Unfaithfulness Kills Marriages

I, better than most, understand that things happen. So I can see the warning signs when something is going to happen. So why was it such a hard hit int the face when I discovered my husband's unfaithfulness (something which I warned and dreaded would happen if he continued on the way he had been)? It felt as if my whole world was crumbling in on itself, collapsing with me trapped underneath. But I stuck with him, I persevered, and we seem to have made it over this little bump in the road gracefully enough. I have maintained my cool, I haven't had too many breakdowns (mostly just crying...so many hours of tears. I understand the phrase 'cried a river' because I did.), and I've continued to be a good wife. 

I admit I might not have been faithful as his girlfriend but as his wife I have been. I was bad, I strayed from our monogamy, but I was back on the right path rather quickly. The guilt from my betrayal will forever haunt me, and will always keep me in line. In my efforts to maintain our marriage, I might have pushed my hurt feelings down and out of the way, so he didn't see the pain he caused me with his affair. That's what it was. It wasn't a one night stand. It continued for who knows how long, to the point of 'I love yous' being exchanged. It breaks my heart, even now, just typing this. But through it all, through every ounce of pain, I maintained my love for him, my desire to make our marriage work, both for the sake of the children, and ourselves. I let him keep it a secret from all our family, and to continue looking like a good and faithful man. Truthfully, after the way he threw me through the ringer and hung me out to dry, I'm lucky his family even acknowledges my existence. 

I made a tasteless joke tonight, which I didn't realize was so until AFTER I had offended him, and he's angry and not speaking to me now. What gives him that right? I admit the joke was made in poor judgement and I apologized. But what gives him the right to act the way he is? I'm still hurt, I'm still grieving for a marriage that died months ago. What we have now, it's not the same marriage. It's tainted, damaged, and I'm learning to deal with that. But what gives him the right to storm off angry and hurt? I'm still here, despite my better judgement. I never left, never even 'cut him off', so to speak. We are married, and with that gives him certain rights, and who am I to deny him a basic urge? Even when I couldn't stand to look at him, and didn't want him to touch me, I still gave him what he wanted. He has no right to be angry with me over a stupid little joke.

Letter of Random Thoughts on Our Relationship 6/6

I'm starting to think maybe I should just 'go with the flow' in a sense, and just deal with our relationship how it is now. I have spent all this time and energy trying to make things better between us and I just feel like I'm in a constant state of exhaustion now. 

And this whole thing with Becky has gone from mildly irritating to out-of-hand ridiculous. And then my batshit crazy freak out ruined both of y'all's lives now, having lost your best friend. I really do want y'all to be friends again, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen, cuz your just 'waiting for the next meltdown.' 

I think it's just easier for me to accept what I get when I get it, instead of trying to repair our relationship. It's too hard to keep trying. All it does it make me crazy, or I get jealous or angry and start ruining people's lives, fucking things up, pissing people off and hurting them.

You complain we don't talk anymore, and I try, but we never seem to have anything to talk about anymore. Or you spend your time talking to someone else instead. 

Maybe my insecurities come from deeper issues that we aren't bothering to look at. Maybe it's because we've both changed so much over the years. I miss all the sweet little romantic gestures you used to do for me. I miss doing them for you, too. It just started to feel more like something taken for granted vs something sweet and meant to be special. I do feel a lot like we take each other for granted nowadays. 

I try to make time for us to make love because that is starting to seem like the only time we connect anymore, but it seems that when we do have the time, other things usurp it. Video games, phone games, books, tv, who knows what else? 

I'm starting to think maybe he's right, maybe nothing he does will ever make me happy. Maybe we should just divorce and get it over with. I'm doing nothing but making his life miserable, taking away his friends, making him unhappy. I hate myself so much. 

I think maybe you'd be better off without me, but I'm just not ready to let go, not yet, hopefully not ever. It's stressful, though, like trying to fix a broken machine. One wrong move and the whole thing becomes unrepairable, but sometimes you break it worse before you fix it. Sometimes it's easy to put all the pieces back together, but I don't know how far broken this machine really is. I feel like you don't let me in anymore, and I can't tell what needs fixing, I don't know what I'm doing wrong or what I can do right. 

Maybe we both need to take a step back and consider ourselves, our wants, and our relationship. Decide if we wanna pick up the pieces and break out the glue, or if its too far gone and we just can't see it. 

On one hand, I really do want to keep trying. I want to do sweet things for you to show you I care, that I still love you, still want to be here. But I'm worried they'll be taken as what they are, not what they signify. I don't want you to just say 'oh look a love note in my lunch' and that be the end of it. I want you to see it for the effort I'm making to do kind things for each other, small, but romantic, gestures of love and appreciation, an effort to glue the pieces back together, to hold them in place again. 

