Betting on the Come
My 35th anniversary is coming up next week. It's been 19 years since DDay. Over the last few months, our relationship has become happier and more peaceful than it's ever been.
Every night, H and I have the same routine: We hang out in the garage for a bit, talking and watching music videos. We're both insomniacs, so we smoke a little weed to relax for bedtime, which also allows us to really get into topics authentically and intricately. Sometimes we look up conversation-starter questions on Google and see where that takes us. We both really enjoy this, even when the topic turns to infidelity.
During our conversation last night, one of the questions was about whether we thought we were a good spouse. He said that I've always been a good wife and he's never been unhappy with me; that his unhappiness was all his stuff. I said that I always felt like he liked me as a person, but he hasn't always been happy with my actions like how I kept house or how often I wanted sex. About 15 years ago, I got fully fed up with his criticism and told him to lay off, that this is who I am and I'm not changing, so accept it or leave me, but that the shit that caused me to feel less-than was going to stop one way or another. I was DONE with it. He said last night that it was probably the best thing that ever happened to strengthen our relationship. He really likes our more relaxed life now, and I do too.
He recognizes that I've always believed in him, wanted him, and supported him, now and right after DDay, and he tearfully thanked me. He says often that he wouldn't be the man he is today without me. I told him "I was betting on the come" which is something he used to say about me. I've struggled on and off over the years with my life's path and taking action. Now we know that's largely about anxiety and ADHD, thanks to IC and introspection. He's learned a lot in IC, too, and we both understand what makes the other tick so much better now. We're happy and relaxed.
We've been betting on the come for a long time, and we've finally hit the big payout. 
He's the commander at a veteran's organization and the officers were fussing at him a bit for not being there enough. One of them said, "I'm worried about you. I know you really need to be social and you haven't been here much. Are you getting that need met?" H told him about our evenings and how he prioritizes that over everything else, which was not the case not that long ago. He made that place the priority for a couple of years, which really hurt us, but his dedication literally saved the place from dying due to Covid and caused it to come back better than ever. Then he prioritized us, which got us to the best place ever, but which leaves the post lacking. I remarked that now it's time to find the balance. We decided that he would stop by there on his way home from work a few days a week and be home by 8:00 or so for our nightly ritual. It's a win/win because he really likes running the post and seeing lots of people, and I really enjoy my alone time. We'll both be getting our needs met without neglecting the other.
I'm looking forward to the next stage of our life. I think we've done the majority of our recovery work, though we're both continuing with IC, and now we get to enjoy the marriage we always believed we'd have. It only took us 35 years to get here! 
5 comments posted: Tuesday, September 26th, 2023
Songs about recovery
I don't see a recent post about music, so I thought I'd start one for anyone who'd like to share what's been speaking to them.
H and I drive four hours each way to our MC's office. Last Thursday, after a particularly great session, I got behind the wheel and blasted one of my favorite artists, Frank Turner. As I was belting it out through cleansing tears, it occurred to me to share him with y'all. Lots of his songs are about anxiety and recovery and might be helpful for both BS and WS.
Here are a couple:
Get Better
I got me a shovel
And I'm digging a ditch
And I'm going to fight for this four square feet of land like a mean old son of a bitch
I got me a future
I'm not stuck on the past
I got no new tricks, yeah I'm up on bricks but me, I'm a machine and I was built to last
I'm trying to get better because I haven't been my best
She took a plain black marker, started writing on my chest
She drew a line across the middle of my broken heart,
And said: "Come on now, let's fix this mess"
We could get better
Because we're not dead yet
They threw me a whirlwind
And I spat back the sea
I took a battering but I've got thicker skin and the best people I know looking out for me
So I'm taking the high road
My engines running high and fine
May I always see the road rising up to meet me and my enemies defeated in the mirror behind
I'm trying to get better because I haven't been my best
She took a plain black marker, started writing on my chest
She drew a line across the middle of my broken heart,
And said: "Come on now, let's fix this mess"
We could get better
Because we're not dead yet
It's just a knot in the small of your back
You could work it out with your fingers
It's just a tune that got stuck in your head
You could work it out with your fingers
It's just some numbers tangled up in your sums
You could work it out with your fingers
It's just a simple braille mission from the person you miss, a reminder you could always be
A little bit better than this
So try and get better and don't ever accept less
Take a plain black marker and write this on your chest
Draw a line underneath all of this unhappiness
Come on now, let's fix this mess
We could get better
Because we're not dead yet
We could get better
Because we're not dead yet
If Ever I Stray
Forgive me someone, for I have sinned
And I know not where I should begin
And some days it feels like you just can't win
No matter what you do or say.
