Skins,

Hang in there. Tomorrow will be hard for you. My anniversary was last Spring. At the time I thought we were in recovery only to find out that WH spent that day with OW. So that was very hard, and since your WH lives with OW it will also probably happen to you too. But you will get through the day and keep going just like I did. We have to.

We'll be here tomorrow to help you through....

Skins... so your boys beat our boys. Fortunately I missed the game. Congratulations though!

Sweetie, while you're going through IT and even afterwards for a long while, you're going to pass through all kinds of milestone dates. They hurt. They really do.

But if you can look at your life in the whole scheme of things (imagine holding your arms outstretched to measure your life), this short time of pain (imagine holding your thumb and index finger closely together), is but a blip.

Eventually, you will have many other memories of happiness that will override the bad memories that are being created today.

You will get through this. We're here for you. On Wednesday you can put Tuesday away. We'll help.

Chai,

Thank you, and I am here for you too. I want to hear all about your celebration.

PM,
They did win, thank you They won by 21 points which was the number of the player who was murdered 4 weeks ago. They held them to 1 rushing yard, 1 yard. I cried the whole game watching them. It was like watching G-d wrap his love around them and pulling them through their horrible time. And now they get to come to Seattle and they will be close to ME.

I am keeping myself occupied today doing busy work at school and finishing up a project for the principal. I LOVE MY JOB.

I know all the FIRSTS are killers. But my anniversary was just something I always made sacred for us. We would go to the store purposefully to brag about it being our day. I'm imagining what you are suggesting. Thank you. Well after this all I have left is my birthday, Passover, Mother's Day and D-Day which was the next day. Then the firsts are over. I know they are sick and lost, but dang, this pain is just horrid.

Do you know how BLESSED to feel that I have all of you here. I can't imagine how people could get through this without this website. I don't if I would have made it this far, truly.

She's right, you know. All you can do is one day at a time. W2S and I are through the worst of it, and we still live by that motto. That's how he/we keep from getting overwhelmed. And you know that the other choice is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, whether you are a woman of faith or not. And it doesn't matter how grown your children are-they would be scarred for life. You are their MOM and a great person at that-the world would be worse off without you in it!

I couldn't read your whole thread, but I read the first couple pages and then skimmed through some of the rest. You have got some great help and support here. Helping other people like you are with TMTS will also make you feel better- I know I do. I had gotten myself pretty bummed the last few days (long story-health issues) but just coming here last night and today is already lifting my spirits!

Hang in there!!!!

Thanks LaLa,

That is very kind of you to say.

I'm not sure many people other than my kids would miss me. BUT, I WON'T ABANDON my kids, not like their dad has.

I know the saying one day at a time well. It's just that sometimes that one day is more like one milisecond, literally. And thank G-d I am going back to work on Wednesday. I feel better just busying myself here alone at school.

I am WAY BLESSED with the help I am getting and in many ways I am starting to feel like I may not be able to offer the what to do, but I care and I will be there for those who need it. Sometimes that is just the best anyways, knowing you are absolutely alone. And we are all in this together because WE KNOW, WE UNDERSTAND. The real world doesn't and they think we are NUTS.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Queenie (I hope you don't mid me using that now),

You will never be alone as long as you are here. You have made many friends and inspired many who didn't know if they had it in them to even try I'm one of those).

HE LOOSES IN THIS DEAL!!! He just dosne't know it yet.

My F thanks St.Anne everyday for the chance my M gave him. He came out of the fog when he reilized that we would be ok without him.

Please feel free to use it. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I actually was thinking about how people on here have become so important to me and I care about you and them. Just think, if this hadn't happened, we all would have never met and our lives would be a little more emptier.

You know, TMTS, WE ALL have it INSIDE us, we just have to tap into G-d to access it. For all of us who are BLESSED enough to have come upon this website are a part of G-ds world that LOVES people and helps them WALK through the MOST painful experience in life that you can. It's G-d that gives me the inspiration to just get out of bed. And it's people like Mimi who gave me something to do that would help me get through another day. This makes us feel so helpless and she turned it around and put my energy into something I could do.

I remember the day she told me how to call him and ask him out. I remember freaking out that I couldn't possibly do it. When I think that now I can just walk up to him and grab his hand and kiss him lightly on the lips. LOL. THAT is progress.

I am NOT able to believe that totally yet that he is LOSING if he doesn't come home. I DO KNOW he is MISSING out on HIS CHILDREN. ME, well let's just say I am praying for that point one day.

In all seriousness Queenie, you are going to have to say that you will NEVER kill yourself and mean it for ME to continue a relationship with you.

I've grown to care about you but this is a MAJOR ISSUE for me.

My mother threatened suicide throughout my childhood and I found the stuff that she would say and do to be very scary...

NO, I WOULD NEVER, EVER DO THAT TO MY CHILDREN!!

They are both grown..out on their own..and they both continue to be very attached to me...and I to them....

I'm 54 and almost daily would love to have a conversation wtih my father...

What can we do about this, Queenie?