I want to return to the time when I didn't feel so stressed out to be around you, when I wasn't afraid that any little move we made would cause me to go into a nuclear meltdown that I didn't even understand. I want to go back to a time when we didn't lie to each other, when I knew I could trust you with my life and then some. Because it is so hard for me to let things go back now. I can barely look at you without feeling betrayed or suspicious, and after you sacrificing your friendship to try and make things better, I can't even give voice to my feelings outside my mind. And the worst part for me is it's made me suspicious of so much more now. I can't even fight off the twinge of doubt I get every time you say 'I love you' and I NEVER doubted it before. 

Sometimes I think after all the pain we've caused each other, we are only going to continue to hurt each other if we stay together. That the rare, simply happy together moments we share isn't worth the suffering we put each other through the rest of the time. 

I wish the constant reassurances that we're doing the right thing, that its meant to be, that we really do love each other, that I receive from so many people made me feel better, but it's still so hard. 

I want these bitter and betrayed feelings to go away. I want to stop just pretending I'm happy and just BE happy. I don't know where the problem lies: internal, external, you, me. I don't know why I am the way I am, feel the way I feel. I want to be happy again. I just don't know how...

Random Thoughts 7/2

We were listening to my music from my phone in the car, and 'Gives You Hell' from the All-American Rejects plays, and Chance comments about how that song could totally have been us if things had gone differently after my cheating on him. at the time it really upset me but i didn't say anything. finally, way later this evening I told chance how it made me upset when he mentioned that about the song, because it had been upsetting me most of the night and I thought about how he's always saying we need to talk about things instead of keeping it in, and at first he felt bad but now its like hes angry that it upset me. I understand that it's my fault, and I do deserve to be punished for it, but he claims that he's over it, and if he is, why does he keep bringing it up?

I just don't think I can live with this giant mistake between us anymore. I can never get away from it and we aren't ever going to be truly past it. It pops up 'whenever the situation is relevant' and that's fairly often. I don't know what to do. I think counseling could help, but if we can't manage that, if its gonna be floating over us the rest of our lives, I'd rather us be apart, and have a chance to start over happily with someone else, then constantly tormented by demons from our past that we just can't let go. I just don't know if love is worth it anymore.

Raised Me Better?

I just got to say this, to get this out there, preferably where no one in my family will see. My mother came over today. Now, she came over in the middle of us preparing to move. There are boxes everywhere, furniture is moved to where it wouldn't normally be. And cherry on top of this shit pie? There is dog hair everywhere. All the time. I sweep one day, and the next day, there is more dog hair. Now, while my mother is here, my daughter spilled a drink. This drink was spilled in a corner where we cannot really get anything. While my mother is helping my husband clean it up, she makes the comment 'I raised her better than this.'

BETTER THAN WHAT?

If she had come on a normal day, when we were not preparing to move, my house would have looked really nice. I really want to know what she thinks she raised me better than. Every time in the last five years that I have gone to her house, there has been dirty floors covered in animal feces, dirty dishes, counters, the house smelled of BO, and who knows what else. When I was there it would creep me out, it would feel like it was just too dirty to touch anything. And what was she doing, you ask? Her and my sisters, and occasionally my father, would be playing video games.

Why don't you ask me what I was doing when she got here.

I had just finished dishes, I put the last load of laundry into the dryer, and I was sitting outside with my children, playing. I was not anywhere near my computer or any video games. I was not even watching TV. And yet she complains to me that I spend too much time on the computer, that I don't do anything around my house. When she got here today, if she had walked into my kitchen, my kitchen was clean. She used my bathroom. My toilet was scrubbed nice and clean. That's better than I can say for her. 

This attitude she has drives me crazy. It's like she thinks that she does an amazing job when really she doesn't do anything. I'm not sure where she gets the idea that she raised me better, because my sisters, who she also raised, do not do anything to help around the house. When I lived with my mother, I helped clean house. I did dishes, I cleaned the floors, I even picked up after animals. It's been 10 years so I can't say for certain everything I did back then, but I can say it was a ton more than my sisters do now. My sisters, who are 19 and 21, whine and complain when they're asked to do anything. 

I feel that I do a very good job taking care of my house and family. I know that I could do better, and some days I do....and some days I don't, lol. 

My point is, how can she possibly feel that she can walk in my house and criticize me when her own house is so much worse than mine? Nevermind the fact that we are in the middle of moving, my house is much cleaner than hers ever is.

The only thing she raised me better than is to be a complainer, and yes, I did fail hard at that, because here I am complaining about her.

Hurting on the Inside

I don't get why he can't quit talking to her now. The divorce is over. Idky he has to wait. He knows it upsets me, he knows I have issues with her...he told me he's gonna gradually slack off and then stop but it seems more like he's stepped up, more phone calls and texts since her divorce was finalized than in the whole month before, feels like.  And he has to go help his dad this weekend, so a whole weekend without me...he's probably gonna be blowing up her phone...What am I supposed to do? Why does it feel like I am supposed to compete with a woman 1000s of miles away? 

