Maybe an update......or just some thoughts and rambling! - 08/16/00 11:12 AM
Hi, everyone!<P>I haven't posted a thread in a while, figured it was about time. Robert and I just returned from our very first vacation alone EVER (not even a honeymoon) and we've just past our six-month mark in recovery, so I thought I might just fill you guys in.<P>Vacation was wonderful....I mean so amazingly wonderful that I can't even describe it! We had planned to go to a little place we both love but had never visited (not since we were kids) for five nights...well, it soon turned into 7! We just didn't want to leave. There's not much going on there...quiet, a bit of fishing, the streets roll up around 9. It was absolutely perfect. We fished and laughed and loved and talked like we never have in 11 years...and I mean NEVER! We touched on a few serious issues here and there for 10 minutes or so...it was relaxed and easy. By the time we came home, we still couldn't get enough of each other so he took a few more days off work (yup - ROBERT took extra days off work! ) so that we could have more time together. He even told me Saturday, after cutting the grass all day, that after being with me for so long 24/7, he even missed me while cutting the grass!!! We left on my b-day (8/4) and rolled through the anni of the day he left me (8/5) without a single problem...I never even THOUGHT of it until the next day! I had obsessed about it the week before. What a difference a year can make.<P>With all the peace and quiet, we were able to connect like I never knew we could. We talked about stuff...some serious, some weird, just talked and I got to do a bit of thinking, sometimes out loud, for me as well. A lot of you know that I had a bit of a meltdown a few weeks ago. Robert was fighting some unresolved demons and, for almost the first time in so very long, I wasn't sure I was strong enough for another battle. In hindsight, it really wasn't a big deal, I don't think. But it did me in. I sorta wondered why. Some of it came to me this past week.<P>The strangest thing happened. We spent most of the time just walking or fishing or sitting around watching movies and such...we both needed a rest...especially him. Working 7 days a week for WAYYYY too many months, plus going to school at night! (my family and movies). Anyway, at the end on one movie, I started crying (actually, it WAS sad and he shed a tear, too, but I completely fell apart!). I cried and cried, went out on our deck and cried some more, for more than a couple of hours. For those of you who don't know, my dad was killed just as my marriage began falling apart. D-day was just a couple months later and Robert was gone a month after that. His death was unexpected, Mom was not in good shape at all (she was battling cancer) and, as my brother said, as usual, I was the "strong" one (believe it or not!). But stuff had to be handled and someone had to do it. Once I got through the "stuff" part of his death, it was d-day and all my energy went toward this mess. Except for a few tears packing my dad's things and a few at the funeral, I never had time to miss him much. Or to really grieve. I really THOUGHT I had..come to terms with everything. Guess not. This place where we went on vacation was one of Papa's favorite places in the world and we hadn't been since I was a little girl. We were so very close and we both loved it more than anything back then. The movie was sad (a dad died) and well, the rest is history. I bawled. And talked to Robert about my dad, about us, about this year. He was pretty quiet....asked me what I needed and I told him just to be there and listen..he didn't need to say anything and I really didn't want to be held. So he sat there with me and listened, reassured and loved me. And when the whole thing was over, it was like a million pounds had been lifted. Guess I really needed that.<P>Lots went on in my head during the last 10 days...coming to terms with staying at home, rather than working and figuring out my purpose (yeah, I was still struggling with that) and lots of things about me in regards to my marriage and Robert. I'm still working on stuff, but feeling really good right now....better than ever...about where I'm heading and where WE'RE heading. <P>Robert had some time and rest to settle some things that had been bothering him as well. We're different now....both of us. More real somehow. I managed, without knowing how, to let go of most of the baggage I was carrying about this whole mess and especially about recovery and rebuilding. Not really with help from him, just somehow, inside myself. It just doesn't seem to matter much anymore. I feel differently and I act differently. Not so much on edge, not so worried about doing something wrong, not nearly as focused on the fact that we're recovering from an affair as focused on the fact that we're a couple building a life together. That makes a big difference. The triggers aren't popping up in my head. I guess I'm just not afraid anymore. We're a great couple, who love each other very much. We're gonna have problems and disagreements and those things happen...no matter how healthy the marriage and they happen in marriages that have never been touched by an affair. I can handle that. I'm not panicking that these things will make him want to leave. I'm just not so worried. Hopefully, it will last...I think so, I feel differently inside.