Spring cleaning in mid winter

His moved to the 2nd room - it was sad, but with each day passing I am even more convinced that it was the right thing to do.Right now, I don't miss him sleeping next to me as much as I thought I would...we still need to have our contract review - but I keep putting it off because I am enjoying the peace...

In this quiet time, its given me time to think and I am doing what I always do when stressed and overworked - I organise. So I am finding things, long forgotten and bittersweet.

Today I found sketches of my wedding dress - duchess, silk...blue bordered...honeymoon packing lists...shampoo, toothpaste...clothes. Possible budgets and what it would get us... I ran my hand over each aging page and remembered how happy I was at that moment - the future was before me, sunny and bright. I tore it all up and threw it the bin...it was time to let go.

I found the compulsive copy and paste documents, detailing my husbands threads of conversation with his other woman...I hesitated for a second and deleted it from my pc. I am tired and keeping it only serves as a reminder of what my husband has done...like I need to be reminded of that... its time to let go...

Focus on the family is coming to South Africa- I have asked him if he would like to go and if so...he can book the tickets - we'll see what happens.
  
I bought this kitch poster and placed in a place of pride in my living room to help me remember when days are tough, the kind of home we are working towards:
                       

                      
                                        


Its time to let go, the wind whispers...I think I just might. One step at a time...

Hit the road jack

Its done. The damage had been done regardless of whether or not he had told me about the skype thing last year. The only thing that would have saved the situation is if he magically pulled an email out of his ass, dated 2011 and telling me that deleting skype accounts isn't possible.

For the last week now, physically I have been crumbling. I feel exhausted - as if I could crawl under a blanket and just sleep. My chest pains are getting worse with every passing thought about how this happened and when he couldn't find any evidence to suggest that he told me about skype - it magnified like a vice around me. But I am over it...my memory sucks - but on second thought, I am pretty sure I would remember this.

I told him that I loved him very much and that I know he loves me and our family - but I need space. He will never know the toll this has taken on me and how deeply saddened I am by not just the skype thing, but the core of the issue. Which is that I believe that he hasn't fully committed to living up to his promises he made to me last year. I told him that it was a mistake that we didn't write our contract down and that it wasn't fair to either one of us. He doesn't have a leg to stand on, if I insist he promised something - I don't have a place to go, if he thinks I am making up rules as we go along. So this time we will do it right. We will talk about what hasn't worked and what has - what has been unrealistic and what should be put in place to help us both.

I told him that, its a time for stock taking and if we do this right, our relationship will come out stronger for it. I don't know if he believed me...I think his scared that this is the first step towards serious seperation.

Before I asked him to move out - it stressed me out hectically. I was dreading it, because I wasn't sure if I had important enough grounds and because I would miss him. I love him so much and just the thought of not sleeping beside him makes me sad. But I have learnt the hard way that he uses my love against me... So despite my heartache, when he asked me what am I going to do - I looked him straight in the eye and told him that he needed to move. Immediately, I started feeling a lot better. My chest pain diminished and that feeling of exhaustion lifted a little bit and I knew that it was the right choice. Maybe I had been confusing being supportive with being a victim.

He cried a little bit...and I felt crappy for him. I am pretty sure this isn't where he wanted to end up and from a different angle - this is going be a serious challenge for him, if he in fact as been clean for the last year and now he feels that his being "punished" for nothing. He could decide that its not worth the effort, to stay sober...but thats not my problem.

So we need to get a heater for that room and some decent warm blankets, because I don't want to feel guilty about relegating him there in mid winter.

I think good things will come out of this. My heart is not to needlessly punish him or be gratuitous about the time we spend apart - when its time to be together again I hope I will see it and niether rush it or prolong it. 

So off to my make up for the looong day ahead :-) Glad its done, so I can be awesome in all my working mom glory without stressing.

 Saturday is going to suck though- but something to think about on another day...

Skype accounts and privacy options

So apparently Mr Man this morning has already started addressing some of my "concerns". And this is what he has found out- that you can't delete skype accounts - can you freakin well believe it!! Check out this link:

Can I delete my skype account

Can I delete my skype account

This is massive pain in my backside along with the privacy tab! Who the fuck invented that shit, so that you can't disable it.

