time my wife came back… so my son could be with me. We never address the feelings we had for each other… I didn’t think I loved her anymore. Then… I strayed. And the morning after doing such a horrible things I realized something. That I did love my wife and my family and needed to work towards fixing it… but I didn’t know how. It took my wife figuring it all out… to learn of my infidelity and for the shame to become real and tangible for me to figure it out.
I see the whole thing so clearly now. I acted out from not only a drunken place… but from an uncertain and fearful place. I didn’t know who I was or where my marriage was going. Now? I know where I need to be. I know what I need to fight for. I know who I love.
And most importantly… I know who love me. My wife is still here. I may have done the most scumbag thing know to man… but damnit… she’s still here. I know there is a place inside her that loved me this whole time. And it’s that place in her heart that I will never betray again.
I hate that its came to betraying my wife to make me wake up and see my drinking problem. But, would I have ever faced it if it hadn’t lead me into such a dark place?
I don’t know. We will never know.
Threshold: Awesome job!
VC: You theory makes a whole lot of sense. I’m just embracing it for now, because honestly… who wants to go to the gym? A have a couple friends who are runner and when they get back form jog I always ask “was a bear chasing you? No? Huh… I just don’t get it.” About three weeks ago I was on my way to meet one of those friends and had called ahead for him to order me a beer. I purposefully entered the restaurant out of breath, “Buddy I owe you an apology. A loose bear isn’t the only thing that would get me running… the knowledge of a cold beer waiting for me on a lonely table can get the blood pumping just as much.” Oddly… that joke doesn’t seem as funny anymore. Beer day?
Welcome to Joe and Rob and Nov and all the other newbie’s to the November board! I look forward to getting to know you all.