Creating my happily ever after....

Clarity?  Is that what this is?  Realizing that I deserve better than this.  Realizing that I do not have to be depressed or sad because of choices that he made to ruin what I thought was supposed to be my happily ever after.
I am finding things to do that only include ME.  I have never done anything alone before, and I am honestly not 100% sure how to do it, but staying out of bed has been key to figuring it out.
I don't know if I will ever love or try for anyone the way that I love and tried for him, so at this point in the juncture I am just trying to love and try for myself, because I deserve that from somewhere.
Learning about my codependency has been important to getting over this.  I realize that I am now in recovery, and it will be a long road, but a worthy road but one that I will have to fight against for the rest of my life in any and every relationship what I encounter.
I have always been the one to fix everything, for everyone, and 99% of the time I failed at it, which would drive me absolutely insane!!!  But it has really taken these last few weeks to realize that I cannot control anything but myself and in that I must remain content.  I need to learn that some things around me will never be the way that I want them and the only thing that I can do is learn how to react to them.
I want to try to blog more, reflections are so important in this process for me, to see where I have been and where I am going, I would like to look back in a year, 2 years, 5 years and think Damn, look at me.
I made the decision after my husband has been telling me that he wants to work things out with me, that I will not be with a drunk.  He would have to completely stop drinking.  And that in itself has brought on a new insight to the person that he is and what his disease actually does to his thinking.  We are currently not talking and with that I am content that I am making a good decision.
I wish that I wasn't pushed to that decision, but ultimately it is the one that I was faced with and the one that I had to make for myself.  It is the best decision I could possibly make for myself, my children and my marriage.  If he chooses to get sober, if he chooses to pick himself over alcohol, if he chooses to go to counseling and get himself under control then I cannot say what the future will hold.  It sucks though that in my mind, no one compares to the love that I had for that man.  No one.  But I am starting to.  My love for myself has come a long way in these past couple weeks, I am getting more and more stable by the day, less up and downs in my insecurities and less inaccurate thoughts of where I want to see myself in a year.
I will continue to go to meetings at least twice a week, I will continue to learn from others where I should be on this road to recovery.  I am ready, I am ready finally to accept the life that I can live and not merely tolerate.

What in the hell....

But that's the thing about writing to me.  I can write Obsessively and Incessantly with a Maddening Hunger.  I can write to the point of suffocation.  I can write myself into nervous breakdowns, I can write about anything I want.  Something I have learned about myself is when I write it comes from the soul and when I speak there is little emotion behind it, because I have build my wall up so thick and so high that words are emotionless feelings that come out of my mouth for protection, and when I write it is like a gateway from my heart to the paper.

So today, Easter Sunday 4/5/2015  I write.....

What shall I write about I wonder, how about the way I feel.  Ha.  Good start.

I feel lost and confused, hurt by some of the recent things that have been going on and confused by others.  Still yet I feel happy that my life has become a turn of events that I can trust and that I am getting more and more used to by the day.  How can something that feels like it is supposed to be right, be so wrong?  I can tell you how.  Someone somewhere has a plan that is not aligned with my plan.  It is their own plan, their own guarded plan, with their own walls and their own moats, and what I have learned as an adult is if I didn't meet someone in high school and bring them in to my life, that anyone I meet is going to have their own demons.  Things that have to be overcome before we can love, and be where we need to be to reach a forever.

I think when I left my husband it became a challenge.  When you leave someone you put so much effort into, and loved with everything in your heart, you want to share your feelings.  So I did.  I shared my feelings with anyone who would listen.  How in the world could I show someone so much love and in return they were lifeless, they were not reciprocating to my actions, to my begging, to my tears, how could he just stand there and look at me while I fell apart?  How could he do this to me when I felt like I poured my whole life into him?  I still don't have the answers to those questions, but I will tell you what I did.

