I am learning that perhaps all is truly fair in love and war. This possibly includes deception and hiding the truth. I don’t really believe that. The fact is, is that it’s sometimes hard to stand on the truth, no matter how fair you want to be. It’s easy to say to be honest, but it gets so hard sometimes. Especially when you might end up hurting someone who doesn’t deserve it.

I lied to my lover this weekend about the fact that my stbxw was at home with kiddo. She wanted me to spend the night, but I declined. When asked why, I responded with he was staying with a friend and so I had to pick him up early. I think I must have forgotten to mention to her that she had moved back in.

She’s already somewhat jaded about the fact that I’m taking so long to get on with the divorce already. She’s been understanding for a LONG time and is probably starting to feel a bit crabby about dealing with my bullshit for so long. I mean I can’t keep using kiddo as an excuse.

STBXW is a really complicated situation for me. As far as I can tell, she isn’t really seeing anyone right now. (at least seriously), but still hasn’t said anything about fixing things between us. I keep telling her that it’s too late….the trust is gone. We lack communication skills…..etc. And while I do believe that, I sometimes wonder if the nature of her codependency leads her to also have a sense of doom and gloom as far as an “us” goes. As the man of the house, I figure that I am the leader. They follow my lead, subconsiously anyway.

She definitely isn’t a leader. Her indecision and lack of discipline, and femininity prevents her from being able lead. That is something that I somewhat like about her. Well the fact that she doesn’t fight or argue much. The problem is that she fails to govern herself and is a bit too codependent. This COULD work if she weren’t sneaky, didn’t lack integrity, secretive, selfish, and lacking in self reflection.

I could see how a man who has the type A, do as I say, here is my plan, be on my agenda, could dominate her without too much work. In retrospect, it’s not hard to see how her ex lover could have convinced her to betray me the way that he did. She lacks personal conviction and the guy (at least from what I can tell) is more “alpha” (type A) than I am. Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t make him a better man than me. I feel that I could beat his ass in a fight. At war, I wouldn’t fear him and I don’t think he could outsmart me on a battlefield. In the streets, I mean, I wouldn’t have anything to lose either. I peeped other weaknesses about him in the limited interactions we’ve had, but this isn’t really about that.

I can be indecisive as well which is why my ideal wife would be able to help me think through some of these things. It’s hard for me to simply live for myself without considering those around me. I have a more utilitarian view of the structure of marriage where….even though I am the head/lead of the house, my wife is my number 1 counsel. Especially in matters where it deals with the household. For that, I need to be able to trust and communicate with her. In order for us to be on the same page, we’d have to hold ourselves accountable to and for each other. Our values when it comes to loyalty, love, and respect would have to be similar. I don’t want to feel like I have manipulate or dominate her into this.

Over the years, she’s shown me that they aren’t. The “small things” we disagreed about over the years….including privacy, how to divy up finances, the role of “platonic” friends in our lives, taking personal responsibility to and for each other have made realize that perhaps we may not jut be on different pages, but in different books entirely.

It’s not the fact that she made a few mistakes here and there. But the magnitude and level of them is the problem. Her response to them is an issue. But the truth is that The fact that she was able to do them in the first place is a huge indicator that her mindset and mine were totally different. It should be no surprise that her response to them wouldn’t be something that I could I could find satisfactory.

We just think and believe so differently. And knowing this is enough to make believe that there will be no reckoning or awaking for her. I just can’t trust that she won’t do it again. I believe that she doesn’t really recognize the level of cruelty in her actions. Lacking self reflection and empathy is a recipe for a repeated performance. It would take for her to really hit rock bottom and even then, there is no guarantee that she’d really get it. This is why, even though I wouldn’t wish this pain on almost anyone, she would be a person I wish could experience this. Not necessarily out of revenge or fairness, but maybe so she’d get the lesson as to WHY what she did was so bad.

I don’t think that she loves me enough as a person where I could do this to her. Her heart isn’t with me. Yeah, I might be having my own affair, but it isn’t for revenge. I sort of got caught up with someone who I never expected to. I wasn’t seeking ANYTHING long term. It never would have occurred to me that we would be dealing with each other for this long. Over time, I’ve grown to love her in a certain way, but not in that goofy “I’m so in love with you and I can’t live without you” sort of way. I do love being loved though. Whether she really gave her heart to me or not I can’t be certain. But it certainly feels that way sometimes. But she has also said a few things (out of ignorance perhaps) that give me pause as far as just letting go with her. Perhaps I’m bitter or perhaps I’m a realist. Perhaps I really just don’t love her like that or maybe I fear to do so….either way, my priority is to be able to figure things out with STBXW in a way that doesn’t permanaently damage kiddo.