So this is the thing...there is a good chance that if there is no way to delete it, he probably told me last year and I have forgotten. We went through a whole thing, where he deleted all the accounts he could remember - emails and facebook. I gave myself a little crash course on IT stuff and started speaking the language with my network adminstrator husband and I also started looking for cookies and I found out a couple of things, my husband wished I hadn't...but skype cookies wasn't one of them. There were somethings that I found out couldn't be deleted- like the damn  privacy tab. Was skype accounts one of them? On the best of days, my memory sucks. Did we arrive at the same place last year as we did today? Did he attempt to delete his accounts, but found that it wasn't possible? For the life of me, I can't remember...maybe I should go for hyonosis to try and recall LOL  side note:I wonder if he ever thought about how much infidelity would cost us financially in the long run...

Regardless though, we obviously still have a major problem on our hands because his done stuff this year that has made me feel uneasy and that I am not happy with and so we need to re-establish boundaries. I have tried to tell myself that he needs to learn to self-manage because I can't keep watching him, but it hasn't made it any easier for me to deal with it and ultimately if I am not happy than I can't survive in our marriage despite whether he thinks I am being unreasonable in my demands.

So ja..lets see what happens next.

Contract Killer

Okay - so I am feeling slightly calmer today.

Surprisingly, my husband approached me last night and spoke about what he thinks should happen. I know its a small victory but considering that last year it took us about 4 months to get to a place where he started activily contributed towards recovery plans, I am grateful.

So in a nutshell this is what he said:

a) In a sodom and gomorrah like move, he said that last year he didn't want to go back to some of the sites and platforms he was on. He just wanted to get away from it all and never look back.

b) He admitted that he had accounts with so many sites and used so many different names, that he doesn't remember them all, which apparently included numerous skype accounts.

c) He admitted that he knew we  had a contract last year about whats okay and not okay, but he doesn't remember some of it. He would like us to revisit it and flesh things out and work out an action plan.

I don't know hey. I believe him about the numerous accounts thing, although once again it saddens me. The just up and leaving some accounts ...I can understand that, since he got into some crazy stuff. But the contract thing kills me - I think he knew it would upset me, if I knew that he didn't remember some of the promises he made and thats why he could't/wouldn't confess to it before hand. He can't keep his promises because he doesn't remember some of them.

I feel disrespected and unheard. As if my pain last year didn't leave enough of a lasting scalding on his memory. On a more tangible side though - I should have written down the contract and made him sign it. At the time I thought the conversation would be enough, but that was a mistake. This time round, we write it down and sign it. This way I don't make up rules as I go along and he has something visual to go on...

I asked him if he would be willing to do hynosis - he said yes. I looked into the hypnotherapy thing and apparently  you don't have to reveal anything you don't want to reveal - thats not what I wanted to hear. So hynotherapy isn't going to work out for us. So I am back at sqaure 1 where I only have my intuition to go on. Maybe thats how it should be, but I desperately would have loved something more concrete to go on.

So hypnosis is out and we have a legitimate way forward. So I have been mulling over the 2nd bedroom thing - I struggle to do this, because I am concerned that once I move him out, I will end up divorcing him. But a part of me recognises the truth that there must be consequences, regardless of what he says. If anything it will serve to underline the importance of our new contract. So a short stint in the 2nd bedroom seems to be in order.

I think I will tell him over him over the weekend - I can't deal with the drama while I am facing meetings and press this week :-(

It was naive of me to think that all the hardwork could be done in a year and the rest would be just plain sailing while we kept an eye on things. I was hoping that we wouldn't have to revisit this crap - but I should have known better. After all the stories and journeys I have read, there is a common theme of having to revisit things and false starts when the couple wants to remain married and is trying to work it out. Maybe this time next year, it will be better...if we manage to last until then.

Squander - Skunk Anansie

Why take everything you see?
You'll have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You'll have no one left to love

You throw it all away
Those ties you went and suffered for
you cause disaster
and flounder flounder flounder flounder

Why take everything you see?
You'll have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You'll have no one left to love

You're less than you should be
why run so hard to finish last
you cause contendement
and I wonder wonder wonder wonder

Why take everything you see?
You'll have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You'll have no one left to looooove looooove
Why squander squander squander squander

Why take everything you see?
You'll have nothing left to squander
If you keep pushing me away
You'll have no one left to love

The impact of infidelity on your career

I am ambitious. I always have been and always will be. I was raised to prize excellence. I am a hard worker...perhaps to hard as my husband as often called me a workoholic. But he never understood the joy that comes from a job well done.