I left, and I poured all of those feelings out to someone else.  Someone who took everything that I said I wanted from my husband and put it into action himself.  Mind Blowing.  I remember my husband telling me that no one could show me affection every single day, and I remember it breaking my heart, because I so badly wanted that from him, and now to have this "other" person making that attempt, I will admit, it was nice.  It was exactly what I wanted.  I just didn't want it from him.  Maybe that was wrong of me and I will be the first to say so, it felt right in the moment, but it wasn't.  It was horrible... every single day that I was trying to be devoted to someone else, I was turning my back on my husband, and on God.

I used to be this girl...  The one who easily jumped from one relationship into another with no care in the world, because my childhood has programmed me to run from anything when it gets hard.  I did run and I still think that running was the right move without a doubt.  But running into the arms of someone else has only further strained my thinking.  I needed to run, I needed to run fast and far, but I needed to run toward myself.  The person that I had lost while trying to love my husband.

I was confused, I still am, about the person that I left behind as well as the person that I have now become.  I am much more emotional than I used to be.  I can cry on a dime, or I can sleep for hours on end, but I also feel stronger.  I have started to love myself again and that alone is huge for me.  I feel like I am walking on egg shells, but for myself.  I don't want to mess this up because this has the opportunity to guide me towards everything I have ever wanted.  I don't want to be in another relationship because I am lonely.  Hell I was in a marriage for years that left me lonely, you would think by now I would be understanding of how to be alone, but I'm not.  I have a long way to go.

I need to learn how to love myself, how to be able to spend time by myself, how to smile at myself in the mirror, how to quit looking for flaws in my appearance and in my character.  I have to quit pulling people into my life that shouldn't be here, especially when I am unsure what my brain is even doing.  One day its fine, the next day it is seeking something else, and at no point have I stopped and just enjoyed myself.

I haven't given myself any time at all to grieve my failed marriage, or to grieve the relationship that we had.  We have gone through turmoil since the break up.  We have said very mean things to each other, we have went weeks without speaking to each other, but it seems like every time we are around one another we can just pick up and communicate like nothing ever broke between us.  I don't understand what that means.  Does it mean that even though we lost the communication in our marriage that we are still able to be friends?  Does it mean that I still want to be with him because every time I am around him I still want to touch and kiss him?  Does it mean that he realizes what he lost and that we could still make this work?  Or does it mean no matter what this relationship is too far gone and while it is simple to go back to what feels "normal" it never really did feel "right" in the moment and that I would be setting myself up for further destruction.

I am sure the latter is the truth of the matter, but why now am I grieving for this?? I have done so good, not thinking about everything I left behind, I had done so well not crying or beating myself up over this......why now..... I have no idea.

All I can make of it all is that this is all a test.  A lesson that God is putting in my face.  A lesson that he wants me to learn.  But this is not an open book test, so I really need to study.  But where do I get my material.....

Damn.....

My mind is a whirlwind of emotions right now.

Checking out for awhile, gonna go to dinner with my dad who I haven't seen in ages!  Gonna laugh with my kids and and smile and forget all of my worries for a little while and maybe I will be able to get my mind back on track....Maybe.

3 years.......

I remember writing 3 years ago that I had found the man of my dreams......how he made my heart skip beats, how I lost my breath around him.  How I could look at him all day and never get tired of the way he looked....

Today- I can honestly say I am a broken woman.  I have tried and failed.  Tried and failed.  Tried and failed....tried and given up.

I feel empty most of the time, like I am always on the verge of tears.  Like I want to sleep the rest of this marriage away,  I don't want anyone else, but God forgive me- I don't want this.

I go to Al-Anon meetings......in secrecy.  So that I can figure out who I am again.  Behind this person I have created that is longing for love.  3 years, I am not the person I want to be, I am not the person I thought I would be, not the person I planned to be.  I am an empty shell of the person I am supposed to be.

I hide behind this smile and pretend it is all ok, when inside I am rotting away.  I cannot explain the loneliness I have felt in this relationship - I gave my heart to this man and he just put it in his pocket, and doesn't take care of it.  In the same pocket, on top of me are his addictions, his impulses, himself, and I am just weighted down in the bottom.  I can't breathe down here.