Things didn't kill me but I don't feel stronger
Life is short but it feels much longer
When you've lost the fight yeah you've lost that hunger
To pull yourself through the day.
But if ever I stray from the path I follow
Take me down to the English Channel
Throw me in where the water is shallow
And then drag me out back to shore!
'Cos love is free and life is cheap
As long as I've got me a place to sleep
Clothes on my back and some food to eat
Then I can't ask for anything more
So come on everybody sing it 1, 2, 3, 4
So we all have secrets that we hold inside
Yeah the worst little things that you never confide
The worst one of all that you just can't hide
Is that you're never quite as strong as you sound
So I'm sorry baby, for the times I've hurt you
Sorry friends, for the times I desert you
Most days it feels like I don't deserve you
And I wonder that you're all still around
So if ever I stray from the path I follow
Take me down to the English Channel
Throw me in where the water is shallow
And then drag me out back to shore!
'Cos love is free and life is cheap
But as long as I've got me a place to sleep
Clothes on my back and some food to eat
I can't ask for anything more
Come on everybody sing it 1, 2, 3, 4
Come on and join me in the water
We'll swim for hope
Sometimes it's hard to remember
I couldn't do this on my own
So if ever I stray from the path I follow
Take me down to the English Channel
Throw me in where the water is shallow
And then drag me out back to shore!
'Cos love is free and life is cheap
As long as I've got me a place to sleep
Clothes on my back and some food to eat
I can't ask for anything more
I can't ask for anything more
The path I chose isn't straight and narrow
It wanders 'round like a drunken fellow
Some days it's hard for me to follow
But if you've got my back I'll go on.
If you've got my back I'll go on
2 comments posted: Sunday, August 13th, 2023
A sex breakthrough after 35 years
Deleted because I don't feel safe being vulnerable without acknowledgment/support.*
*Edited to re-add the content of the original post. I had an anxiety attack before I deleted it.
Oh, god. Where to begin? Like my H says, all the threads of this topic are woven like a pot of unbuttered spaghetti that's been sitting on the stove for a couple of hours and is all twisted and stuck together. It's going to take some time to sort it all out, but we're workin' on it!
My H's sexual appetite has always been bigger than mine. Like, way bigger. Until back issues caught up with him, a typical romp in the sack lasted for about an hour and required a shower afterwards. He'd have liked a frequency of about 3X/week. Well, when you're working full time and raising kids, the thought of that is just daunting on a Tuesday night. I'd tell him that I was definitely up for a quickie, but he wasn't interested in that because he "needed me to be into it as much as he was." Needless to say, it was frustrating for both of us. I felt pressured and guilty, he felt rejected, and it tumbled downhill like a snowball picking up more and more emotional debris until it seemed too big to fix. I truly thought we were on the road to a completely sexless marriage, especially since we're getting older; he has ED and I'm in menopause. The mechanics are more difficult now and frequency has been about once a month.
We both have started IC recently, and I'm coming to the realization that I probably have mild inattentive ADHD. I also have hypersensitivity to touch. I don't like to be caressed. It doesn't feel good and can even cause my skin to hurt if the same area is stroked for too long. Sometimes, when starting to get romantic, I'll get super frustrated with foreplay and say, "I can't. It's too much" and pull away. To H, that was more rejection, which I 100% get. I even bought into it partially being an emotional aversion instead of a physiological response, due to infidelity.
I've always been this way, though. I'm tender-headed. Hot water over about 100 degrees hurts. I have food texture aversions. I have misophonia; I can't STAND mouth noises like smacking or gum cracking or tooth-sucking. I yell at the dogs when they lick themselves because it drives me insane. My nose is bionic. Over the last couple of years, I've started using cannabis to sleep at night, and when I'm high, all of the sensitivity calms way down. I actually like being caressed when I'm high. I had an epiphany that how I feel when I'm high must be how most people feel all the time. It's really relaxing to feel "normal."
Last night, I told H that I thought that the first thing a sex therapist might tell us is that I need to initiate and take the reins to avoid the "too much" factor. I also said that sometimes I just want to get fucked without having to walk through the minefield of foreplay and the pressure to get as amped up as he wants me to be. I've said that a thousand times over the years, but because the puzzle pieces are now coming together, H understands that I've always wanted him, I wanted to have sex with him, but my brain and body just work differently than his. I'm excited to see where this revelation leads us.
Sex has always been our Achilles heel. Our marriage is pretty solid in every other regard. I'm also sad that, had we had this realization earlier, we may never have had to deal with infidelity.
