Losing Sleep

Be prepared for some “poor me” whiny-ness and stuff that cheating husbands will say is the reason why they cheat, you know cause I am a dried up old bitch that deserves it.  I am sure they would pull my husband C into the fold and ask him why he puts up with me and does not go out and find another girlfriend.  This is turning out way longer than I had planned.

I am naturally a night owl, so staying up till 1 am watching TV is nothing unusual for me.  The last few days I have had trouble falling asleep though and find myself awake at 3 am and have to get up around 5:30am to get my son off to the bus.  I usually don’t have any trouble sleeping so I know this will pass, but my mind just won’t shut off.  I have had a couple outbursts with C (my husband) over the last couple days.  I feel frustrated all the time and things about him just set me off.  I realized as I lay there in bed that I get no joy from our relationship, I get no satisfaction from taking care of him.  He wants us to be a happy husband and wife.  I am wanting none of that, we are room mates.  He does not make me happy, he makes me sad.  His cheating stamped out any loving feelings I had.  What I do for him now is in exchange for the money he earns, I am an unhappy housekeeper, maid and cook.

The basic thing I have been struggling with is I resent the role of wife.  I resent making the cheating bastard dinner, he does not cook, he has NEVER made me a single meal (we have been married over 20 years).  But as he has said, he goes to work and makes money and sometimes he does not feel like doing it.  Yeah I say, I used to work full time, take care of our kid in my off hours, clean and make dinner, so suck it ( I didn’t say the suck it part out loud).  At the same time I am angry with myself for getting into the position I am today.  I live with a man who cheated on me and if I had enough money I would not be married to him or living with him.  I used to work full time and was confident in the fact that I could take care of myself.  I had worked for a good company for over 10 years, then changed jobs to get into a tech field, and then that job ended when the business went under.  I dabbled with a few things after that but essentially have been a stay at home mom for more than 10 years.  I have worked at home for a couple real companies but the work has never been reliable enough to be able to support myself.  I HATE that I cannot take care of myself and C knows it.  He does not want me to have a job.  If I had a job maybe I wouldn’t be around to make dinner, maybe I wouldn’t need him anymore.  The only thing that I am concerned about with a full time job is the time it could take away from my son.  He is 16, so is just now getting himself around driving, he is becoming more independent.  I still like to be here for him though, go to all his performances, keep an eye on him.

I have spent the last few years wasting time.  I admit my failings.  I have been in limbo, not moving forward, not dealing with C in the way that I should have back when I found out what he did.  Me not following through on booting his ass out and trying to make it on my own gave him hope.  I sometimes wish that he had ended things and gave me no choice.  I sometimes wish that he was a bigger a-hole, that he was mean, that he provided a glaring reason that I should get rid of him and not feel guilty even though I didn’t do anything wrong.  Other people don’t see what I see.  I know that I am lucky in some ways.  He is not physically or mentally abusive as in he does not hit and he does not spend his time yelling at me and telling me I am a stupid worthless person.  He has never been like that.  So compared to that, the things I say here about him don’t seem that bad, but if I were to meet him today for the first time, I would not choose him as a friend or otherwise.  Keep in mind that we married when we were 22 and didn’t have much in the way of brains or money.  His wardrobe consisted of Levis and t shirts.  Over the years our tastes of course have progressed to finer things.  I enjoy a nice vehicle but don’t need flash.  I don’t feel I need fancy clothes or tons of shoes or handbags.  I prefer too spend that extra money on things for the house or things we can all enjoy.  He has already gone through the Porsche stage, just had to have that shiny red car.  He likes his watches, he likes guns, he has little patience for people he feels are beneath him.  He turned into a snob and this is something that my family and friends noticed.  I feel like I invested all these years into him and our family and what I got back in the end was a cheater, liar and stuck up jerk.  He is a micro-manager.  Always asking me or my son what we are doing, what we have done, where we are going.  I am afraid that one of these days my son is just going to explode.  If you read my previous post you will know that I am a somewhat unemotional person most of the time.  C is sort of similar in that way.  He does not lose his temper often and it feels like he is trying to control me and my son emotionally as well.  Sometimes I just want to scream and shake him and tell him to just let loose and stop trying to control everyone’s emotions.  I get so mad sometimes and he makes me feel like I am a bitch if I loose it or get emotional.  Normal people scream and yell at each other, we don’t have to be polite and quiet all the time.