So what has this 3 years done for me?  It has robbed me of my happiness, my sanity, my security and my life.  I thought for sure 3 years would mean something, but it means nothing, just another date to write down, it is not sentimental, it holds no value.  It is just another day in hell.

Lonely.

and that is what it has become.  2015 I made a resolution to love my husband for the man that he is and not the man that I want him to be.

However, after falling asleep last night distant because lets face it going on almost 60 days without a hint of physical intimacy and remembering that it has only happened 2 times in the last 7 months is a lot to swallow.  I thought a lot last night.  I thought about our argument on Christmas and how he had gotten so drunk he didn't help me at all put out our presents for the kids, and then on Christmas day the cycle continued and he passed out at 7:30pm.  I thought about the talk we had about drinking and how his words burned into my brain:

"I think it would be wrong of you to ask me not to drink anymore"

My response was "I never asked you that"

But looking at my take on it is OK I never asked him not to drink, and it would be wrong of me to ask that of him, however he expects me to live my everyday without intimacy which is obviously ranking in the same department alcohol is to him.

We are rounding 3 years and I don't know what to do.  I am trying to be the wife he wants, but the husband I want went away a long time ago, never to return.

I am trying.  God knows that I am trying.  But it is hard, it is unfair and it is like I am not in a marriage at all, I am in a single household with a man who doesn't want to love me.  He says he loves me, we will even make plans to be intimate, but the follow through is never there.

I just want to cry all of the time.

But I don't I am much too strong for that, I will not let this battle among the many others that I have fought break me.  I deserve to be loved the way I want to be loved, and this I know.

One day I am going to wake up and realize this is not the life I want.  One day I am going to realize that my butterflies don't have to be dead and I am going to have the strength to awaken them like never before.  One day this will all just be a dream and I will be able to obtain what I want.

Until then it is a mystery on how to get that.

I love my husband with all of me and I don't want anyone else, but where does that leave me if everything I want is from a person who will never be able to give it to me..... A person who doesn't care to meet my needs.  A person who believes his needs are the only ones that are important, and thinks it is wrong for me to take away his needs, but thinks it is wrong for me to want for mine.....

Married now.....Over a year.

I haven't written in awhile.  I don't know if it is because I like keeping my feelings bottled up, or if it is just that I have been so overwhelmingly busy, oh wait, I remember, the day that I decided to share this blog with my then boyfriend, now husband, and he freaked out, telling me that I only write bad things about him, and I share them with ALL of my friends, because OBVIOUSLY I write this blog in the first person.

Post from Anonymous-
I can do this.  I can hold my head up and pretend that nothing bothers me.  I have lived my whole life this way.  I can pretend that everything is perfect, I can keep a smile on my face despite the fact that I am dying inside.  I can do it.  I just don't want to.

I have explained numerous times to this man that I love with every part of me everything I have written in my past posts.  That I don't feel loved, I don't feel wanted.  Here we are sitting on the edge of 3 years together, over a year of that time married. Married ha.  A marriage build on materialistic bullshit and LIES to get me there.  Empty promises and false hopes.  Sign me up.  I trust you.  He cried on our wedding day.  We said our vows, we were actually married.  That night he got so drunk that I had to carry him into our home and lay him on the couch.  He was so heavy and lifeless.  He got what he wanted.  A big party, with all of his friends.  Afterwards at the bar. Someone to take care of him, drive him home, carry him in, undress him and not make a big fuss in the morning because our marriage would remain unconsummated for days after.  Bite your tongue.  This is your husband.  Things will get better.  But they don't.

Things remain constant.  Things remain the same if not worse than they were in our earlier months, our earlier years, only now our life has much more added stress.  But it is all my stress.  I got this.  Don't worry, you just keep doing you and I will keep doing everything for everyone, including you.

I am tired.  I am broken.  Most days I don't want to fight for this marriage because I am obviously fighting alone.

