Blame

            So yesterdays post was a bit much. I was really in a bad place yesterday. While typing the post I was in my office and had to close the door because I ended up crying off and on for almost 2 hours. There’s more going on than just the issues with Summer. Back when I was on my week away and talking to my friend from high school, I had made plans to visit her after duck season closed. Well duck season closed 2 weeks ago, and I was supposed to leave on Mon. morning to visit her and come home next Sat.

                Well thanks to fucking RONA the trip is canceled. Her boyfriend recently had lung surgery so they are taking extra precautions until they can both receive the vaccine. I get it. I truly do. It just tears me apart. I had been looking forward to this trip since I first found out about the cheating. Now it’s been taken away from me. Along with my trust in my wife and my self-respect. It’s been ripped away.

                I feel like I have nothing left to look forward to. Yes, Summer and I have a trip planned to go to Flagstaff next month for our anniversary, but it’s a last-minute rushed trip. We drive 14+ hours down there on Fri. Attempt to go to the Grand Canyon on Sat. Spend Sun. just walking around Flagstaff, then another 14+ hour drive home on Mon. so we both can be at work on Tue.  If anyone knows of something to do in Flagstaff during these stupid RONA times, please leave a comment.

                Then there’s the big family trip we have planned in Sept. My parents, sister and her wife, some of my mom’s brothers and their wives, and some relatives from Pa. and Nv. Are all going to Oahu for 7 days. I’m just afraid to look forward to that trip because just like Summer it will break my heart and try to destroy me more.

               

                So back to yesterday. After work I had my group therapy session (I’m in a relationship crisis group every Wed. for 90 minutes), where I was told by a few people that I am trying to take on to much, am being to hard on myself and I need to stop blaming myself for Summer screwing Mr. D, and fucking douchebag. I have explained to them why I take full responsibility for Summer cheating on me in 2005. If you have read this blog all the way to the beginning, you too know why I take full responsibility for her cheating on me.

                It was explained to me by a woman whose husband has the same issues with anger that I did back in the beginning, that it would be my responsibility if Summer left me and divorced me back in 2005. But she didn’t. Instead she got into another mans bed. That is on her not me. She made the poor decision to cheat when she could have left. The lady in the group said that I am taking on way too much responsibility for Summer’s actions and decisions.

                A guy in the group said the same thing. It is admirable that I have taken responsibility for my actions and have taken the steps to correct them and to not go back to that way of acting even in the darkest times, but I need to stop blaming myself for what she does. He said that I need to start learning how to forgive myself and let myself feel the emotions and acknowledge that it is perfectly acceptable to feel this way. He said that it is OK for a man to cry. I have a hard time with that though. Every time I start I get mad at myself and try to force myself to stop because I feel weak and out of control. I feel that I need to be strong and in control all the time.

                It was recommended that I read a book called Self Compassion.  I bought the book and the companion workbook today on Amazon.

                The leader of the group suggested that I try to focus on letting myself feel the feelings I am having and stop blaming myself for other people’s actions. That’s the hard part. I feel like everything that is happening to me now is because decisions that I made a long time ago. Or actions that I took. I’m not talking about just in the time I have been married either. I’m talking things that I did when I was a kid like about 10 or 11.

                I held it in for years that it was my fault in 2004 or so when my sister was arrested. I blamed myself because I thought that I was the first person to give her crank (meth). It wasn’t until a camping trip back in Aug. that I found out she had done it before me, and she thought that even if I did give it to her the first time as a teenager, it wouldn’t be my fault she was arrested as an adult. It was her decision to keep using crank and to move on to even worse drugs when she was finally arrested.

                I blamed myself for my parents not getting a divorce when I was 13 because I told my mom that if they got a divorce, they would never see me again. I just have so much guilt from things that happened as a kid. The truly fucked up thing is that these things were not an issue for me until I found out about this affair. Or who knows? They have been an issue all these years but were not at the forefront. They were just buried down deep.

                What I am learning in my research on affairs is that the trauma felt by the betrayed person releases buried traumas from childhood and brings them to the surface. Well I’m finding that to really being the case here. A lot of it goes back to a post I wrote many years ago about my sister and I being molested by my cousin. I don’t remember how to link older posts into new post or I would do that in this case. Let’s give this a try: deeper insight into me and also here: Part II lastly here: lastly 

              

 

So that is where I am right now. Or more correctly last week. I wrote the above last Thu. but wasn’t ready to post. I had more to add and now I don’t remember where I was going with it. I’ll just end it there and post it as is. Hopefully soon I’ll get back to what happened when I came home back in Oct.

Troubles in my head

                I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m just so fucking confused. I love my wife so fucking much. I can’t image living without her. She means everything to me. But I’m so fucking torn right now. As much as I love her and want to be with her, I just don’t know how to do that anymore. Is love enough to keep us together? I can handle her fucking someone else. I just can’t handle the fucking lies!! The betrayal is what hurts the most. When I begin to think that I can’t live with the lies and betrayal anymore that just makes it worse.  I start to get mad at myself for thinking that way. How can I think about not being with the person that I love the most? That I dedicated my life to for 27 years. I just get mad at myself for having these thoughts and they are destroying me inside right now.