I am 45 and I feel like I got ripped off, that we worked so hard for all those years in anticipation of getting to some mysterious point in our lives where we could relax.  I am currently in survival and clean-up mode.  I get through each day in neutral.  I avoid highs and lows for the most part.  Over the last couple years I have been working on getting us cleaned up financially.  Any credit debt we had I made sure was paid off, we just cleared up our home equity line of credit and I have to say that C was reluctant to pay that debt.  He is afraid the bank will close the credit line and we will have no way to borrow money.  I am of the mind that if we need to borrow then we should not get or do whatever it is we would borrow for.  Or more so what HE would borrow for.  I can tell you that more than one watch was paid for through credit cards and that line of credit and without me having a say in it.  We only have one car loan (which will be paid off within the next year) and our mortgage and I have been saving up an emergency fund.  If a split up and divorce are in our future then I feel better that we will not be weighed down with debt on top of everything else.  And hopefully there are no hidden credit cards out there (story for another day).  I have been listening to Dave Ramsey and if you are interested in cleaning up your finances I suggest checking him out.  He is a Christian and does speak of Christian values etc… but it is not an overwhelming thing if you are not a Christian yourself.

So now we know what HE is.  He is not the devil but he has done mean and thoughtless things that hurt me.  My life now shouldn’t be about what he is or isn’t though.  I know that.  I know that I need to create my own destiny so to speak.  A million dollars falling in my lap would fix most things for me but of course that isn’t going to happen.  I have to come up with a plan and follow through, give myself some choices.

Regarding work, one of my biggest problems is that I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up!  I have never had a career, just a job and I didn’t go to college.  I know maybe a little more than the common person about computers but not enough to sell myself as a professional in it, I have done office work and customer service, worked for a medical biller and a computer engineer but I don’t feel confident in my skills.  Like I don’t know quite enough to be valuable to an employer.  Plus the way they search for employees these days!  You have to get a cover letter just right and geared to each position and work your resume so there are some good key words for the computers to find but make sure that you don’t use other words cause they are bad.  I am 45 and the majority of my jobs fell into my lap and were obtained back when people actually grabbed a stack of resumes and talked to each person.  Before you needed a 4 year degree to work as a receptionist for $9.50 an hour.  It will take some work for me to get work.  I am planning on taking some online classes through a local community college, today in fact I will be looking through the offerings again and hopefully can talk myself into starting this month.  The next signup date is June 18th for 6 week classes.  I will just have to take one to see what kind of time it takes up and how it fits in with the commitments I have made for the summer.  Summer is so short after you start filling it with stuff.  I will be doing a little child care for a friend, my niece will be staying for a month (a handful of anxiety and depression) and a week of vacation in August and then when we get back my son starts marching band camp and then school starts!  I think I want to get a job with my school district, possibly at the high school.  I know it is something I can be successful at and enjoy, it has pretty good pay, benefits and you get some of the summer off.

I guess I need to end this blog post at some point.  I had an idea in my head about what I was going to write but it kept going and I rambled on.  I like lists, so here is an “Improve Me” list to end this post.

– take classes to improve self and employment opportunities
– get a job!
– be able to take care of myself and my son financially if necessary
– exercise and get into shape so I like myself more
– do what will make me happy

By Our Parents Example

In my late teens and early 20’s I found myself having to explain my parents relationship to people.

They didn’t live together

My dad and I lived in Washington

My mom and brother lived in Oregon and then later a different part of Washington

They were not divorced

I usually just said, “They have a weird relationship.” and left it at that.

As a young child I was not very observant and I don’t recall anything from before I was 5.  To this day I am a little miffed that I was taken to Disneyland at age 4, I remember none of it.

As I grew up I experienced the usual suburban childhood of tuna casseroles (yuck) and running through sprinklers.  Loading up the wagon and going on vacations,   I didn’t think much of my parents or their relationship with one another.

In middle school I began to notice their relationship.

They would fight…a lot.  My mom was a yeller and my dad would clam up.
Forever burned into my memory is this fight…my dad clipped off the top of our Christmas tree up on the second floor, it then flew over the railing, falling to the 1st floor and hit my mom.  Did this happen on accident or on purpose? She thought on purpose.  That was a fun Christmas.

