A memory

Last night, while I was brushing my teeth, I was struck by a memory from last year. It was from the time when my husband had left me and was pretending we weren’t even married anymore. It was before I knew about the affair and was still under the impression that all that it had been was an inappropriate friendship. My husband had set up a new facebook profile and I had just received a friend invite. I had a look at the profile and noticed two things – one that he had set it up a few days before and two that she was already a friend on it. I was very hurt. Hurt because he took his time inviting me on it, because he had invited her back first and because he had her on there at all. Stupidly, I confronted him about all this and he got angry. He screamed at me, in front of our colleagues and strangers, that he wasn’t my husband anymore and I needed to stop treating him like one. I don’t know what invoked that memory to come back but it stung as much last night as it did when he first said it. The memory has obviously been relived by me before but not for a long time. It makes me sad to know that it still hurts as much now.

Thinking about it now also brings up a host of other memories from that time. Things I haven’t thought about for a very long time. Its hard to process the things he said and did during that time. The way he treated me and how he led me on. Its hard not to compare what he said then and what he says now and wonder which version he really meant. I know logically if he meant all the things in the past he wouldn’t be here now. He wouldn’t have asked me to give him another chance.

But…..

…. some of the things he says when he’s drunk are more similar to the old rather than the new. Like deep down he does regret having a moment of weakness and coming back to me. Like he would rather be free of me and this baby so he can do whatever he wants. If I had a super power it would definitely be mind reading. So I could truly know what he is still keeping from me, what he is thinking and feeling. And to have a real answer once and for all.

When its good its….

good. But wait, its not really.

The weekend started off really well. I made the decision that if my husband wanted to drink and go out or whatever he was free to go and do it on his own. No, I don’t like it when he goes out on his own but I can’t remember the last Friday night that I didn’t go to bed angry or in tears because of something he’d said or done in his drunken state. I was determined that when I woke up on Saturday it was going to be all good between us. When I husband came home he had no alcohol with him! And he didn’t go out to buy any. While I finished up dinner he got a movie ready and we watched that together. Then she shared some music with me and I happily went to bed. Amazing! Not one mention of drinking or going out! On Saturday he went off to work to drop his suit off to be dry cleaned and while there he picked up the new phone that he had ordered for me as a surprise! I was so touched. Gifting is my love language, so of course I felt hugely loved for this wonderful act he’d done. Then later that afternoon we went to a furniture store and finally ordered a new couch (which I am happily sitting on now!!). We went for an early dinner and came home to watch another movie. Still no drinking involved.

Sunday is when we hit a snag. Initially it started out ok. Then I wanted to choose some photo’s to print to put in the new frames we’ve got. Now my husband is the artistic one. I go for photo’s because of the memories they invoke or the people I want to be reminded of. Him, on the other hand, looks at the detail and wants ‘the perfect photo’s’ to go up. I won’t go into it but lets just say this led to conflict. My choices of photo’s are so limited because of this. He doesn’t want too many photo’s of us, he vetoes most of the photo’s that he’s in because he doesn’t like the way he looks and I’m not allowed to put up wedding photo’s because its a ‘bad memory’ for him! Um, hello – I was the one betrayed, surely if its going to be a bad memory it should be for me not him. Anyway, we managed to kind of move on from there.

Today he has had to leave for another city to get a new visa. He left before I got home so I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. I was mostly miffed by this because he knew I would be home by 2:30 and yet he left at 2:15. He could have waited just to please me. And then I went on facebook. He has made the fact that he is married private so no-one can see it anymore. So basically he doesn’t want anyone on facebook to see he’s married, he refuses to wear his wedding ring and he won’t have sex with me. Um, should I just take the hint now??? He is well aware of the fact that this facebook development will upset me. And yet he does it anyway. And if I confront him he will tell me that a) its not a big deal (which if that is the case then why does he have to take it off???) and b) he didn’t think about it when he did it. Which is always his excuse: ‘I didn’t think about it, I didn’t think you’d react this way, I didn’t think….’ Hello, you’ve been with me for over five years, you’ve seen the way I’ve reacted to this kind of situation on a number of other occasions. You keep telling me that you don’t forget things so what gives?

He called me to say goodbye before his flight. The call didn’t even last a minute. He couldn’t even give me a full minute of his time to say goodbye or listen if I had anything to tell him. And yet he could sit on whatsapp talking to someone while he waited for his flight. I feel dejected. He’s gone til Thursday and I’m not even sure how to deal with it all. Does it make me weak to ignore it all and not make a big deal of it or does it show growth if I let it go?

This is rant. I’m alone and I just need to express what I’m feeling.