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.....