                I love her and I hate her at the same time. I hate what she did to me. I hate that she did it without even thinking about me and how I feel. I hate the way that all she says is I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I hate that she always says the same lame fucking answer when I ask her why she did it or how could she do it. It’s always “I don’t know”. How the FUCK can you do this for a fucking year and not know why?! I hate it when she says “I love you so much. You’re my sexy husband”. Or “You mean so much to me” or “I’m so lucky to have a loving husband like you”. Jesus all I want to do is come back with a sarcastic remark. I want to yell at her. I want to scream at her. I want to throw things and hit walls.

                But I can’t do any of that. I promised myself before I started this blog so long ago that I would never yell, scream or lose my temper with her again. Through all of this I have kept that promise to myself. Besides what fucking good is it going to be to yell and scream and make sarcastic remarks or act like fucking crazy deranged person. Even though that’s exactly what I am on the inside. I’m fucking destroying myself from the inside.

                I just can’t think straight anymore. When we are apart due to work, I have all the feelings that I can’t be with her anymore. Then when I get home and she is there I just want to be with her and hold her and never let go. When I do get home from work instead of watching TV like I used to, I listen to music at high volume to try and drown out the voices in my head. Most of the time it doesn’t work though.

                I start thinking that maybe she was right back in Oct. that we need to do a separation to see what we want to do. I need to figure out what I am supposed to do here. But I don’t want to leave my house. I already left once for a week. I’m not leaving again. I’m not going to leave and try to figure out how to pay for a place to stay while this gets figured out and still be responsible for paying for the bills at the house.

Then when I start thinking that I get mad at myself again. How can I possibly want to be away from the woman I love? How can we work on our marriage and make things right if we are apart? Then again how can I believe anything that she says to me? How can I possibly believe that she loves me at all? How can I trust the change of heart that she had from Oct. to Dec.?

How can I believe her when she tells me that I meet all her needs in bed? That’s not what she told him. She told him I don’t last long enough and can’t satisfy her. Now she says that she’s sorry for that and that she didn’t mean it. She was upset and venting. Now suddenly, I’ve always been good enough for her. If I was good enough then WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THIS TO US?!?! HOW COULD YOU JEOPRDIZE OUR MARRIAGE AND TELL ME YOU DON’T KNOW WHY?!!! I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND!

I just hurt so much. I’m a fucking wreck. Nothing I do helps the pain go away. My stomach hurts, my back hurts. That’s on a good day. On the bad days my whole fucking body aches and I force myself to go about my day like nothing is wrong. I still can’t sleep at night. I’m still not eating normally. Although it seems the weight loss has come to an end.

 I can’t stand the way I feel about myself. I hate the way I feel about her. I hate that I love her. I hate myself for wanting to be with her. I hate myself more for not wanting to be with her and felling anger and hatred towards her.

I want to get drunk again, but I know better. I have been 100% sober since Dec. 20^th. That was not a good night. I haven’t related that story yet, so I won’t let out the details yet. Just know that it wasn’t pretty. 

You know 2 weeks ago we were doing good. We still are. There’s no arguing or anything like that. I wasn’t having these fucking thoughts entering my head and I was in a decent place. Then duck season ended, and everything went to shit (in my head not our marriage). Now I have extra time. I’m home alone on Sundays while she is at work. That’s when my mind really takes over. I can’t be alone with myself. But I can’t figure out what I should be doing if I’m not alone. This Sun. is going to be really bad because she is working OT and won’t be home till almost 8:30 at night. I’m not looking forward to it.

What the fuck am I supposed to do? I just don’t fucking know anymore. Someone PLEASE tell me what am I supposed to do?

My week away part 2

    So when I last was telling you about my time away from Summer and our home, I was fighting visions of Summer and douche bag having sex on my bed. I had what I needed and went to my parents house. As I was driving to get there I could feel and anxiety attack coming on. My heart was racing, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I felt like everything was caving in around me.

    I got to my parents house and really didn't say that much to them. I through my stuff and my dogs stuff in my moms bedroom (my parents sleep in separate rooms for at least 15 -16 years). Went to the garage and loaded my fishing stuff, beer and vodka into my dads van. I wasn't playing around. When I walked back in the house my mom asked me if I had eaten anything yet for breakfast. I lied and told her I had a granola bar. Apparently Mother Hen called her when she woke up for school and saw that I was gone. She told my mom to make sure that I was eating. 

    I really love my niece. She was looking out for me and still does.

    Once everything was loaded up in my dads van we drove off to the marina where his boat was when he bought it. We got everything loaded into the boat and got it ready to travel. The move took us a little over 3.5 hours. My dad had me drive all way to the new marina in Antioch while he walked around the boat and cleaned windows, and organized things. When we got to within .5 mile of the marina we stopped and started fishing for a bit. While we were fishing and I was no longer operating the boat, that's when I started drinking beer and vanilla vodka with Cherry Pepsi. I was just screwing around on facebook posting pictures. Not really talking much. That's the thing with my dad and I. We don;t really talk much when we spend time together fishing or hunting. We just sat out there with the dogs fishing and I was trying to drink enough to keep my mind off of what was happening.

