An unapology

Bit of a wee vent here, sorry. Just need to get it outside of me. Bear with me, or skip this entirely 🙂

I am doing less blogging, spending less time trawling the internet for comfort. But I do still read a couple of blogs. A couple of days ago, I made a comment on one. A lovely lady whose husband has been diagnosed as a long term sex addict is going through the early part of her healing journey. I think she is amazing, and I will not point out who she is here, so as not to “garner support” for the comment I made. She has made contact with Beyond Affairs Network. A very interesting organisation that many of you will have heard of. I made contact and participated lightly in this organisation for a while in the first few years post D-day. It was a little hit or miss in this corner of the world, with chapter leaders coming and going a bit. I made a comment about my dealings with BAN – and organisation headed by a (ex) cheater and his faithful wife, with the very best of intentions, I am sure, but nevertheless, his cheating has enabled a very lucrative career to arise from a sad and hard period in his wife’s (and his own, sure) life – and how I struggled to get any further along in my healing. This is not BAN’s fault, I have struggled with healing with or without them! I just commented about my experience, and was slammed by another betrayed (her husband had an EA) who told me I was being unhelpful.

Well, I guess I think the point of blogging is to share. Yes, encouragement, and positive stuff is very important, but is it not untruthful to be positive about EVERYTHING? I said I had found it didn’t work for me, but that I hoped it did for this betrayed. She is dealing with a different set of circumstances, and a different economic basis than I am, she is able to attend more workshops than I could ever afford, and I think she is doing incredibly well under the terrible circumstances she has found herself – and her husband – in, but there is a commonality, and I voiced my experience to SHARE. To show that there is another side to every “healing” promise.

So, this is an unapology to that commenter, whom I will also not name. I am usually adamant that emotional cheating is horrendous, it is real, very….EXTREMELY… difficult to deal with, and I know this woman is very hurt, at times still angry (aren’t we all?) with young children (babies) involved, but in this case, I think one’s husband having sex, and/or being very intimate with other women is pretty damn hard to deal with! I don’t think I have ever used the sentence, “he was ONLY having an emotional affair,” until now. There is no ONLY in any kind of betrayal. However – and yes, I know this sounds like an, “I don’t mean to cause offense, but….” type of comment, and I do apologise to those who are genuinely reeling and agonised by emotional cheating – the mental imagery of his body going in and out of another woman’s/other womens’ is especially disturbing. As is the picture of him pleasuring her in all kinds of physical (bodily) and geographical places, especially in your own home. I know it haunts me. Daily. In my case (maybe not the sex addict’s) my love, the man I truly adored, whom I thought was as committed to me as I was to him, was having both an emotional and a sexual affair, I think I understand the hurt of both of these “types” of affair.

So, I unapologise here. Please do try to think of why people share what they do, and realise that not all of us are trying to tear others down, maybe they are just articulating a personal story. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it may not seem obvious how it could, but from my experience, I need to hear all kinds of experiences with all kinds of therapy, readings, etc, in order to analyse the information I have at hand through a different lens to the one I may be holding today.

Arse up Christmases

Hello.

Yes.

I am still here 😉

Just thought it timely to share the annual Christmas cheer…..

How are we all? It is a tough time of the year when life has turned arse over tit. My fun moments, of course, have not ended because I have stopped blogging daily. I am still super busy at work, and yes, I have madly signed up for a summer school directed study paper – but I am refusing to acknowledge it until after Christmas. I hope like mad that some of the madness at work settles by the beginning of 2015.

Well, that was started a couple of days ago. My son turned 18 that day. Life is flying by. My eldest daughter drove all night to arrive back with us for a week or so. Lovely.

Christmas Day was average. I tried hard, but we fought on the morning, great start. I moved away from him, and on with the day. It was quiet, but pleasant.

Today, we talked again. Not a lot better. I guess, for all of us, Christmas is a tangible reminder of all we lost, all the lovely traditions and happiness that they fucked up because they are selfish fucktards. The stain never to be washed off your life.

Bugger.

The year of his affair, was a really tough one. I was exhausted, we had been excommunicated from his family, and mine was scattered to the wind, the anchor, my mother was long gone, and I tried to hold them together, but really, we are mostly only linked by blood, and not a lot else anymore. I worked my arse off to make it special. Moving a whole Christmas to our lake house, and going ALL OUT. And Roger was just….absent….It was so weird, and I never connected the dots. He was towards the end of the affair, but still strongly pulled in her direction. I had NO idea what was going on, didn’t start to click until months later that something might be off. And it was nearly a year in by then. I was so confused about why he couldn’t relax, and why he kept going “for walks” – with his phone – I didn’t notice that properly either. I was busy trying to pretend we still had a wonderful family, and feeding them the food porn I had prepared – for the usual numbers! I had six of us there, but had cooked for the usual 60! That was the last year we enjoyed our little “couple” tradition of dancing around to our Christmas song on Christmas Eve. Or the last where I didn’t flood the lounge room with a river of tears. The last of the “good” Christmas memories for me.

Anyhoo – another one survived. Boxing Day races to be enjoyed, and I have FIVE days off work!  Woot, woot!

Hoping everyone survived, and maybe there were some small moments of almost-joy (watching a child/grandchild’s face, filled with joy, surprise, contentment.)

Love to all xxx.