truth and consequences

Today was John’s birthday. What a long year it’s been. This time last year, I was unemployed, or rather, at the end of my unemployment, scheduled to start work the next week. Today, last year, John blacked out and harassed every female friend I had at his party. He embarrassed and upset the shit out of me. Today, last year, I held Matthew’s hand on the drive home from Austin. 

Okay, so John and I are really working things out. Divorce was taken off the table. Well, we didn’t say exactly that. Actually I told him I wasn’t considering it anymore, and that it was okay if he wasn’t at that point yet. You don’t know me well enough to realize that that was a jaw-dropping moment of honesty and openness for me. I’m a self-preservationist. That information would normally be kept in my top secret file because being more committed, putting myself out there: not something I do.

Anyway, I’ve moved back into our bedroom, re-arranged the furniture and made curtains (the room just felt so sterile and empty without them). We haven’t had sex since that first night we talked, but we are sleeping in the same bed, and that’s a good step towards re-establishing our intimacy. We kiss a few times a day. I wish I felt more for him romantically. It feels exactly the same as it did before all of this happened. Like he’s fine, we’re fine, but we’re boring and uninteresting sexually. I know it’s not that way on his end. I know he’s attracted to me, thinks I’m smoking hot and wants to do me all the time. He’s conflicted about it because of the images and feelings he has about me and Matthew, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting me. I just am not there mentally with the attraction.

I really shouldn’t be so surprised about that, I haven’t been there for years (excepting when I’m fertile, I’m crazy horny and shockingly indiscriminate when I’m fertile). Ugh, we are best friends, partners, but not lovers. I’m hoping we can work on that, but I can’t push it yet. We’re already working on so much just to be where we are. 

For me, the work is mostly on communication, openness. Sharing my feelings without having to have them dragged out of me. Making an effort to help him feel safe. Trying to figure out the root of our biggest problems (which seem to be coming from each of us individually). Working through my own issues with abandonment, fear of failure, etc. I’ve been trying to work on the obvious issues, because they’re the easiest to identify and do something with. I had been under a lot of stress with the finances (which I was in charge of pretty much entirely), so now I’m starting to include him in money conversations, bill paying, etc. We talked about our schedules (we work opposite hours) and how we can make time for us (instead of just hanging out whenever we both happen to be home). We had a date tonight (for his birthday), are hanging out with a mutual friend tomorrow (Vic), and are going to stay this weekend at the b&b he works at. I think the scheduled time together will help bring us closer and make us put more effort into each time (as opposed to just passively being together, like roommates). 

For John, the work is centered around his alcoholism. Also, he’s trying to repair the damage done with our (his) friends. He talked to everyone. Seriously overshared to every person he is remotely close to. One of his (female) friends actually told me she could see me or be friends with me because she couldn’t be around someone with such low moral standards. That was before we were getting back together, obviously. It was totally awful. She was a bridesmaid in our wedding. She and I hadn’t talked about it at all, she’d only talked to John. It took me a week to get past the anger and see the reality: she isn’t thinking straight because she’s trying to protect John, and any potential she may have for a future relationship with him. John is her Matthew. She was his "work wife" at his old job, totally idolizes him, and secretly has a huge thing for him. She goes out for drinks with him after work sometimes, has lunch dates with him, tells him all her troubles, and depends on him for emotional support, even though she has a boyfriend. The bitch is pretty much judging me for something that she herself could have just as easily done. She was crossing the same lines with my husband that I was crossing with Matthew. Only difference is I got drunk one night and pushed it to the next level. So anyway, guess who John and I *aren’t* going to be all chummy with from now on? Yeah.

I’ve let my friends (April & Vic) and my brother know that John and I are working it out. They are all super happy for us. I think most people will be. I’m really happy for us too. I know I’m sitting here bitching, but I had to vent somewhere…I really don’t believe in complaining to my friends about things that are wrong in my relationship with John. I never did it before all this drama, and it’s important that we are seen as united. Other people don’t need to know about all of our dirty laundry. 

On the dirty laundry note: I texted Matthew as well. I know that I should have been a grown up and called, but I didn’t know if he’d answer (or rather I was pretty sure he wouldn’t) and I didn’t want to leave it in a voicemail (stuttering and crying should not be replay-able). I didn’t know if he would get back to me or call or say anything at all. So far that’s a big fat no. I kinda thought that was how it would go, but I hate how un-resolved it feels. I told him John and I were going to work on things, and that it was best for everyone’s sanity that we cut ties. I was very careful not to make myself not sound too pathetically broken up about the whole thing.

Truth? I’m pathetically broken up about it. Not in the crying, snotty rollercoaster way that I was broken up about John and I over the last several weeks, but in the wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night, can’t-sleep-so-I-close-my-eyes-and-pretend-my-husband-is-Matthew kind of way. And does my brain replay the fact that he basically dropped off the face of the planet and was completely emotionally unavailable when I saw him or talked to him? Uhhh no. It replays holding his hand today last year. Dancing with him at a concert last spring, dancing with him the night after Thanksgiving. It replays his smell, his skin, his face, the kiss outside the bar, and our seriously hot almost-sex. It replays Christmas morning, when he was sober and sweet, and we kissed goodbye. I haven’t seen him since then. I don’t get to see him like that again. Guard down, in private, smiling and talking and just being with me. If I see him, it will be on accident, in public, and horrible awkwardness will undoubtably ensue. Why am I romanticizing him? We had zero shot at a relationship. He dropped me pretty much as soon as John and I made the (horribly rash) decision to get a divorce. Why can’t my brain remember that? Why can’t it remember how abandoned I felt after that? No. It is totally blind to all of that. Jesus fucking christ.

What was he really? A conquest? What was I for him? Undoubtably the same. He now knows he could have had me if he wanted me. He was able to land me even though I was married to John. It’s completely possible that’s all the last three years with him have been: a game. And worse, although I know he was a conquest of sorts for me, I didn’t win. I got *this* close, and then he

took all the control of our relationship and turned it around. I think, otherwise, if things had happened more on my terms, I might feel some sort of satisfaction or closure. Or I might be getting a divorce for real. 

It really has rescued my marriage that I can say that we did not have sex. John may never have been willing to work things out otherwise. I’ve been reading up on emotionally unavailable men, and on the women who pursue them, who are (you guessed it) emotionally unavailable themselves. I have read that they are impossible to have a real relationship with, not least of all because the girl is equally unavailable, and only pursuing a guy like that because she knows deep down that it can’t be anything real and it will never work out. Matthew and I could NEVER have been together. Would someone please tell me how to shut down my fantasy life with him?

I know it will take time. I’m just terrified that I’ll go back to living in my head, fantasizing about him (or other men) to escape the reality that is my actual husband. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time now, and even though things are exponentially better, and with John in aa I don’t have to worry about half of our issues from before, I just don’t know how I’ll ever get to a place where I’m attracted to him. Where I fantasize about him. Where I don’t have to switch his face for someone else’s so that I can kiss him for more than 2 seconds. What if we do everything we’ve said we’ll do: work out our own issues, actively work on our own relationship, but the attraction never returns? I don’t know if I can live like that. I know there’s no way to have a perfect everything in this imperfect world, but…I need to know if this will get better. Anybody got a crystal ball?

Sorry for the crazy long entry. Not my usual style, but obviously had some shit to get out. Hope you have a good night.