My sister was already well on the way to becoming an alcoholic, moving in and out of the house (she is 9 years older than me and actually my half sister, not that that matters).

My dad would come home and fall asleep in his truck with the radio blaring (a tavern and beer were involved).  My mom would leave him out there, sometimes I would go out and wake him up.

My dad became unemployed, creating lots of money issues.  Then worked lots of odd jobs for friends and did eventually get a good gig.

My mom liked vodka and had a prescription for Valium (that’s not just orange juice in that pitcher in the fridge).

My mom went into therapy (maybe where the Valium prescription came from?)

My mom started trying to eat healthier (nothin‘ wrong with that).

My mom started working out at a gym (same).

My mom was going through a mid-life crisis.

My dad moved to grandma’s house and then back.

Eventually I just wished they would get a divorce.  I vividly remember sitting on the bus on the way to middle school and wishing that.

Then I graduated high school and my mom must have felt that I was old enough at barely 18, and decided that it was ok that she move out of state with my brother.

I then did some stupid stuff like move to Maryland with my boyfriend, then moved back 3 months later, then after he came back, moved in with him again (he ended up being a cheater).

My dad and I ended up living with my grandma (his mother) for a couple years, until she died and then I went and got married.

In looking back, something that I really didn’t think of at the time…I never saw my parents touch each other, no hugs, no kisses, NOTHING.

I sometimes feel like we have become my parents, but without the beer, vodka, Valium, therapy or moving out, yet.

My parents eventually moved back together after my dad retired.  He spent a couple years up to that point commuting back and forth to their little farm across the mountains.  I think they figured that they may as well stay together, pooling their resources was the most efficient.  As an adult, I still have never seen them hug or kiss.

Geez, after writing all that I know I sound like a whiner.  But, I know that the things I experienced during those years helped form me into the person I am today.  I has taken me a long time to realize these things about myself.

I am VERY inward with my feelings.  Instead of acting out when I was a kid I crammed all my feelings down and told myself I wouldn’t let any of it bother me.  I am very middle of the road, not too many ups, not too many downs…not too happy, not too sad.  This causes problems.  I am prone to just slide into things, not expecting too much, take the easy road.  I can seem cold and unfeeling, but I am just protecting myself.

I am aware of my faults.  Are these things that you can change?  Isn’t this just my personality now after all this time?  If I try and be different aren’t I just faking it? Am I capable of fully loving someone other than my son?

When I get old, I don’t want to feel like I settled for less or am making someone else settle for less because of me.  I don’t want to feel like I spent years faking it.

My son seems to be a mini me.  Or not so mini now as he is 6ft tall to my 5ft 4.
He and his friends joke about his cold, dark heart.  I know they are just joking, but the joke came about for a reason.  He is definitely not the guy to talk to about girl/guy problems or your anxiety issues.  He would just tell you that everything will work out and then go back to playing World of Warcraft.

Till next time,

Q

Easter

We had a pretty pleasant Easter this year.  I felt the absence of C’s Aunt who died last November.  She always handed out Easter cards (which most of the others made fun of behind her back – but not me) and always had a treat for the kids.  Every year we meet at C’s parents house (the perfect holiday home) which is maybe 20 minutes away.  C’s parents of course were there, his brother JL with his wife and two toddlers, his other brother M (without his wife thank goodness – a story for later), his cousin K and her 20 year old son T, his cousin JF and me and my son and of course C.  We did all the usual stuff, the boys and kids played outside tossing the baseball and Frisbee, we ate a great dinner and I must say I made an excellent pea salad.

So, we all know what triggers are right?  I don’t have too many of them left after all the time that has passed (or else I am repressing).  My biggest ones are related to seeing HER (the cheater whom I do not call a whore but have thought it), her husband (I will call JB) and his family.  As I mentioned briefly before.  JB’s family are friends with C’s family and have been for a long time (before SHE was ever in the picture).  They used to stop by for EVERY holiday at C’s parents house.  Since the affair and me telling them to keep away from my family. they have not come by for any holidays.  However JB’s parents still do occasionally when I am there and just hearing JB’s dad’s voice throws my pulse into overdrive.  My mind races and I wonder if THEY will have the guts to actually show up knowing I don’t want them there.  I have no idea if JB’s parents know what happened, how they explained to them why they don’t stop by with their 2 monsters kids anymore.  I know back when this all first came to light JB did not want any of his family to know about it.  Who knows now.

