Well, as of last night, the stripper's "phone number" is no longer in H's wallet. I don't know if he threw it away or if he's stashed it somewhere else. I haven't had a chance to check out his truck, yet.<P>So far, there has been no phone call, which is good. I'm <B>am</B> bothered by the implication of his carrying the number around with him for almost a week, so I guess that I just need to keep on Plan A-ing my heart out. I want my H to love me so much that he is not tempted by the thought of being with a young and beautiful, slim and shapely woman.<P>A little baby step: The other night, I walked up behind H and massaged his neck and shoulders. He told me that it felt good, and also told me that it felt good when I massaged his neck while he was driving on our vacation. He very rarely tells me when I do anything to please him...other than to sometimes tell me that I cooked a good dinner.<P>We're taking another trip next weekend. He wants to leave on Thursday evening and go to the mountains to look for some land for us to retire to; we would come back on Tuesday. I asked him who else was going with us, since he always usually does invite other people along, and he said it was just me and him. Our anniversary is on Monday. I don't know if he considers this trip to be some sort of anniversary gift or what, but I definitely do not want to celebrate our anniversary. It has become meaningless to me. His total insensitivity toward me and my feelings last year (although we went out to the casino) after I had told him that I needed to feel love and romance from him totally finished off any good feelings I may have retained about our anniversary.<P>So how do I handle this? Just about any way I handle it is bound to be a lovebuster, but I cannot bear the idea of celebrating vows that have been broken and that he <B>refuses</B> to renew.

I am not much help today, SK/SP.<P>But, I think it is nice that you have a future to plan for. It would be nice to move away from Cafe Woman.<P>Maybe he threw out the number? I hope.<P>TNT

Hi, TNT,<BR> A future to plan for? Yeah, but somehow, I just can't get too thrilled about it. We've talked about moving to the mountains for the past 25 years, and we're still sitting right in the same spot! And, I know that H never had any intention of divorcing me; he stands to lose too much--not only financially, but he'd be afraid the kids would turn against him.<P> Yeah, I do hope he threw the number away, but I'm gonna keep the phone plugged in and ready to go in case he just hid the number somewhere and calls later. I do think that the fact he kept the number hidden in his wallet for 6 days (and didn't lay out his wallet every night as usual during those 6 days) validates my concerns regarding the possibility of his future faithfulness. Of course, he's just about quit drinking (except he did drink quite a bit at his party), so that may factor in; if he'd gotten drunk during the week, he probably <B>would</B> have called her. He was supposed to have been drunk when he was with the STD Tramp. Strangely enough, I don't feel much disappointment; I guess that's because I was expecting him to consider calling her. Then, too, another possibility is that since I hired her, he may be a little leery of calling her....not wanting to get involved with anyone I know for fear of my finding out.<P>Anyway, the only thing bugging me right now is the anniversary coming up. I had hoped that we would be renewing our vows by now, but H has made it plain that he doesn't want to. While we were on our trip, we saw an SUV with a sign in the back window that said, "Just Married..35 years ago!" H said, "We ought to put a sign like that on our truck." I popped out with, "No, because you don't want to marry me again!" He sort of "heh-heh-heh" and fumbled around until he finally came up with, "I figure that when we do a good thing, there's no need in doing it again." I bit my tongue to keep from saying, "Well, it didn't take the first time." or "It's no good anymore." I didn't say anything. Now, I almost wish I had said, "Well, in that case, we shouldn't have screwed after the first time, huh?" To tell the truth, our wedding night wasn't at all romantic. <BR> Anyway, I've been trying to figure out how to let him know that I don't want to celebrate our anniversary without LBing. I've just about decided to tell him the truth...that it means nothing to me other than the anniversary of the first time we had sex.<BR> And, as much as I want us to start over again with new vows, I won't do that, either, until I'm sure he's told me the whole truth about everything, especially Cafe Woman.<BR> So, how are things with you?