Tonight I get to drive down the road. It's the road on which the hotels where my H treated his girlfriend's to wonderful times that made him feel so alive that he forgot all about his committments to me. It was so important for him to feel alive.
There they will sit those hotels like beacons of his shame and reminders and triggers for deep traumatic pain. I'll sit in the car he drove in thinking about the excitement he had as he approached his girlfriend, destination, and time for feeling alive.
Now I know that as he drove down to meet her he was returning phone calls and chatting with other women. Qualifying them to see if they might prove to be more interesting than the one he was currently with. He was cheating on his own OW. Apparently, she knew - he did her the courtesy of telling her the truth, but not me. So I guess he wasn't really cheating - but I like to think of it that way...it gives me some remote sense of pleasure to know he wasn't emotionally attached to her.
I can drive by each hotel and think of the each one as another 3 months of work to pay off the debt he generated and another 3 months before we can enjoy our dreams. Multiplied by his multiple visits.
And, then at last we will arrive at our own hotel, a trigger in itself. Staying in hotels. I make him pick really expensive, outlandishly decorated, or residence style hotels so I'm not reminded of the elegant 'standard' hotels he took them to - much like the ones he used to treat me to. What am I just another whore for him to screw and get his aliveness from? No, that's not it...he just treated those whore's like he would his wife - how sad is that. He had a wife at home that would have been plenty happy to join him on a week tryst. Oh well....affairs aren't fair, they sure as hell aren't about me.
Then we will return and I get to leave on a business trip for a week leaving him alone at our house. With the phone bills that show that he made calls to prospective girlfriends in our town, neighboring towns, and carried out an affair in the town I work in.
I don't even know how to deal with these things. My head feels like its filled with cotton. I am going to try meds tonight because I think I might need them next week. But, I really want to know if I can face the Lighthouses without the shield of meds.
Why do I trust this man?
1. He leaves work early most every day.
2. I'm going to be gone for a week, there's nothing I can do about it so it just is what it is.
I'm so tired and I've slept so well these past few nights. Why am I so tired, why don't I care, when will this be over?
I have to go now...the car is coming. I'm sure in the end, it will be a good night for us to hold hands, connect, and pass the beacons which is what will happen. They will stay there, we will put them behind us, and we will go forward. (Until, we come back on Sunday and pass them again! ) So what - we'll put them behind us again!
Triggers. Ugh. I, too, have hotel triggers. I even know the rooms they stayed in. And the ones that had mirrored ceilings.
Such pain. I'm so sorry. I truly feel for you
I sure wish I had great answers, but I don't. We moved 1200 miles away and that has afforded us both much relief. But it's necessary we return soon, and already I am fretting about once again seeing those hotels...those triggers. But this time it's to close the deal on our house; and then, hopefully, I will seldom, if ever, return there again; a place we had lived together for 35 years.
Sigh.
Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ
Hope,your story was so vivid I could feel the despair and the emotional pain you are experiencing as you headed down that road of broken dreams and trust that was betrayed.
It really touched me the way you explained the whole scenario.
I am sending my best wishes that you and your H have a wonderful time and the triggers and pain aren't too great for you to bear.
I hope you get some quality one on one time with your H this weekend and perhaps find it in your self to have a laugh or smile.
Hold your head up and be proud that you are such a strong woman and know that we are rooting for you!
One thing that you can focus in on is that he was seeking something elusive...the A was not meaningful...the women were not important it could have been any body they were a means to get the CHEAP momentary thrill. He wasn't interested in their brains.
My H took OW to a $350/night hotel...I rated the $100/night and he got upset at that cost...Now I choose the hotels.
My IC/MC said H wasn't invested in the OW...he could have left me at any time...he had the choice to do so and didn't...the A's were all about him.
((((hugs))))
Pat
"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."
We travelled the road of broken dreams (thanks for that phrase James - I should have been listening to ome Linkin Park while driving it).