But the reason I even started this post…JB and his family drove by the house on Easter on their way home from his parents house (just down the street).  C must have seen HER.  Who knows what thoughts he had when he saw HER (though I shouldn’t give a crap, but things are complicated…ya know).  I only knew they drove by because he had pulled some suckers out of his pocket and one of the kids asked where he got them.  He said from JB’s kid when they stopped at the end of the road (picture a long, sloping lawn with a driveway along the side, you can see all the way to the road from the house).  I wonder what my face looked like when he mentioned them, I probably clenched my teeth and pinched up my face, very attractive I am sure.  I felt like my sister in law may have been looking at me for a reaction.

And, speaking of JB (HER husband), he actually stopped by at Christmas (at my in-laws house).  Talk about a trigger.  I am sitting with everyone in the living room and in he walks with his “hi how are ya’s.”  I hoofed it out of there without a word and hung out with the “cool” kids in the family room until he left.  Absolutely no one mentioned anything about him stopping by and how awkward it made me feel (me included other than sharing it here).  It is my in-laws house, but if SHE and JB start coming back on holidays I will not be there anymore.  This is assuming C and I have not had a full split.  Then I have no idea what I will do for holidays as my parents are older and a couple hours away over snowy mountains and my sister is even farther still.

New traditions here I come.

Q

Crush Worthy

Some of you 80’s teens may recognize the group of guys in the above photo.  They are the guys from the 1983 movie The Outsiders.  If I remember correctly, I tore a picture of them out of a magazine, probably back in 1984 and stuck it on my wall to moon over.  My favorite was Ralph Macchio.

Even though I am almost 45 I sometimes still feel like a mooning teenager inside.  How could I have gotten this old and where would I be if I had only made a couple different decisions in my teens and early 20’s.  Of course you cannot torture yourself with what might have been but work with where you are now.

How about a new hunk to moon over?  Sasha Roiz of the TV show Grimm.  Not every dude can pull off white pants.

Hiding

I feel like such a chicken.  I heard my phone ringing in the other room, I would have had just enough time to answer the call but I saw that it was my mother-in-law.  So I let the call go.  She is truly a sweet woman, I always felt lucky to get a mother-in-law that was so great.  Maybe a little heavy on the religion but I could handle that.  But I find myself not wanting to answer the phone when she calls now.  Sometimes it is just a computer question or she is asking about a band event my son is performing in.  The call I dread is when she wants to talk about my husband (maybe I will just start calling him C) and how she would like us to go to this marriage weekend at a hotel in a town nearby.  It is a marriage building/strengthening seminar type deal called Weekend to Remember.  She brought it up last year and I told her it wasn’t my thing.  She brought it up again a month or two ago.  Why would I want to go to an event to strengthen our marriage when I don’t even know if I want it?  The feelings I have seem so opposite from the events purpose.  I guess if seems too much like diving into the deep end.

UPDATE: ok, maybe she wasn’t calling about that since it looks like it is over and done with for another year.  Not to say she couldn’t be calling to talk about me and C.  I guess I don’t mind so much talking except for the fact that any coherent thoughts I have about our situation seem to disappear when I am actually trying to talk to someone.

So far no message – oh well,

Q

Dreams

I get a lot done, at least in my head, when I am trying to fall asleep.  I generally don’t have any trouble sleeping – I am a night owl and a champ at sleeping in.  Unfortunately, I have to get up by 5:30 AM to take my son to jazz band practice before school.

Last night I wrote several blog posts and came up with a new craft idea in my head before I fell asleep.  I remembered the craft idea but not so much the blog posts.  I have such great ideas and then lose them or they seem less coherent by morning.  I suppose I should get out of bed and write the ideas down, but I would rather not be leaving papers with blog ideas lying around the house.

I went to sleep with a little bit of a headache last night, I woke up this morning with a splitting head, and stumbled to the bathroom to take a migraine aspirin.  Of course when I check the clock there is only a half hour before I have to get up.  Sometimes I have such vivid dreams.  My dream early this morning is why I had such a splitting head.  In my dream I was working for the major department store I used to work for (for 11 years, long ago).  There are clothes on racks everywhere in a room but something was wrong and it was making me mad.  I woke up clenching my teeth so hard it made my head hurt.  I hate it when I do that.