My hope in sharing this is that it sparks a lightbulb moment for someone else.
8 comments posted: Tuesday, August 8th, 2023
Semaglutide/Wegovy/Ozempic for weight loss
I could stand to lose about 40 pounds. At my request, my doctor prescribed Wegovy, but it's on backorder so I was offered semaglutide from a compounding pharmacy. I've taken two doses so far; I really don't feel much of a difference yet. It kind of seems like I might feel something in the day or two after the shot. Maybe.
Does anyone here have much experience with semaglutide? Is it normal for it to take a while to ramp up?
37 comments posted: Friday, July 21st, 2023
Ninja Creami
How am I just now hearing about this? I saw a TikTok last night where someone made "ice cream" in their Creami with a Premier Protein shake and now I really want one. They're on backorder everywhere so I'll have to be patient.
Does anyone have one? Do you love it?
3 comments posted: Thursday, July 20th, 2023
"Safety" in a marriage
I had my second IC appointment yesterday. At the first appointment, I talked about how I creep on the AP on Pinterest and how I post here. The C gave me an assignment: Every time you feel the urge to creep on her, write about your feelings. If you do end up looking, write about that. Well, I didn't creep on her at ALL, or feel the urge to, because I didn't want to have to write about it.
I talked a bit about how I feel like I should be past the need to talk about H's infidelity, past the need to creep on AP, and past the need to post on SI. And I said that I heard myself "shoulding" all over things. The C agreed and said that evidently, there are still things that I need to process and why not do it here on SI in a supportive community where people can sympathize? It felt good to have C's "permission" to continue to talk about things. To not be "over it" yet.
I figured out between the two appointments that what I'm doing is not really about digging up old bones. The mistrust is still active, and with good reason. My H is still doing impulsive things that prohibit me from fully trusting him. I don't think that he would ever cheat on me again, but the way his thought process works, he doesn't reliably consider the big picture when making decisions, big and small. I can't count on him to be responsible. Mostly about money.
In our area, there's an express lane on the highway that charges tolls, and it really adds up fast. Like $240/mo fast. He and I had a conversation about it a few weeks back, and he agreed at that time to stay out of the express lane. We just bought a new car and needed to get it added to our toll account this week. He usually handles that, but because the new car is in my name, the toll people wouldn't talk to him about it and I had to call. He sent me a copy of the invoice. I called Thursday. Just since the invoice was issued on Monday, the tolls had increased by $35. I called him on it, and he said, "I'll stop using the express lane." I said, "You said that a month ago." Yesterday, on his way home, he said, "It really sucks sitting in traffic and not using the express lane." Mmhmm. Being a responsible adult isn't always fun, is it? No sympathy from me, the one who HAS to be responsible because you usually aren't; the one who has to remind you to be responsible. SORRY, not sorry.
C asked me: "When did you last feel safe with your H?" I went backwards in time over the span of our marriage and realized that I've never felt truly safe with H. That was a big WHOA moment.
When I was pregnant with our first daughter and after she was born, he did some selfish things that really shook me. DD and I were in the hospital about a week, and instead of being there with us like he should have been, he used the time off to stay home and "play" with his friends. When he brought us home from the hospital, there were strangers in my house, smoking and drinking. I had made it a point not to allow smoking in the house because of the impending arrival of the baby, and yet there they were, fouling my safe space and providing evidence that my H was more concerned with having his fun than with the safety, comfort, and emotional wellbeing of his wife and child. I've never gotten over that. I truly don't think that I ever fully will. I want to, but...
We were walking through the mall a couple of weeks ago and passed a hugely pregnant woman. H said, "Pregnant women are so beautiful." It pissed me OFF. H was angry with me for getting pregnant just a month after we married and foiling our plans. I was pregnant because I had assured him that it was safe, but I was young (only 20) and had misjudged the window for conception and ended up pregnant. We've always joked that "I can't count." When I was hugely pregnant, we were driving home one night and he turned his head to gawk at a gaggle of young women standing on the sidewalk in front of a dance club. It seemed like a passive-agressive deliberate jab at me and it really hurt me, so to have him compliment pregnant women is a huge trigger, and it has been for our whole marriage, though I don't know that he knew that until I went frosty on him in the mall. It was his birthday, so I didn't make a big thing of it, but he felt it. And I told him a little about it later, but it feels like poking a dead horse. Maybe the horse is actually a zombie.