Am I a bad person for wanting him to leave her alone? He admits he caused all this animosity for me by his actions, so why can't he just knock it off? He saw how happy I was when her divorce finally came through, so that she didn't need a friend like him anymore, and I said 'so you can stop talking to her now right?' And all I get in response is 'remember she's human, baby'. Well I feel like another woman would understand if he said 'I think it's time we stopped talking now because my wife is uncomfortable with it.' I can't help feeling like its gonna be more along the lines of 'Ashli is a bitch and we have to stop talking now.'

I just feel like I can't trust anything he says anymore. It's hurting me a lot and I don't think he sees it. I sometimes wonder if we'd be better off apart...

 I'm starting to think it may be easier for me if he just never quits, cuz even if he does i am gonna be constantly worrying that he's still talking to her, and since u can clear texts and individual phone calls I will probably never trust him again. I just....idk how he got over it with me. Maybe he's a better person than I am.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? Legitimate Question

**mini rant**

I'm so tired of stupid parents, seriously. There is NO law that says you have to vaccinate, and I'm so tired of seeing that. They don't really do any good, except making the disease a little less strong if you contract it. My mil got her foster boys vaccinated (this was like 2 years ago) and within days the older one stopped talking and progressing and now he's diagnosed autistic.

I know I vaccinate my kids, as much as I hate doing it, and I've debated with my husband for years to stop the vaccinations and get a waiver but he argues we don't have a legitimate reason (because the state doesn't recognize 'vaccines are full of shit I don't want injected into my kids bodies' as legit) so I sound hypocritical arguing a anti-vaccine stance. We do, however, do late/extended vaccinations (waiting till their older, and trying not to get more than one or 2 at a time).

Really though, it's more anti-stupidity. People don't research stuff before they take a stance on it, and when they try to defend it they sound stupid and uninformed. I can respect both sides of the argument but 'because the govt/dr said you have to' is not a legitimate or informed opinion.

Doctors only push vaccines because they know the vaccines don't actually prevent the diseases they're supposed to (not all the time, but sometimes) and they are gonna make more money when you bring your kids back cuz they're sick.

I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy.

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I cannot stress enough, though, that people really should research both sides of the argument before deciding what is best for them.

Some Undetailed Ramblings

I don't know what to do. On one hand, a part of me doesn't believe he really does want to fix us. On the other, I know he does. I just want things to go back to how they were. I want to trust him, believe him when he tells me things. But right now I imagine him the whole time having been sitting there texting her all day, when he could have replied to one of mine. Phone calls before and after work, to her, that used to be mine. Phone calls during work that used to be mine. He isn't wanting to talk to me; he's replacing me with someone else, someone he can talk to, someone who's more understanding, who's a better person than I am. Someone who would never hurt him, and that's all I seem to do.

I just don't understand what I did wrong, what made him decide not to talk to me anymore. What made him decide to give my time to someone else...

Not A Great Start to the Year

So this year definitely hasn't gotten off on the right foot. So far, I've spent 90% of it crying. Granted, I did just have a baby, so my hormones are all wonky and unbalanced, and it makes me cranky. My monthly cycle decided to show up, and that's been a TOTAL nightmare...its been enough to make me wonder if I'm dying, lol. My vibrator died; the motor finally went kaput. I feel like I've spent most of my time arguing with Chance about inconsequential nonsense. I guess that's why it was a good idea for me to get on the prozac. I barely sleep, and unless I'm worn out exhausted, I can't seem to fall asleep when I lay down. Right now, all I really wanna do is crawl in bed and hide until my cycle is over and I can stop feeling like i'm bleeding to death. It's definitely a miserable feeling, and I did not miss it AT ALL while I was pregnant. We're supposed to go to Centerville to see our parents and let them have a visit with Connor, but I just do NOT feel like going...It's mostly because my cycle is soo horrible and painful and just hurts. I'm bleeding like i'm dying and cramping like i'm being ripped in half. I'm so tired all the time, and I kind of just wish that Chance would take the kids without me and let me stay in bed. I've done 3 loads of clothes since Friday, all because i'm bleeding through everything, everywhere.
At least I can look forward to playing SWTOR while Chance is at work, and hopefully get some EV/KP HM runs done or something. I'm overgeared for the regs now, which is exciting, lol. I'm really into this game, moreso than I expected to be. Almost enough to make me not want to play WoW anymore. Scary thought there.
I'm also looking forward to the income tax return because we are for sure getting a new computer, which will be wonderful, because I can play SWTOR or WoW or Sims without worrying about when Chance will want his computer or what have you. We have to do some rearranging with the living room/dining room area to make it work, but otherwise, i'm excited.
I guess i'd better go to bed here soon, since we'll have to get up early...Or in an hour when the baby wakes up again...
Ahh, the joys of parenthood.