Seriously, SUICIDE CANNOT BE AN OPTION FOR YOU...

This cannot be brushed over LIGHTLY...

OK, I PROMISE I WILL NEVER EVER EVER KILL MYSELF.

I don't want to scare you or bring back bad memories of your childhood. Not after what you have done for me.

When I was at the gym exercising I started to have a melt down on the machine as I was watching General Hospital. It dawned on me that July 06 I lost my favorite uncle to brain and lung cancer. When I came home from that trip to New York, we left immediately for a trip to California for a lacrosse tournament. It was on the way home that WH (he was that person by then, if I am really honest), and I stoppped at the college we went to and walked around. He told me that he couldn't see his life with me or without me and he wasn't at choice. So we started going to counseling, only I didn't have the true picture of what was going on. I just had more of his mind games playing with me and they pushed me away, I couldn't fight the games anymore. Not after all these years of him knowing it was killing me inside.

In September he did the ILYBNIL with you line. He so started pulling away but would NEVER come clean with me. I asked him a few times if he was having an affair and he knew that I would not say I didn't trust him because then our counseling wouldn't be working. Our daughter graduated from culinary school in September and she got involved with people who we didn't like.

Soon after, our son got busted for stealing. We were dying financially because WH and I were spending money that I couldn't keep up with and it was stressing me out. I was so sick in my own dry drunk as well, and became someone that I wasn't.

In January we started having more serious financial problems and our DD stopped making payments on her car. You see, H got mad at me a year or so earlier and went out and bought this car for DD and co-signed the loan. It was his way of creating chaos. It was also in January, I found out my MS was failing in school and I asked my H to talk to him. They got into a huge fight and MS ran away and was gone for a week.

In February, after numerous attempts to negotiate with DD on her car payment and giving her a ultimatum, she left home after we got into a huge fight and she pushed me down and blew out my knee. The cops were called and the entire process brought me down to a restraining order against my precious child. As you can imagine she was gone and I had to go through the pain of maybe losing her forever. Two months later, my H walks out on me.

Family is the MOST important thing in my life. I don't have parents, I never had grandparents and my sister can't have anything to do with me. My friends who I thought of as my sister's have abadoned me because I am NOT doing what they want by walking away from my M.

Last year on New Year's I was so happy because my kids were all home and I was celebrating my anniversary with the man I loved with every part of my being.

This year, he doesn't even give a hoot whether I am alive or dead. I can't drink and make the pain go away and yet, if it weren't for you taking the time to walk me through what I can do to somehow make it through this I honestly don't know if I could have survived.

SO I PROMISE YOU, I WON'T KILL MYSELF, NOT TODAY, NOT TOMORROW, NOT EVER. OK Topic closed.

I am truly crawling for surivival and praying to G-d. OK....

I am not brushing this over lightly. Today I got a sense that this board is saving my life because I am really starting to know that I can be of service to others who are hurting.

This story of wanting to die so bad, will be one way for me to offer hope to someone else and help them walk through this pain because I understand it and they won't be alone either.

I care about you too, and I WOULD NEVER HURT you, willingly, NEVER. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

"OK, I PROMISE I WILL NEVER EVER EVER KILL MYSELF."

Good. The Lord has plans for you girl.

If he could let me in on some of them, that would be most generous of him.

He WILL.

Now, on to the goat. I HATE the taste of goat. I had a pet goat year ago, who grew up to be a BIG MALE GOAT. He had an annoying habit of peeing on his face. The smell of the urine would get all over him, and all over anyone who petted him. You couldn't wash it off with soap.

So goat to me tastes just like that smell. Sorry if that is TMI.

I would be surprised if there isn't something in the Bible about not eating goat.

OMG, LOL that is gross. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I wouldn't eat it either.

I don't know about Goat, but for sure no pig, crab, shrimp or lobster.

What kind of feet do they have?

Hey, can I ask a question.

Do you think the fact that WH has nothing to do with me or as little as possible is a good sign or bad sign. I mean, how do you just walk away from a M and not try and make it better for the other person. I know just the addiction and the fog. But have you ever seen what sitch makes it more likely someone wakes up or not?

SG,

You're doing that stinkin' thinkin' again.

You said "This year, he doesn't even give a hoot whether I am alive or dead."

And then you say "I mean, how do you just walk away from a M and not try and make it better for the other person. I know just the addiction and the fog."

Your mind is going where it has no business, no control, no truth.

Bring it into the present...put it on you. See where you are right now...for this is right now...all things come to pass...don't lose this moment.

Where believer got her goat gotten by a goat...and is cooking one as we speak. (In the South, the tradition is black-eyed peas...they don't seem so bad compared to goat, IMHO.)

Where you have friends who love you, read your posts...feel for you in your struggle...know how great a loss you are to your sister and friends...and can agree to disagree with you...and still listen and be here for ya.

Where's your gratitude list? Can you see where your struggles this past year and a half with your children were also part of the WS fog? They know...just as your sons did...though they got proof first...it's the lying that swirls our thoughts...reasonable to jump into the past or the future when those lies are in the present.