Unfortunately, this involves me making her part of my complicated issues and in ways it does hurt her. To shield her from this pain, I lied to her “by omission” that STBXW had moved back in.

STBXW got in the bed with me the other night and wanted to fool around….i think. She didn’t say so, but was naked and was laying on me. I can’t front, things were pretty hard, but all I could think about how fucked up it was that if I did do it, I wouldn’t be able to tell my lover that. I was already feeling pretty shitty that I had to lie about STBXW being back. But having sex would have made me feel worse. Though I do understand that lying is also a pretty shitty thing to do too. I really cherished the ability for us to be honest with one another. So yeah, I fucked that up. But I mean, I probably could have had sex with STBXW and my lover wouldn’t have found out. That should count for something….right?

I instead pretended not get the “signal” and started an argument asking why she was “fucking with me and trying to talk while I was sleeping”. It worked because she’d been doing me like that for years.

I don’t think I’m totally head over heels for my lover, but I don’t want to treat her unfairly. I don’t know if she’d do the same for me, but all I can do is be responsible for my actions. I can’t worry about if she would sneak around on me. I haven’t caught her in any real lies and even though I don’t have that desperate love for her like that. Maybe I fear karma or maybe, it just doesn’t seem right. It does help me maintain frame as a fortunate side effect. Desperately loving someone seems to have the unfortunate side effect of blowing up in your face. At least, that has been my experience. With the converse generally going like how my situation with my lover has been. Dunno, sometimes I think that “love” is a joker. The less you love someone, the more they love you. Maybe my lover would actually love me more on a psycho/spritual/meta level if I did engage with sex with STBXW and lie “by omission” about it. Shit be like that when it comes to love it seems. But for now, I’m just trying to find balance without busting my ass.

I can forgive STBXW for her indescretions. I mean I really don’t think that she knows what she’s doing. Better yet, she is just who she is.

For example, I asked her why would she be ok with engaging in a selfish type of sex she allowed me to watch her pleasure herself, but wouldn’t allow me to penetrate. (That did happen a few times and I am ashamed of being so thirsty and lacking of self respect.) But anyway, I asked what if I let her watch me pleasure myself, knowing that she wanted sex (and was rejected every time she asked), but instead, got off and went to sleep. Her answer: “yeah, that is kind of selfish now that I think about it.”

“Yeah…..but you had to think about it… and that’s a problem.” I told her. I mean seriously, shouldn’t someone just “know” this stuff? I’m no master saint, but come on.

I know that I wouldn’t want my s/o to have to beg me for sex and only give her the satisfaction of watching me get myself off. I would like to think that I’d just know that this is not right….if not downright abusive. Especially if I had already done the things to her that she did to me. Especially knowing that the only reason she “forgave” me was because we neither want to hurt kiddo.

I’m not asking for sympathy as I have to take responsibility for putting myself in that situation to begin with. The level of abuse and toxicity is only going to get worse if I allow it. To my credit, the last time she tried to pull that shit, I cursed her out and she hasn’t tried it since.

I found out friday that my job benefits will actually pay for 20hrs with a divorce attorney. Here’s something trippy. A small voice in my head is telling me not to pursue it. I don’t know why this is. I’ve described in the last 4 years or so in this blog how terrible she is to me. And yet, there is some level of something that is telling me to slow down. As if I haven’t been patient enough. I did find relief in that I can use this as a sort of ace in the hole once if find out she’s back on the bullshit. Yet what more evidence do I need though. If she isn’t doing it now, it would just be a matter of time before she’s on it again.

I don’t hate her, I realize who she is and that she’s just not a good wife for me. It doesn’t make her a terrible mother or hitler or anyone. Just not a good partner. At least for me. We just have to figure out how to transition. Actually, scratch that, I have to figure out how to transition. She’s going to flounder her way around until either some dude tells her what to do or she stumbles into something. While using me as a safety net. Sure it works for her, but since she doesn’t love me back and I lack the capacity to hurt her back…. all this is doing is causing me to lower myself. For heaven’s sake, I am having an affair and I’m worried about hurting my affair partner. Despite the circumstances of how I got here, I am here so I fucked something up pretty bad.

I’d be the one suffering with low esteem, lack of sex and intimacy, possibly missing out on a s/o, and wasted emotional energy figuring out things that should be straightforward. Yeah, the next step into faith is following up with finding a divorce attorney to begin the process. I still haven’t figured out how to tell kiddo.

Ah, the joys of marriage.