After I dropped my son off and got back home I went back to sleep for a while.  I had another dream where there was a guy blowing things up.  The people I was with would run one way and the ground in front of them would blow up, they would get by it somehow and switch back in another direction and it would happen again.  At the end I managed to get them through an opening, throwing belongings and bags through after them.  I went through myself and found the guy in front of me, I suddenly had a gun in my hand and shot at him with it.  Nothing much happened.  The gun had bullets made of ice and what looked like flesh or blood (am I watching too much Walking Dead?) and when I shot them they just melted/disintegrated in the air.  So I run at the guy and start hitting him with the gun, over and over.  Then someone else is with me and stops me and they tie him up.  I think I woke up at that point, luckily not clenching my teeth.  I seem to have a lot of anger issues in my dreams.

Staying on the subject of dreams, there is one I had years ago that stuck with me that I never want to forget.  I only remember a little bit of it, but I was standing in a hall and looking for my son.  There is a doorway and he is standing in it, except he is 4 or 5 years old.  This was a favorite age of mine, he was so cute and fun at that age.  He had his little glasses and a dimple when he smiled.  His hair was a bright blonde and shaved, it felt so soft.  He stood there smiling at me and then he waved goodbye and said he had to go.  I woke up with actual tears in my eyes after that one, I was literally crying.  I think that is my favorite dream ever.

Sweet dreams to you tonight,

Q

Dealing with it, without God

I have been reading the posts of other bloggers for a little bit today.  It seems that many of you (bloggers) pray to God to help you handle your spouses infidelity, help you heal, help you stay with your spouse and forgive or help you get through a divorce.  I grew up in a family that did not have much to do with God.  I went to church on Sundays with my Grandma, but that was really so I could spend more time with her.  I would spend every weekend with her and that was part of our routine.  I never gave God much of a thought.  By my teen years I was too busy with riding in horse shows to go to church.

My husbands dad is a “born again Christian.”  He was a bit of a hippie in his early 20’s and then began working with a man who was Christian and threw himself into a new life with God with his help.  Today he is very involved with his church, he both works there and is an assistant pastor.  My husbands parents can get a little heavy handed with sharing their faith but for the most part do not alienate anyone with it.  Well, to get to my point.  I have always said I believe in God in a general sense and I do believe there is something out there however I don’t feel any strong connection.  My husband was raised in the church and went to a Christian school but I never got the feeling that he though about God much.  All through adulthood he/we only went to church for major holidays to make his parents happy.

He was a typical teenager I guess, he smoked some pot on occasion, though I am not sure how much and how often.  There was a time that I was actually dating a friend of his before we started going out.  I think he did it more then and less often by the time we got together.  He did get one DUI.  After he got that and in dealing with the aftermath he slowed down on those behaviors quite a bit.  It gave him a big scare.  Over the years (maybe in the last 10) he began smoking pot again, a little here and there but perhaps I will save that for another day.  I know that being raised as a Christian and going to a Christian school does not necessarily make you a good person or that you will continue on with that faith as you get older.  I sort of thought that the money his parents spent on private school was a little bit of a waste on him.

Back to God.  Sometimes I wonder, how do I deal with infidelity and the aftermath without falling back on this mysterious faith in God as many others do?  I have strong beliefs in what is right and wrong, don’t do drugs, don’t drink too much (my sister is an alcoholic), don’t cheat, don’t steal.  I am told by my mother in law that I need to give it over to God, but that is just not going to happen.  I don’t want to cut God down, say things like “Where was God when this person died or when that horrible disaster happened.”  I won’t blame him for bad things but I won’t rely on him to fix me either.  I suppose it comes down to faith in myself, I have to look into myself for answers and that is so difficult since everything in there is so confused and jumbled up.  I question myself, I feel like a horrible person when I question why I got married in the first place.  Did I really love him or was it convenient?