He cheated for the first time a year after our DD was born. He talked of divorce a few times. He cheated again. He lied. He cheated again. He lied more. He built a race car with money that he hid from me. He confessed to all of it. We reconciled. We learned to be transparent with each other. Things were calm for a long time, and then he started acting out again a couple of years ago. It wasn't major acting out. He wasn't cheating, but he wasn't keeping his word about agreed-upon protocols for spending time at the military bar where he's an officer. He'd forget to call me when he was going to be late, like he said he would. He was spending irresponsibly again - on another fucking hot rod - and created a financial mess, one that I couldn't clean up for him this time, so we refinanced the house and paid off our debt. He's working on being more mindful and over the last couple of months will call me before making big purchases, but he's still doing thoughtless shit like racking up the toll bill.
We had an MC appointment about six weeks ago. I brought up H's spending and how frustrating it is when he blows through my warnings like "Money is tight. We need to not spend right now." MC asked him if he thought about me and my requests not to spend before he made purchases. He said that he doesn't. He's in the moment, performing a task that his brain is telling him that he needs to get done and not thinking about anything except what he needs or wants. That shook me. Like my C pointed out yesterday, I got hit with a fundamental shift in how I thought his brain worked. It doesn't work like mine. It doesn't consider the big financial picture - or other people. (ME.) According to our MC, his thought process is typical of an adult child of an alcoholic. And H is just now starting to work on his trauma in IC.
I asked him if this was how he made his decisions when he cheated. He thought about it and said no, he made a calculated decision to take the risk of cheating. He thought about the big picture. I don't know which is worse - being a blinders-on emotional idiot, or deliberately being selfish.
I'm tired of batting clean-up and nearing the end of my rope with it. C asked me what IS the end of my rope? What's too much? I couldn't come up with an answer to that question, but I know that I'm tired of batting clean-up. I'm tired of not trusting his decisions. Of not feeling safe. Of HAVING to be the responsible one. I'm tired. I sometimes think about how peaceful it would be to be on my own, with no one else to worry about. I love my H. I like him. I don't want to leave him. But I don't always like his behavior and something's got to change.
I think one of the things that I'll do is to bring him into the loop on our financials. He's never had to pay attention to it because I handle everything. I pay the bills. I mind the bank balances. Maybe if he sees the whole financial picture, that will help. We have a large stack of cash in the savings account right now after our refi, and I'm guarding it like the goblins and dragons at Gringott's.
My assignment until I meet my IC again next week is to journal about "safety." What it means to me. What it looks like. I'm journaling here so that I can get some feedback and other perspectives.
11 comments posted: Saturday, July 1st, 2023
Childhood trauma, impulsivity, and the WS
We invited my MIL to live with us about eight years ago. She has health issues that we thought would end her life within a couple of years, and we decided that it would be kind to have her spend her last years with us instead of alone in an apartment. Turns out, this was a bad, bad idea. She's still going strong.
H's dad was a physically abusive alcoholic and MIL was an enabler who didn't protect her children or do much for them beyond providing them with a roof over their heads, and sometimes participated in the abuse. She was a crappy mom, but a pretty decent grandmother. In her old age, MIL's cranky, very passive aggressive, difficult to live with, and very rarely leaves the house. We were like the frog in the pot of water, unaware that we were boiling alive because it had crept up on us so gradually, and things had worsened with the isolation of Covid. My mom came to stay with us last summer and suddenly we had a new perspective from another person: MIL is a problem. She was running our house and everyone, including her, was unhappy.
H started acting out a couple of years ago, a few months into Covid. He's in leadership at a veteran's organization that has a bar, and would use his position as an excuse to be away from the house. He'd forget to call me after promising me that he would, and be gone until the wee hours. We'd fight about it, things would be better for a couple of weeks, and then he'd do it again. I finally got fed up enough that I left without telling him where I was going and spent the night at my BFF's house. The next day, we made an appointment with our awesome MC that we saw for a couple of years back in the early days. Something had to give. I was not going to tolerate his shit for much longer.
H has also always been a spendthrift and has engaged multiple times in financial infidelity. I'd tell him things like "Don't spend any money. We're tight until payday" and he'd blow right through that. Recently, I asked him to mind his spending and he came home two days later with a go kart for our grandsons. A few weeks later, the same thing again: He went for a weedeater and came home with almost $1000 worth of stuff from Lowe's. A tiller for me? I DIDN'T ASK FOR THAT, MAN. WHAT I ASKED IS THAT YOU NOT SPEND MONEY, REMEMBER? He maxed out a credit card building a motor for his truck. I used our savings to pay it off, and he maxed it out again. He took a 401k loan to pay it, then did it AGAIN. I felt so disrespected, stressed out, and frustrated, like I was the only adult. I have a separate bank account that has a small inheritance from my dad that H can't touch, and I tell my friends that it's my Ambien. Without it, I'd be even more of an anxious mess.