    We only fished for about 2 hours because we had to get to the marina and pay for the slip and meet my mom there to give us a ride back to my dads van. We got the boat taken care of and met my mom. We talked a little bit on the way back back I don't remember what was said really. I was still drinking my Pepsi vodka mix since it was in a Pepsi bottle and I was a passenger.

    After we dropped my dad off at his van, I rode with my mom back to their house. We talked a bit on the way. I told her that I had contacted a lawyer while I was at my sisters house. I then told her that I made a mistake in my deep state of depression while I was at my sisters. I told her that I contacted my life insurance company and removed Summer from my primary beneficiary. I added our oldest son at 50% and each of our nieces at 25%.

    Back at the house I helped with dinner and the dishes. Kept drinking beer and then sat with them in the living room. They were watching Jeopardy. I was just looking at my tablet. Seeing if Summer was online or not on Facebook. Suddenly I saw a notification that caught my eye. A friend from High school had saw a picture that I posted earlier and said "Hey!" Seeing that made me get excited. She was a very close friend in high school. We never dated, but until I met Summer she was the person that I wanted to be with.

    She asked me how things were, how's Summer and the kids. She obviously hadn't seen any of the posts that i had posted recently. I replied to her on the post that things weren't good. he then message me in FB Messenger. This was at about 7:30 that evening. We ended up talking to each other till 2:30 in the morning. I told her everything that was going on. Actually I told her a little to fast and she couldn't keep up with the reading I was ending messages so fast. She ended up telling me to stop typing and just let her ask questions. The amazing thing was that she could read and understand my drunk typing. But she was well into a bottle of wine at the time so that may have helped. I ended up telling her everything. About all the times Summer cheated on me. About us having virtual sex with other people in the past. About us have another man in our bed.

    She told me about her marriage and her divorce. How her husband cheated on her and she cheated on her husband. How they tried to bring other people into their bedroom to help the marriage and it only made it worse. 

    I told her I can't even watch an adult video online because I feel like i am cheating on Summer. hat just the act of talking with her that night made me feel like i was cheating on Summer and I felt guilty. We weren't doing anything wrong, but I still felt like I was betraying Summer in some way. I told her this and she said that don't make sense. It's like we are going to do anything. We were talking and catching up on the last 20 years.

    Taking a quick trip back a few hours, my dads dog was all over me the entire time that I was there. When I left the living room to go the bedroom to talk to my friend he started whining. Whenever I would leave the room to get another beer he would try to follow me back but my dad kept him in the living room. At some point my parents went to bed and my dads dog kept scratching at the door. So he let him out of his bedroom and he came to my moms room where I was and started whining at the door. I let him in and he laid with me all night. This is unusual only because my dog really didn't like him laying with me when she was trying to sleep. But that night it didn't bother her. They started out on either side of me both pressed up as close as they could get while I was typing away with my friend. Then once I turned out the light and attempted to sleep, my dog got on the other side and pressed half her body against me and they other half against my dads dog.

    The next morning when I decided to walk into the living room around 6:30, both dogs went to the bathroom and then my dads dog decided that he was going to take over my dogs bed. It was a bit too small for him.

    I talked to my mom about the friend that I was up talking to all night and she was trying to remember her. Then I started asking about one of their friends to see if they knew a certain couple and they did. Apparently my dad plays golf with my friends step dads brother-in-law. That's important because she was coming up for Thanksgiving and was going to be 3 blocks from my parents house. We had planned to meet up on thanksgiving Day so I could meet her new boyfriend and see her mom and talk.

    I texted Summer around 10:30 or so to tell her I was coming home that day. It was Fri. and her day off. She said fine just stay out of her way. That's the welcome home I was hoping for. I got a razor from my mom so I could shave, take a shower and go home. My mom then asked why I shaved. AI said in part 1, I had a full beard up to a few days prior and my goatee went to my chest. I told her I don't know why. I went to cut my hair and next thing I know I was cutting off everything. The truth is, I did it because I hate the way I look without facial hair. I hated the way I felt and wanted my outside to match what I was feeling on the inside. 

    That was back in October. It is now Feb. and I still shave every 3-4 days. Everything from my head to my face. I don't feel nearly as bad as I did back then, but there are times that I still feel like shit. Last night for instance. I was reading something about rebuilding trust and I was fighting the urge to cry and was telling Summer that nothing was wrong.

    So right about the time I was getting ready to leave my dad calls and tells me not to leave yet. He had a golf buddy that was giving away a leather recliner. As I had been wanting a recliner for quite awhile I was very interested in getting it. So I hung around and waited for him to finish his round of golf and we went to his friends house and got the recliner.

    After we had the recliner loaded in my truck I thanked his friend and left. I went back to my parents house to finish getting my stuff and I drove home. The entire drive home I was shaking. My stomach was all knotted up. My palms were sweaty. I was scared. I was mad. I was afraid of what I would be coming home to.

    I got home, grabbed my stuff from the truck (all I had was a duffle bag and the dogs bed) and walked in the door...………….