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DNU1 Offline OP
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Faintly remember someone mentioning this...

Can someone please post a link...since the search funcion is down smile

Thank you.


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Joseph's Letter

There ya go...

Mark

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DNU, Is this it? I can search more if need be.


www.marriageforlife.biz/Josephs_Letter.html


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us" ~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
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Here it is:

Joseph's Letter,

Quote
To Whomever,

I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to 'look' at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn�t mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn�t he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I�m going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.

You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you�re carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the 'STUFF' to figure out OUR reality. There isn�t really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don�t have.

Now let�s enter my reality. Let�s both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever 'feel' complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don�t worry about it, it�s not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don�t worry about it, it�s not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what�s the difference, it�s not important. Then later when I�m expected to understand the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can�t just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.

So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don�t you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.

So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn�t come from jealousy, it doesn�t come from spitefulness, and it doesn�t come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn�t it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn�t it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can�t and the reason I can�t is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world.


BW-31
FWH-32(skald)
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In Recovery
"Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

"To Err is Human. To Arr is Pirate."
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Thanks. I needed that...


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us" ~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
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Originally Posted by DNU1
Faintly remember someone mentioning this...

Can someone please post a link...since the search funcion is down smile

Thank you.

If my memory serves me correctly when they did the board upgrade it ended up to be a big deal because of the large number of posts and they didn't want to delete any. Since the search feature hasn't worked since the upgrade it seems like a waste to save the old stuff since we can't search it anyway. JMHO.

LC

Last edited by lifeschoice; 02/04/09 11:25 PM. Reason: add a thought




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LC,

Actually a whole bunch of those things are available without the search function working right.

If you know the screen name for the original poster you can find it because the search function does work for screen name.

And many of the things that get brought up over and over again, like Joseph's letter, BP's ToolKit, etc are linked to the general welcome post on JFO. There is a link to a post called "Notable Posts" (not Pep's thread since her's is linked from the post). The post contains a list of things listed under various categories like Reference, Emotional Needs, Legal Support, etc.

The hard part is remembering where the first link is.

Mark

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Mark,

Thanks for the info, but to tell you the truth I am not going to take the time it would take to find the stuff in a round about way.

A search feature is a useful tool and apparently the Harley's don't think so or it would be fixed by now. JMHO.

LC





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Thanks for the thread!

WW had been reading her book and it talked about honesty about the past. WW said she would like to talk to me more about the details of affair (I've told her there will come a day when I will ask all those nitty-gritty details...)

Then WW had IC this weekend and the counselor said something like "details might not be important for D to know..." or something like that.

I'm going to work more on the WW about opening up more, and sharing those details. Joseph's letter will help. I'll share with her in a week or so, after I read her book and plant some seeds smile


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