I travelled the road of broken dreams with the tool of destruction sitting by my side. He sat there behind the wheel looking so sure, so confident as I curled in my seat with shields I couldn't see so I didn't know if they would hold. I didn't know how to prepare for this so I just went in to the fray. Strangely wanting, needing to experience the sheer pain. Wanting it to be so bad that I would leave, testing my strange need and desire to stay despite the pain. Not wanting to hide from it, but wanting to know exactly what it was. Curled up crying...silently...in anguish.
He sat there unprepared for what was to come, encouraging me to sleep, talking to distract me. He was also afraid. Afraid of the crying, afraid to have to face is shame. Waiting and wondering for a breakdown to occur in the seat next to him. Not knowing how to prevent, not knowing how to heal it, just waiting for it to come. And, it did come to him...in the form of silence. He was left in his simple need to accomplish a drive, he was left in silence, unwelcome to share in the anguish he had caused. He was left alone, separate, waiting for another opportunity to prove himself.
The anguish of reliving the betrayal was brief, yet intense, painful. The sheer practicality of the drive making it necessary to come back to the present and put the pain in the past where it belongs. And, then we met up with the friends and I felt the strangest sense of anger. To have to fake and lie to these people who are like family. I am a genuine person and this man, this situation has turned me into something I am not proud of, it requires me to be something unnatural to my core self. I have sacrificied a piece of my soul for this man to see if it will help him become a man. If you give a piece of the best part of yourself to someone do they have a better chance of changing and becoming better? History says no, proves that they have to find it within themselves. A piece of someone else's soul, good as it may be, is just another responsibility to manage by a person totally incapable of managing their own self, much less someone elses.
And, then I saw...in the face of his friends how incredibly lost he had become. It was shocking really for me to face how he had shifted as a person from a young, vibrant, social, responsible man to a selfish, weak man. He had lived up to a picture of himself that disease, age, and weakness of self had destroyed. And, he had ridden the long slow slide from the top to the bottom without either of us really noticing that he was even on the slide. His friends surrounded him and in that time that we picnic-ed together with them I could see the man he "was" looking in the mirror at the man he'd "become". And, I was so sad for him. What a crying shame, what a loss and more so for him than for me. Such a long hard road he had traveled to become a success - and BAM in just a few years that need to become a success stopped driving him. He lost his way, he chose another path. And, now, he wants to get on the old path again and he sees me standing on the path at the top of the mountain waiting for him, but it is him who has to climb back to the path. There is little I can do but stand here and remind him that the path is still there. I can encourage him, but there is no rope to throw. Just my voice and my stoic stature standing, waiting, watching him seeing the path clearly from the top of the hill. Watching him wander, lost unable to see the point-to-point path clearly as I do. Sometimes he seems to hear me and come towards me and then he turns and takes a longer path.
And I wonder...how long will I stand here...I could be moving forward, seeing new sites, experiencing new things. But, I just stand here watching, waiting. Mystified by the process. Will he ever get to the path, do I need to step off of it, will I fall into a chasm, do I want to arrive at a new destination, if I'm going to walk a bumpy road...maybe I should just be on a different one altogether. But, I just stand here watching, waiting.
thanks - I'm such a weirdo. I just consolidated my posts. I might show them to my H so he can see what's in my head. Sorry if this bugs anyone. I thought I might have liked to see someone's whole story start to finish when I had first come without searching for the beginning. I tried that before and it didn't really work out. Anyways, so much of my story is in some of my responses that this all seems a bit silly. Whatever. Thanks for suffering a weirdo in your midst.
This message has been edited by forgandforg on Sep 22, 2007 12:25 PM
You are NOT a weirdo. You are a hurt woman who has been traumatized by her H's behavior. You are trying to put all the puzzle pieces together, so that you can reassurance yourself that you know what the whole picture looks like. If you can solve the puzzle, you can get on with your life.
You are a SMART woman. You are kind, loving, funny, intelligent and caring.
I agree with FF, you are not a weirdo!!!!....the post about you, your H, friends, at the picnic was beautiful...It touched me...I wish my husband could look within himself to see what he has become. and be sorry enough to be motivated to change his behavior.. instead, he still insists that I drove him to the poor choices that he makes... I don't have much hope yet that he will change, because I don't think he sees the need to change
Lisa
) So what - we'll put them behind us again! 