It is Thanksgiving Night. Well I guess it is passed that now.  It is 12:10am on November 28, 2014.  My husband has been drinking beer since 10am on Thanksgiving.  On Monday, my mother was involuntarily admitted into a psychiatric hospital.  Last week my son who is now 10, was admitted into a psychiatric hospital, and tonight I feel the weight of it all hitting me.  I don't like to be treated poorly just because my husband has an alcohol problem.  I have a lot of things going on in my world that I deal with by myself to add "drunken asshole husband" to the list of things that I have to worry about.

I just want him to get it, although after almost 3 years, he still has not.

Random update- I have not spoken to 17 (now 20) in almost 2 years.  I am however aware that he is incarcerated on charges that have nothing to do with his previous offense.

15 (now 18) is living across town from me with his girlfriend in their own apartment.

12 (now almost 15) is living at home with me and doing very well, with the exception of some distraught attitudes and sadness that have been brought on by the same things that cause me to fight, flight or freeze.

8 (who is now almost 11)  is still living with his dad.  Aside from his last hospital visit, things seem to be going okay for him, he now takes 3 medications, and they seem to have regulated his mood quite nicely.  He is doing well, for now.  Hopefully it continues.

My husband's children have also moved in with us.  I love them both dearly and I treat them as my own even though the tables are not turned that way for my children.  Even today his son asked him why he has he and his brothers names tattooed on his forearms and my husband responded, because I only have 2 kids.  That's funny, because I have SIX. Oh well.

He is currently passed out in our bed.  He stumbled down the stairs after passing out on the couch upstairs, and passed me without saying a word and went to bed.  Fine.  I am so used to it, but it doesn't stop the emptiness from pulsing through every part of my body.

My thoughts......

I feel as though I have fallen in love with someone who I am not compatible with at all.  Someone who does not love me the way that I want to be loved and someone who doesn't love my children the way the need to be loved.

I want so much out of this life, but I feel as though I am setting everything I want on the back burner to allow for things that do not matter at all.  Things like TV, beer, arguing, etc.  Nothing that spells out happiness to me in the long run.

I feel as though he is constantly trying to find ways to get my children in trouble although my children have done everything he asks, although it is never good enough.  My older son avoids him to prevent being accused of things, but it consistently happens anyways.  My younger son tries so hard to break his tough exterior, but to no avail, he always seems to get his feelings hurt in the process of trying.

I feel the same as my younger son, like I beg and beg for his attention and he just turns the other cheek, due to the fact that it doesn't quite meet up to what he wants to be doing at the time.  I really feel as though this IS the life that he wants to live, but WE are not the people that he wants to live it with.  He says he does, but his actions prove otherwise. 

I have decided to stop doing everything, I mean I am still going through the motions, but I am going through them completely emotionless.  It has only been 3 days, and he is already on to the fact that I am treating him the same way he has been treating me for over a year.  I don't know what he wants from me.  When I want his attention, I beg and plead for it, it turns into a fight and then it leaves me feeling more lonely than I was in the beginning, and then it goes back to the exact same way that it was.  I am getting more and more distant by the day and I know that he can feel it, but I don't know what else to do.  I cannot continue to let him hurt me. 

He says that he has changed so much, but it must all be in his head, because what he says he is doing so much of, no one can see, except him obviously =/

I want to marry this man, but I don't even know if we are going to make it through our 2nd year together because he doesn't understand what he is doing to me emotionally.

There are days when I don't want to get out of bed, there are days when I would rather go to bed before he gets home from work, there are even those days that are getting more and more frequent that I would rather take a handful of pills and hope that I can sleep until forever.  Not that I would ever do that, but God sometimes I want to.  Just because the way he makes me feel is like I don't matter to him at all and that breaks my heart.

The looks I see on my children's faces when they get let down by him yet again breaks my heart, and he just doesn't get it.  I really think we need some type of counseling if we are going to make this work although he sees nothing wrong with the way we are living our life....so what do you do with the person who has no issues with how much he is hurting you?  Clearly it can never be changed because he doesn't acknowledge it.

I am miserable, I miss who I used to be, I miss who my kids used to be, and I miss the man that I fell in love with..... clearly not the man that I have been left with.