So when I first found out that he was cheating on me, my work ethic was shot to hell. Unable to focus on anything but his infidelity - deadlines went passed unheeded. In meetings I spaced out, unable to keep to stop myself from thinking about whats going to happen or what he was doing at that exact moment. It took me about 5 months to get to a place of almost functioning the way I used to - and now I am thinking about my future.

I always knew I would be a life long learner. I love studying and learning new things - I find meaning in gathering knowledge and implementing it - so now at the point in my life, I am trying to position myself to do whatever I want to do for the next 20 odd years ( I am a bit of a planner:-))...

The thing is though- instead of thinking of what I would love to do...what would bring me happiness, I now think about what I need to do in order to have the best shot at bringing money in, as a single mom.  I would love to be an historian - there are gaps in south african history around coloured culture and for too long we have ingnored it in favour of white or black culture. I would like to part of the movement that brings about coloured pride - this however seems like a pipe dream right now. Nobody wants to pay consistently for this sort of thing - I would need to have a reliable partner to pull it off. A reliable partner that I don't have.

So I find myself, looking at options at how to study more indepth in the field that I am currently in. Maybe I should do my masters in adult education? I can do it and I do it well, virtually all my work experience is in this field and it would be the natural next step...but I long for unchartered territories...perhaps the closet I will ever get is the discovery history channel.

His taken more from me than he probably realises.  His taken away my freedom to choose to something bold and new. I could never risk losing the roof over our heads for a new adventure - my sense of responsibility is to deeply ingrained.

It makes me wonder how many women have compromised their dreams because their partners have let them down? How many women chose to stay in marriages, because on their own - they can't provide a standard of living that they want for their children.

Why couldn't he have loved me more?

Two skype accounts

I have never been much of a game player when it comes to relationships. I am more of a "wearing your heart on your sleeve" kind of girl. I can't help but be transparent...its to hard for me to keep up a lie.
So yesterday, when I discovered that my husband has another active skype account that weird pain in my chest started up again, but I didn't cry. I am tired of crying...

So I came up with this elabourate plan on how I was going to catch him out, but this morning in the car - cool as can be putting on my make up- I asked him. I notice you have two skype accounts - what would do expect me to do this with this? I didn't shed a tear...I didn't raise my voice. Mascara wand in hand, carefully inking my lashes...I waited for his answer and my heart sunk as I heard the hesitation in his response. I wondered if my marriage had finally run its course.

At first he didn't remember a thing..then he mentioned that maybe it was the account with his name on it. I just looked at him. He said that maybe it was an account he had to opened for his old job...I didn't answer. I asked him again, why do you have two skype accounts. And then he said the words that seems to be one of the porn addicts catch phrases...oh I forgot about that one. I didn't realise I still had it. I remember him telling me at the time he needed to open up a skype account at his boss's request...what I don't understand is that why is it still active? Did he really have so many accounts, that he has no idea of what his deleted and what his kept?

Do I believe him? No...

How does a recovering porn addict forget one of his online chat accounts? I am so tired of being disappointed in him. Why can't he just do what he says his going to do? Why does everything have to be such an uphill battle?

I then asked him, how much time does he want before he gets back to me, about what we are going to do about whats happended. He said he doesn't know what I am expecting him to say...I said...I will give you till Thursday.

Guys, I am tired. I am tired of feeling foolish even if this second account is an unfortunate left over from the past. I don't know what he has to say in order for me, not to move him to our second room. Its all just to much for me...I am exhausted with uncertainty and I am tired of the games we play.

The thought has crossed my mind as whether he is a porn addict or whether his just a narcisstic pathological liar. I don't know which one is worse...but maybe if he was just a plain ol liar it would be easier for me to let go. With an addict you hold out that with work recovery everything will turn out fine. With a liar, there is no chance of that.

So we will see how the week unfolds. I wonder if his just not going to say anything. Thats how he usually reacts. His uses silence as a defence and waits for me to make all the moves. Well if he does that again, his not going to like the consequences.

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go hence and have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardoned, and some punished. For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo"