Death of me

I should have seen those signs all around me,
But I was comfortable inside these wounds;
So go ahead and take another piece of me now
While we all bow down to you;

You tear me down and then you pick me up,
You take it all and still it’s not enough,
You try to tell me you can heal me,
But I’m still bleeding and you’ll be
The death of me!

How can you end my affliction
If you’re the sickness and I’m the cure?
Too long I’ve faked this addiction,
Another sacrifice to make us pure;

You tear me down and then you pick me up,
You take it all and still it’s not enough,
You try to tell me you can heal me,
But I’m still bleeding and you’ll be
The death of me!

You tear me down and then you pick me up,
You take it all and still it’s not enough,
You try to tell me you can heal me,
But I’m still bleeding and you’ll be
The death of me!

I won’t forget;
I cannot forget this;
I won’t forget;
I’ll never forget this;
I won’t forget;
I cannot forget this;
I won’t forget;
I’ll never forget this;

I won’t forget!
I cannot forget this!
I won’t forget!
I’ll never forget!

You know I can never prove this solution;
You aren’t the one that I thought you were;
And so I learn to embrace this illusion,
The line that separates- it starts to blur;

You tear me down and then you pick me up,
You take it all and say it’s not enough,
You try to tell me you can heal me,
But I’m still bleeding and you’ll be
The death of me!

And you’ll be the death of me!

I will not forget!
I cannot forget this!
And you’ll be the death of me!

Too much time on my hands

H mentioned to me that he likes the road we’re on. He likes this road, because it is a road of peace in the home. We only talk about every day things, which mostly relates to our daughter. There are no longer any heavy conversations or disagreements. It is very quiet here on the home front.

I understand how he likes a quiet road, I do too. In fact, it allows one to think and plan their future. However, this road we’re on, even though very quiet, is the wrong road as we’re not addressing any of our problems. We’re just floating here. I believe that we will continue down this road until one of us gets tired and walks away. It feels like the only thing that’s left is the heated ash from the large fire that was burning for several months. The smoke has started lifting from the ashes, but the small flame that lies beneath, is not completely out yet.

When H heard the part about one of us walking away, he was caught off guard and questioned it.

That is when he began acting very serious and told me, “You have too much time on your hands to analyze things and I am very concerned about you.”

When I asked exactly what he meant by that, he had no explanation as to why he was concerned.

He continued repeating the phrase but would not give me an answer. If I didn’t know better it sounded like he was trying to get me to believe something was terribly wrong with the free time I had or with me for that matter. Of course, after all I’ve been through with him, I know him much better then that. He always tells me something like the above phrase when a conversation begins to get deep or is of a serious nature. This usually happens when he wants to avoid the topic of discussion. It is his way to turn the conversation around taking our focus elsewhere, which always leads to me.

I sure wish he was this concerned about me over the last several months when I was going out of my mind and going through all the shit he was dishing out. He was never concerned at all. And if he was, he never showed it.

It is true that I have more time on my hands now. Four extra hours to be exact. But that’s only because our daughter started school. It gives me the time I need to do my housework without interruptions and a little bit of “me” time. Now why would that be a concern for H?

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Next: Another breach of agreement

A breach of agreement

Just about everyone on the Internet has heard of Craig’s list. All kinds of items are sold there and people flock to buy. However, we also know that this site is a place that advertises “free sex”. People place ads on there looking for sex and covering it up with needing an escort or someone to just hang out with. Women coming to this country for vacation, advertise there as needing a tour guide. And if its a woman, she is strictly asking for a man. Need I say more?

Now tell me, why would a married man go to this site and look under personals in the country where he resides? Could it be that he is looking for some “free sex”? Or is it just curiosity to see what he is missing from having the old ball and chain around?

Besides Craig’s list, I also know that H is still in contact via email with a woman from “that forum”. This is a breach of an agreement that was made when I gave him the conditions for me staying. He is not to have ANY contact with women via the Internet and he knows it. I guess he really doesn’t care and is just pushing the envelope to see how far he can go. I am so tired of all this. I guess now I have to live up to my request and the consequences will have to be enforced. Otherwise, he will think I was blowing hot air and that was not the case at all.

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Next: Too much time on my hands

A suspicious mind

Once a person has been effected by Infidelity, their eyes are now open, their radar goes up and they watch and wait to see what’s coming next. They question events that might occur and wonder if the answers given are genuine or not when told to them by their spouse. As time goes by, they no longer question these events, instead, they just make a mental note and wait to see if anything develops over time.

I am so tired of being suspicious when something out of the ordinary happens. H cell phone hasn’t rang for weeks, at least when he is home. So when it did at a very odd hour, I couldn’t help but wonder who it could possibly be.

H was taking a nap during the time the call came through. The first time his phone rang, he did not get it out of his pocket in time. However, he did look at the number and before putting the phone away, I asked him who it was. He said it was a moderator from “that forum”. About a minute later, his phone rang again. He picks it up, looks at the number, but doesn’t answer it. I asked him why he didn’t answer his phone and his reason was that he was half awake and half asleep. Then the third time it rang, he got the phone, looked at the number, and still would not answer it. I told him to just answer it when it rings again. Sure enough when the phone rang a forth time, he answered and left the room talking.

When H returned, he told me the guy needed computer help and would be calling him back later. I wonder if this is actually true. No one from “that forum” has contacted him all summer to even ask where he is or how he’s doing. Now out of no where, someone calls him to ask for computer help? What is also strange is that the owner of said forum, along with other members there, know computers quite well. So why didn’t the guy take his computer related questions to someone else?

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Next: A breach of agreement

Why?

“Why can’t we just wake up tomorrow and act as though nothing happened?”

After I found out about H affair, I heard this phrase from him repeatedly. Now it surfaces again. I guess through the entire process, he has not learned, nor accepted what he had done seeing it for what it is. If he had, then he wouldn’t be asking this question and he would know that it could never be. If we were to wake up one day and forget all that has happened, we would only be fooling ourselves. Speaking for myself, the pain would still be there and that can never be forgotten.

My whys? Why didn’t he just wake up the next day after I found out, and realized what he had done by showing remorse? We could have started putting this all behind us and moving on. Eventually, as time went by, it would begin feeling like none of this ever happen. Why didn’t he wake up the next day and realize he really loved me and wanted “us”? Why didn’t he keep outsiders out of our marriage all the months that followed? Keeping people in this marriage over the months, which prevented him from focusing on “us”, done more damage then the initial affair itself.

“Why couldn’t we have always have been this way towards one another all these years?”

When I heard this, I thought to myself, how textbook. To hear these words from the betrayer, when they decide to re-write marital history, is just unbelievable!

The truth of the matter is we have always gotten along. We were never the kind of couple that argued. Sure there were small disagreements but they few and far between. We never had the perfect marriage, but there was enough respect in it, which allowed us to treat one another with courtesy.

It only bothers him now, because he has blocked out all the years of our time together. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, not remembering how good I once had it and what my marriage was like prior to. It must be difficult to see something that once was, when you look back and see it blown to shreds.

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Next: Why we stay

Absolute

Ever since H affair came to light, he would say that he was always absolute in believing he would never stray. Due to the experience of it all, he says he will never be absolute again. Maybe he can no longer be absolute, since he doesn’t know himself anymore. As for those around him, being absolute, is not acceptable to him either.

I don’t think that telling your spouse you will never betray them again is actually being absolute. It comes from the heart, from the love you have for that person. You realize what you have done. You see the hurt that you have caused to the one you love and feel their pain. You see the destruction that your actions caused to your marriage and the millions of pieces that lay around to be picked up. You have learned from the experience itself and in turn, you will never go there again.

All these months, H has not been able to tell me he will never betray me again. Which leads me to believe, there is a very high possibility. Even though we are just co-existing here, it doesn’t mean he is free to do whatever he wants. After all, we are putting on a good front for those around us, and making sure that our daughter has no clue as what is really going on. I have asked him to tell me if he starts developing feelings for another women and/or gets involved with someone else. I don’t feel I can go through another betrayal during the remainder of my time here. I have already felt like I’ve been thrown out with the trash, and he is just keeping me here only because he wants his daughter. He says that next time around, he hopes that he will have the courage to tell me. Last time, he never came to me even after the fact, to let me know what he had done and back then, we were “together”. Now, in the current situation we are in, I highly doubt that in the future he will be telling me anything.

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Next: Why?

Spouse to friend vs. Spouse to spouse

“You are tired of my shit”, is what I heard from H this evening. It was not really a question but rather something he had been thinking about and just said out loud. Hell yes, I’m tired! I’m more like extremely exhausted. Exhausted to the point where I will never get the rest I need, in order to fully recover.

He says he is aware of all he has done to me while treating me like shit. He actually described it as not knowing what he was doing at the time, but now he can see all he has done. If this is truly the case, then why hasn’t he made up for the way he treated me? When someone loves you and they do you wrong, no matter what it is, they will find a way to make it up to you. I know this is true in friendship but why isn’t it that way in marriage?

You would think that being married is more of a reason to make up for a wrong committed from one spouse to another. However, it seems like that is not the case in most marriages effected by infidelity. In fact, we see more cases of making up for a wrong committed by a spouse to a friend, then from a spouse to a spouse.

And if this is the case, then I would rather be a friend of my H, then be his wife. For if I were just a friend, you’d be damn sure, he would have made it up to me long ago. He would have stopped dead in his tracks doing all he was doing, while seeing how much he was hurting his friend. Then he would have bent over backwards in order to make up for it. Sadly, I am not a friend of my husband in that sense. I am his wife.

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Next: Sometimes love just ain’t enough

Inner peace

It has been very quiet around here over the last three days. For the first time, since all this began, I feel very calm. Its not the calm before the storm, because there is no storm in sight. Its more like an inner peace. It feels like my spirit has left my body and has taken along with it all the worry, negativity, uncertainty and pain, that has weighed me down over the last several months. Now, after all this time, only emptiness remains.

I feel much lighter, as though all I’ve been carrying with me, has been lifted. As far as my eyes can see, my road is straight. The distance is long, but there are no obstacles in my way. I can walk more freely now. My steps are no longer wobbly. They are more steady. I may not know where I’m headed, but there’s no doubt in my mind, that I will eventually get there.

I have never experienced this feeling before. I couldn’t figure out what all this meant, so I decided to look up the meaning of “inner peace” and this is what I found…

Inner peace refers to a state of being mentally and spiritually at peace, with enough knowledge and understanding to keep oneself strong in the face of discord or stress. Being “at peace” is considered by many to be healthy and the opposite of being stressed or anxious.

Even though I may not have an answer as to why I feel this way, its a good feeling, and one I hope that lasts for as long as it can.

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Next: Everything I do, I do it for you

Soul searching

Now that H is no longer on “that forum”, there is a calmness between us. Sure we have our issues but now we no longer have to deal with our issues on top of other problems that “that forum” brought into our marriage. Plus, we no longer have to deal with his misbehaving, flirting with other women, spending all those hours in chat and taking phone calls for computer related problems. If only he would have just put all those social activities aside and concentrated on our marriage, but no, he had to bring other women into our chaotic situation to create even more conflicted between the two of us.

The calmness between me and H has allowed him to do some soul searching. He didn’t share his findings me with, but I’m sure they will come to light at a later time. The important thing is that he is finally starting to look deep within himself and hopefully, he will realize the damage he has caused to this marriage and to us. If there is one thing I wish for him, it is to learn from not only the experience itself and the consequences after the fact, but to see and feel all the pain he has repeatedly inflicted on me all these months. Maybe in his soul searching he will figured out how to fix all he has broken.

By now, I’m sure that he has realized its not only the calm between us that has given him the time he needs in order to do this soul searching, but its also due to the fact that he is no longer on “that forum”. Surely, he must be realizing that all the time and effort he put into “that forum” all those months, could have been applied to our marriage and to us. I wonder if he’ll realize all this once his soul searching is complete?

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Next: Inner peace

International Law prevents me from leaving

Over the last several months, I have been feeling like H has had me exactly where he wants me. The mutual agreement regarding custody of our daughter was something we both agreed to sign. However, it was put off during the time I was sick. When the matter came up again, H refused to sign the contract for his own selfish reasons. It is true that I can leave any time I want, but my dilemma is that I cannot bring myself to leave without my daughter. And if I take her with me, there will be kidnapping charges to face, and I will lose her altogether.

As far as I’m concerned, International law is close to that of the states. After talking with an Attorney the other day, I figured that it was strange about appearing before a judge to allow him to rule on the best interest of our daughter and where she should live, without filing for a divorce or legal separation first. In the back of my mind, I thought this was very unusual but then again, laws I have ran across, during my time here, are very different from that of the states. So I basically just went along with it, thinking I just might have a chance.

When my Attorney called me today, she told me that it was best to file for a divorce before taking this matter to court. I would be able to provide my request for divorce as a reason for leaving the country. If I go before the judge without applying for a divorce, then I would have to prove that me and H are not mentally connected in any way. Now how does one prove that? Personally, I believe that whether or not I file, a judge would state it is in the best interest of our daughter that I remain in the country, so she can be closer to her father.

To help the judge come to a decision, he would basically look at our daughter’s environment and relationship she has with H family, since I have no family here. Being that this is the only criteria the judge will use, I have no chance at all. H family and this country is all our daughter has ever known. Not to mention that in September, she will start school here. She will finally be settled with a complete life. Not only with family, but with friends as well. No judge in his right state of mind will grant me custody of our daughter to move her half way around the world, away from everyone and everything she has every known.

Months ago I had discussed divorce with my Attorney and it was not recommended due to the time it would take, the long custody battle and the cost. That is when we came to the mutual agreement regarding the custody. If I were to file for a divorce now, my first hearing date will be some time in 2010. From that point, it will take any where from three months to over a year for the judge to make his decision regarding custody of our daughter. All the while, I would have to remain in this country during the entire process. That will take over a year, if not two years, before all will be said and done. And at that time, my daughter will be seven years old.

My Attorney did come up with the idea of joint custody. Our daughter would spend six months out of the year with me and the six months with H. I told her H would never agree to that. She then asked me if I thought H would actually file kidnapping charges against me. I told her he has said so in the past which prevented me from leaving the first time, and even if he would not do so as soon as I left, it would eventually be done. She then wanted to know what kind of options H gave me and I told her, I can either stay in this marriage with him and raise our daughter together or I can leave without her. She was silent. She couldn’t believe it.

Basically, I don’t have a 50/50 chance here. In fact, I have no chance at all. As time goes by, I lose my daughter more and more. H knows he has me exactly where he wants me. It is so unfair that H chose to ruin our marriage with his infidelity, doesn’t want to save what we could have had and now I’m faced with him taking my daughter from me as well. H won all the way around. Now ,with the information I have gathered regarding my situation, it will be up to me to decide what I’m going to do and it doesn’t look good.

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Next: Soul searching