When you are 20, do you really know what love is?  I look back now and I really don’t think I did.  In an argument I told my husband this.  I asked him how he knew he loved me and that I wasn’t sure if I knew what love felt like, we were young and stupid.  Seriously, look at how often a young adult will change their opinions on music, TV, movies and politics.  What the hell do we know about picking a person?  Was our relationship more about comfort and convenience?  My grandma had died, he and I were dating and I had to move.  No romantic proposal, I wasn’t into things like that, we just were talking and decided to get married.  His cousin told me years later that she thought I was pregnant because we did it so fast (I wasn’t of course).  There was no spark for me, no fireworks.  I also had shared those thoughts with him.  He does not seem to believe that these are necessary or commonly occurring feelings.  Since I have never experienced those levels of emotions I cannot say.  I can say that I hope to feel a spark of some sort in my lifetime.

He thinks we should stay together because he says he loves me, despite the fact that he had an affair.  He stated all the textbook excuses as to why he did what he did (back when I found out).  He does not want to throw away the 22 years we have been together, he does not want to hurt our son or put him through divorce.  I find it horribly funny that cheaters cannot think these things before they go too far.  Because of his and her decision, I have to DEAL with all these things.  He wants to stay together and at the moment it is all up to me to decide what I want.  I have never felt more RESENTMENT in my whole life.

I know there is a simple answer to all these complex questions.  Get off my butt and make a decision.  Easy to type but much harder to actually do.  And, I want you all know I do appreciate your relationship with God, but crazy as it seems, it just isn’t for me.

Until next time,

Q

 

Introduction

I sit here listening to Phillip Phillips singing Home which makes me want to cry. I am thinking about how I want to start this blog.  I have had other blogs before, one for my craft business, one that is personal but not anonymous where I like to talk about TV shows and other interests of mine and one other that was also anonymous as this one is.  I didn’t keep that one around for very long, my feelings were very sharp and fresh back then and I just didn’t keep it going and finally deleted it.  Recently I thought I would give it another go now that some more time has past.  Some days it still feels like it happened yesterday and other days it feels like it has been forever.  Occasionally I have nights that I can’t sleep and then have a horrible day.  Most of the time I am ok though I know that the way I deal with things probably isn’t the most healthy way.  Since I was a kid I have always mentally protected myself in the same way, I think that has always been a problem and could have contributed to the choices I have made that landed me where I am now.

I am not quite sure what I expect to get out of my writing here.  I know I won’t find any definite answers to my problems nor will I be able to provide answers to yours.  We all have to work through our mess in our own way though when I read through the writings of others (in my experience anyway) we all sound remarkable similar.  If you read books or articles on the subject of infidelity, they definitely map out our feelings and actions quite well.  I guess humans are very predictable in actions and reactions.

My name is Quinn, I have been married 22 years and have a son who is 16.  Back in 2010 I first  discovered that my husband had been cheating on me, up until that point it never crossed my mind that he would.  And to pile some hurt on top of the hurt I was already in for, it was his friend’s wife that he was doing it with.  The couple that he invited into our home with their two kids, kids I babysat for occasionally.  Her husband was his friend, his brothers friend and his family and my husbands family have been friends for a long time.  His actions betrayed a lot of people, not just me.  Some days I still can’t believe it.

My initial reaction after the dust had settled a little bit was that I wanted my husband out.  He originally told me that he would do whatever I wanted.  Over three years later I am still here, living in our house with him, taking care of our son.  We do not have an intimate relationship of any kind, I want nothing to do with him in that way.  I will take care of our boy, I will take care of the house and make us meals but that is it.  I admit that emotionally I froze up.  I have not moved forward and I have not committed to a relationship with him.  He wants to stay together but I don’t exactly understand why after what he did.  I think in the end, he does not want the trouble of divorce, splitting money and belongings, hurting our child or taking care of himself.  His parents also put lots of pressure on him, they don’t approve of divorce and his dad pushes him to keep working on fixing things with me.  Sure, it is possible that he loves me.  We can hurt people and love them at the same time.  I don’t know what the heck I am doing but I go on day after day.  Most of the time things are ok, we get along and don’t fight too much.  But, he crushed part of my heart, a heart that already didn’t quite function right (a story for another time).  I have to say something for him, he is a very patient person sometimes.  A lot of guys would probably say, “Kick that bitch to the curb and go nail a 20 year old.”

On that note I will sign off for now.  I have to go figure out what to make for dinner.

Until next time,

Q