<P>The nicest thing happened. Almost 2 years ago, when Robert met PT, about the same time he hurt his hand and it swelled and he took off his wedding ring. B/C of what was going on, he never wore it again...I had it in my jewelry box. When he came home, after a week or so, he asked if I still had it, but it didn't fit anymore. He said it was dangerous to work in anyway, so he put it on a chain around his neck. Didn't exactly feel the same to me, but, hey, that's what he was comfortable with. I never mentioned it again. The day b/f we left, the chain broke. Robert ran to the jeweler's the morning we left and had the clasp on his chain replaced, but said that Bruce said the ring was too heavy and that was what had broken the last clasp so he didn't put it back on the chain. We were in a hurry and leaving, and then had such a good time, I never had a chance to think about it. Good thing! It probably would have worried me to death that he wasn't gonna wear it anymore!!!!<P>Anyway, he took off on Monday and we were going off to visit his parents and he said he had a stop to make. We stopped by the jewelers and he picked up his ring! He had had it re-sized and re-shaped (his knuckle and finger are two sizes different) so that he could wear it again. He left it there on my b-day so that it could be ready when we got back! And he's been wearing it ever since. I told him that it was the most wonderful present I ever had. He said it was for him, not me, but he was glad it made me happy.<P>On the way home, he asked how long he had been home. Six months, why? It seems like I never left. I told him I hoped it was better than before he left. We talked a bit after that about our marriage...good talk.<P>Later that night I was lying in bed and a demon of my own popped in....."like I never left". I felt myself falling into the "betrayed trap". Wish I could feel like he never left, how can he just forget it so easily, blah, blah, blah. The the light came on....how wonderful! What a wonderful thing to say and I needed to recognize it as such. The affair happened to us...there's no denying that. And I know that neither of us will never forget it. <P>I'm not sure how to explain this, feelings and words don't always mix, you know. I realized it was great that he felt he never left. I thought about the other things he said, the things he's been saying most all the time. I realized that that meant he wasn't looking at us as a "recovering" or "rebuilding" couple, but as a couple, married, loving, building a life together. He wasn't diminishing what had happened, he was doing what we both should be doing. Recognizing it, but putting it in it's place, not focusing on it as part of our future together. It doesn't belong in our future, it belongs in our past. I agree, 100%. Not forgotten...the lessons we both learned will be with us forever, and hopefully we will always carry the good that came from it with us. But it's time NOT to carry the pain anymore, to let go of the hurt of that affair, just as we're letting go of the hurt of our marriage prior to it. Bringing the good stuff with us and building on it, but leaving the rest behind. <P>In all my optimism and determination, I had still allowed myself to be a little bit "the betrayed". In some way or another, it seemed to color the way I looked at life, the way I handled problems....sometimes so subtly that I didn't recognize it. But it did. <P>I finally "got it". I'm not "the betrayed". I WAS, but I'm not now. I am a woman, good and strong, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a partner, a person. I have been shaped by being betrayed in my past, but it cannot affect me in any way that I don't allow it to, anymore than anything else, any other pain that happened in my past. I don't define myself by the fact that once I was raped, I don't define myself by the fact that I suffered abuse by my first husband, I don't define myself by the hundreds of other things that happened to me. They CONTRIBUTED the person that I am today, in the manner that I chose to let them. I chose whether they would affect me negatively or positively and I made that part of me, but the horrors of these things did not define me. I will no longer live as "a betrayed spouse". It's not me anymore. I'm a good woman who learned a great many lessons through yet another tragedy in my life. It no longer "feels" like who I am. It feels good. It feels right. It feels like Lori. A bit older, a bit wiser, a bit more grounded, but Lori.<P>I've learned a bit about love....I see the "what is love" posted on every board on this forum. I think I know, for me anyway, but that's a long, long ramble, so we'll let it go for now. But, I tell you what, I've found it, inside myself. And it's such a solid and stable thing. To finally just FEEL like I know...to believe it inside.<P>Oh, well, you'd think eventually I'd learn to shut up now and then, wouldn't you? Got to dress for a dr's appt, so I'd better go. I'm not here every day, but I do check up on everyone. We're doing just fine, me and Robert and Kristin. Just fine.<P>Love to you all,<P>Lori<BR>