MC asked him, "Did you think about SSS when you were making these purchases?" To my surprise, H said no, he didn't think about me at all. He was solely focused on the task at hand, buying what he needed to get it done, and was not thinking about what I had asked of him. I was shocked. 
MC casually said something like, "I'm not surprised. Impulsive, blinders-on, selfish behavior is common in adult children of alcoholics." MC advised H to put a picture of me in his wallet, in front of his credit cards.
Turns out, we think that H was regressing because he was back in a situation where he was living with his childhood abuser. He says that MIL treated him like a 14yo who was failing algebra. He couldn't go in the common areas of our home without her suddenly appearing and making sarcastic comments or asking him what he was doing, so he hibernated in our bedroom. He hated coming home. He didn't want to be here.
In January he told her this wasn't working, and she asked him if she needed to move out. He said yes. She finally moved in late May, and it has been glorious. We came home the day we moved her out and looked at each other in amazement the minute we walked through the front door. It was truly stunning how different the energy in the house was. The difference in him has been promising, too. After MC, where I told him that I'm DONE with his shit, he's hyperaware of spending and being in integrity with me, and will call me to talk about things before he swipes his card.
He also started IC a couple of months ago. This week, they started delving into his trauma from childhood. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes.
I've been chewing on this a lot and I'm betting he had the same blinders on with his affairs and was doing what he wanted in the moment without a thought of repercussions, promises, or the pain it would cause. Impulsive ACA behavior.
I'm wondering if childhood trauma is something that a lot of WSs have in common. What do y'all think?
12 comments posted: Friday, June 23rd, 2023
Creepin' on the OP
I'm almost 19 years out from D-Day. H's company party is this Saturday. OW will likely be there. The lead-up to it has left me riddled with anxiety. It's part of the reason I started a new account on SI. (I was active here under a similar SN back in the day.)
I've always been one to "dig up bones" and do deep dives for information. If it's on the internet, I will find it. At one point, I even considered taking a PI course at my local university and becoming a PI. After DDay, I grilled my husband for every last shred of information that I wanted. I saved everything in journals and an online blog. Several years ago, I decided that it wasn't healthy to maintain access to all that stuff, which I only looked at for pain-shopping purposes, and deleted the blog. I was really proud of myself for that because I really loved a good pain-shopping spree.
I went for a few years with minimal creeping on the OW online every few months, until a friend of mine had a D-Day about 4-5 years ago. The OW in her case had a Pinterest board, which made me wonder if "my" OW had a Pinterest account. Sure enough, she did, and one of the boards was chock full of hundreds of memes about unrequited love. "You and I will always be unfinished business." "I left the light in my heart on in case you ever want to come back home." "There's that one person you'll never get over no matter how long it's been." "I really do miss what we almost had." Shit like that.
That stuff could be about someone else, but I don't think so. I think it's about my H. She got married five years after the A ended and she's still married. Perhaps she had another A and is pining for a different AP, but I don't think so. Based on everything that I know about her during the A, and her behavior for a couple of years after D-Day, I think she still carries a torch for my H.
Today when I was telling my best friend about my anxiety, I searched OW's name on Facebook. Her H had tagged her in a life event - the day that they got married. (She was single during the A.) Stupid bitch got married on OUR ANNIVERSARY. It was a friggin' weekday, not a Saturday, so it's not like it was the only weekend day that the wedding venue had available. She knew when our anni was, too, because it's just a few days before her birthday. She even approached H after D-Day to ask how our anniversary went. Bitch knows. She's like a low key bunny boiler.
Now, I know what you're all going to say, and it's the same advice that I'd give someone else: She doesn't matter. Stop creeping on her. She can write his name with hearts and spend hours on Pinterest saving cheesy memes, and it has absolutely nothing to do with us. Intellectually, I know I need to block her and stop creeping, but I can't seem to make myself do it. If anyone has been in my position and has successfully stopped creeping, teach me your ways.
We have a tune-up MC appointment scheduled on May 11, and I'm going to ask my MC for some IC, or a referral to an IC. It's time to put a stop to this obsession. We did a lot of MC and did a good job working on the WE, but I never really did much work on ME. I think I have a significant amount of trauma to work through, but that's a whole 'nother post.
5 comments posted: Thursday, April 20th, 2023