This is so hard. 

How do you look at someone you love and tell yourself it's time to walk away?

I don't want to live my life without him, but I cannot stand the games that he plays or the way he sabotages our lives....

When do we get the FAMILY that I keep talking about and that I keep dreaming about?

When does it become about all of us, and not just HIM???

My heart is on the line here........

Praying for a Miracle.....

As it would seem life has finally started to slow down.  But that too comes with its own challenges.  I had to kick 18 and his girlfriend out of my house, because they could not pass a drug test.  Which made 3 months before I was able to see my grandson, however I have now seen him twice in the last 2 weeks.  They broke up and she has been allowing me to see him again.  I appreciate that. 

16 has been having struggles of his own.  I have dealt with a lot with him, but with a new set of rules, hopefully things will start to straighten out.

12 is doing as well as he possibly can, he is doing amazing in comparison to how he had been doing in the past.

9 is doing GREAT at his dads, however he asked me last weekend if I could go back to court so he could come back and live with me, and as much as it pains me I talked to him and his dad and I hope he understands that what we are doing allowing him to continue to live with his father is the best possible choice for him.

18 is a lost cause unfortunately, he has moved 4 hours away from me, and has not spoken to me since December 28th.  It is probably better that way, much less drama, much less chaos. 

As far as me, I guess I have just become this needy, clingy girlfriend who wants nothing more than to be loved by my boyfriend, however he does not seem to have the intimacy level that I dream of.  I want to be close to him always, I want to be a family with him and my kids and his kids, but a "family" seems like a far cry from what we are.  I want to take pictures with him, and cuddle him, but as much as I beg, and cry and plead with him, it just seems like that is a distant fairy tale dream of mine that will probably never take place.

I want to get married and have a real shot at a real future with our kids and the man of my dreams.  I want him to realize that he is my hopes and my dreams and my future.  I want him to quit accusing me of cheating on him and quit letting his "day" affect our home life.  I want him to come to me and kiss me for no reason, grab my hand, pull me close, run his fingers through my hair, but all of that seems like it is just out of his grasp and maybe he is not built that way, but I wish he would realize how much it would mean to me.

My kids want a "dad", something they have never had in their lives and it seems like every time I choose someone to put into their lives, it does not work out for them.  No one wants to be the father figure to kids "like mine" I guess.  Although it is so not fair to them, and it is not fair to me.

I have been cycling into this huge depressive state that I really don't want to be in, but every time I bring it up to him he says that he IS in fact doing all of the things that I know he isn't....

I don't know what to do or say anymore, because when I put my feelings on the table and when I open my heart to him it causes us to fight and then we pull apart more than we already are, because I desperately want him close, not to drive him farther and farther away from me.

So how to 2 people who claim to love each other survive - even if they have different levels of expectancy from the person that they love?  Like I crave being close to him, he has no desire to make ANY physical contact unless it is sexual and that is rare.  He has no desire to just come up to me out of the blue and kiss me.....no desire to look into my eyes and fall in love with me all over again, however that is what I do with him every day.  I just don't know what to do with all of these feelings of loneliness that I feel, and not because I want to be touched in general, but because I want to be touched by him.

I am going to make it a point to remember the saying - "Just because someone doesn't love you the way that you want to be loved, doesn't mean they don't love you with everything they have".

And just wait, and hope that is enough.

In the meantime, I am going to be the best possible mother I can be to my children, I am going to be the best possible girlfriend I can be to my boyfriend, I am going to be the best possible house cleaner, dinner cooker, and employee that I can be....I am just going to spend time bettering myself, and maybe I can fill that void of neediness that I have with something else.

"I want a love so deep that even the ocean would be jealous"

Maybe one day.....but for today, I am going to bide my time, love myself, love my kids, love my house, love my job.....and I will prevail. 

Hopefully one day everyone that I put so much time, energy, devotion and love into will wake up and see how much I do for them and how deep my love is for them (my kids and my boyfriend) and realize that time, love and respect are not that hard to give back....especially when it is demanded from them.....

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