Don't do it.

You no longer have a restraining order against DD, correct? Did she do her amends? Did you work on your forgiveness? Same for your DS's? Have you looked at your own love, your loving perspective and beliefs? Do you see you as the miracle you really are?

Are you looking at you through God's eyes?

LA

Bracha,

Just stopping in to say hi after being away for a wedding.

Your life is incredibly valuable. One step at a time.

Believer, I am so sorry about the things you went through way back when...skinsgal, B is a testiment to what can happen when you find the strength to pick yourself up and start again. I cannot even imagine the pain, or the courage it must have taken to walk away from everything after something so awful and build a new life from scratch. No wonder you chose "Believer!"

skins-I am sorry for all the heartache you have had to endure this year. You will get through it. You are strong enough, and you have so much to offer here.

I've heard many vets say that him being gone and with the OP may be the best thing, because it really makes them have to be completely compatible...something waywards aren't really famous for (nor the OP). So, the less he cake-eats and has to rely on her to fill all of his ENs, the sooner he will see that she is not capable. The fantasy will collapse.

Gotta get the boys to bed!

LA,

Thank you. My gratitude list hasn't been done for awhile. I might go do that right now.

Without a single doubt.

I'm trying to NOT go there. Being here is really helping.

Yes, that was one of the first things that got taken care of after D-day. She and I have worked through everything and saw things for what they were. We are completely healed and actually stronger than ever.

There was NOTHING to forgive. I believe when your kids are struggling you are naturally the one they take it out on. There was nothing to forgive, besides I could have handled things differently as well. And I see that I am NO LONGER that ANGRY person who needed to control.

There was nothing to forgive there. He was struggling and handled it the way the only way he knew how. It was wrong. Oh, forgot to mention that right after he ran away about two weeks later he owned up to smoking pot a few times. It was funny, my WH got so angry he threw the clicker straight across the room and it hit and bruised me. His anger was beyond the normal I remember thinking. More WH stuff I suppose.

I don't think so, I don't think I understand what you mean. Can you please elaborate?

NO

How can I do that, I'm not G-d. I don't know what he sees. I do KNOW he has FAITH in my capacity to LOVE people and FAITH in my capacity to Stand for my M, but I don't know what he sees.

I wish I could, maybe I wouldn't be so hard on myself. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Skins,

You MUST stop blaming yourself for your WHs A. I don't know him, but I'm sure that he wasn't meeting all of your ENs either. I don't know many marriages where each other's ENs are being met day in and day out. It doesn't mean you should have an A though. Marriage, and kids, and bills, well, it's all tough. Still doesn't mean a spouse should have an A.

You did not fail your WH, so please stop blaming yourself.
And Skins, he is not happy, trust me. He can't possibly be happy there, he is just not admitting it. What does he have there to be happy about? If he isn't happy with himself first, no one else can make him happy. You can't pin your happiness on another person. Please, work on yourself, make yourself happy and you will be more attractive to him.

I know, I don't always practice what I preach, but it's easier to give advice to someone else <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yes it certainly is easier to give advice.

Actually he withheld my most important EN - SF. He did this since March 06 saying I wasn't safe and can't be trusted. I begged him to help me understand what I needed to do, but he was the WH and just looked at me with those glazed over eyes.

I would tell him I'm dying inside and this is making me crazy. He just stared at me with glazed over eyes.

I knew of the hurts that existed inside him. I tried everything to get him to search out his answers and find peace. Ultimately he just blames me and our M on all the sadness and hurt. He completely believes she is his salvation like he believed I was. But I could NEVER be that.

I sent him an ecard. I doubt he will even look at it. He was just online and couldn't even say happy new year or congratulations on the Skins winning. NOTHING. It's funny, but in order to get online you don't have to go to gmail like he does. He probably was just trying to hurt me on purpose by seeing I am online and knows I would love to talk to him. But then he leaves. He is so self absorbed and in his addiction. He needs his FIX. Back to binging on her. OH G-d, I HATE this.

Please tell me that my H could possibly still exist in there. How can I know that he isn't too FAR GONE and just won't fight for survival. I'm a human being, he knows how deeply I feel, how can he just coldly ignore me like I am a piece of crap? Stinkin Thinkin

Stop it B. I just have to pray harder and ask G-d for his help and see where that takes me. I have to pray for G-d to reach my H in some way. And most importantly, I need to pray to G-d to help me get through this second right now.

How are you doing Chai, what are you doing for yourself?

Hi Queenie-

Hey, just thought you should know you have lots of family now.
You've got lots of sisters here and fellow travelers on this journey.

And you ARE a miracle! God made you a miracle the minute He knew you were coming into the world. Just like it says in one of my favorite Psalms -

"For you created my inmost being,
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
you eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you." v 13-18.

I love how David words this psalm, that God's thoughts about us outnumber the grains of sand.

You are also a gift to many here-sharing your encouragement and enthusiasm. Especially about your beloved Skins. (I may even watch that game, just to honor you)<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Love ya'