To the ghost readers of the ethereal writer......

......, welcome. I don't know how you finally ended up here but I'm always glad to receive new visitors. x

Dying for Spring

I feel dead inside. I'm just waiting for my body to catch up with my soul.

Betrayal

I was conscious that throughout this whole sorry 'affair', everyone has suffered feelings of betrayal, everyone apart from Lee that is. I thought it only fair that he too should experience the hurt that it causes, after all, it is impossible to have empathy with our loved ones until we have walked in their shoes.

I am disappointed in myself for stooping so low but I am learning to only give respect where it is due. After almost 4 years of being taken for a fool , lied to and ignored, I don't feel that Lee deserves any more of my respect.

Contemplation

If I don't write, I fear I'll do something stupid. I feel ready to explode but have to keep a lid on it for the kids' sake. When my phone vibrated during a lesson, to signal an incoming text, my curiosity got the better of me again. Pretending to check the time, I took a sneaky look at the message: ' please call me urgently re. available house buying funds'. I wish I hadn't bothered as it meant missing my break to call Pots. Clueless as to the whereabouts of all the relevant bank statements, he had to be guided through the house, by me, to locate them.

It annoys me that he's never bothered to help manage the home economics. I'm used to the idea that I'm expected to know the location of every sock, cleaning material, book or useful phone number in the house, however I resent being responsible for all things money related too.

By the time I arrived (late) at my next lesson, I was on the verge of tears. I'd stopped briefly to talk to Ali, who'd heard the tail end of my phone call and had asked how things were going. I'd been quite calm and matter of fact at first, but her sympathetic look and kind words tipped me over the edge. Damn.

The day has been getting steadily worse since then. I came home at lunch time to cry in private, only to find Pots' car on the drive. Sometimes it seems he's everywhere I turn. I feel hemmed in, suffocated and it's always more stifling at the weekend.

For two days each week, I face the reality of my life without distraction. Work provides me with a welcome escape from the sadness I feel at home. My whole existence feels to be in limbo and the pressure of the major decisions which rest on me is, quite honestly, too much to take. As I can't contemplate any sort of happy future for myself I have been considering the alternatives.

Agnosticism proves to be quite useful here because it means I don't have major moral issues about suicide. I know it's the coward's way out and I feel guilty that the loved ones I'll leave behind may suffer feelings of self-blame or loss. I'll be sure to remind them of my stubbornness in the note I leave. When I've made my mind up about something, I become unyielding. I'll also point out how their lives will be richer in my absence - it'll be my way of doing a bit of counselling from beyond the grave.

Pots will be able to enjoy living with his children in a mortgage free home, free to find a woman who will love him like he deserves to be loved. Pinky and Perky will be saved from their Mum's voice of doom, which thwarts them from dawn til dusk. Lee will have his dirty secrets taken to the grave, and will be able to enjoy life with his family without 'distraction'. I wonder, should a schedule a Moonpig card to be sent to him or Misriam, announcing my departure?

The Killer Curiosity.

A recent post concluded that feeding ones appetite for curiosity leads to a satisfactory sense of fatness. Today's entry in my disjointed virtual journal will consider whether being too curious can result in death.

I am feeling rather melancholy today. The offer Mr S made on a 3 bed semi has been accepted. I accompanied him to a succession of viewings last night and one in particular stood out: recently renovated and tastefully decorated; attached garage with potential use as bike workshop; convenient location for school and kids' friends; garden with patio area for barbecues; open view over valley.

This show of financial commitment makes our separation seem a lot more definite and I'm saddened by the idea that our 13 year marriage is all but over. The thought of my children's future step mum keeps popping into my head yet when I try to imagine how I'll feel about her, I draw a blank. I can't seem to picture life that far into the future, then I wonder if that scenario might happen sooner than I'd expected. I wish I could fast forward to that time to find out what my gut feeling would be towards my husband with another woman. By then though, it might be too late. Like many men, Pots isn't one to sit around moping over a woman. Once he's made the decision to move on, that's exactly what he'll do.

I know I'm being naive believing that we may remain good friends. We have always had and still have a strong friendship, however, although that is a good basis for a successful marriage, I fear it is not enough. He's a red blooded male and I love him enough to provide him with an escape route from a sexless relationship. I can't promise that my sexual desire for him will ever return and I feel I've kept him waiting long enough already. He calls it 'throwing the baby out with the bath water', him being the baby and the bath water representing my issues.

I'd hoped that, with Lee withdrawing himself from my life, I'd have more time to concentrate my thoughts and actions on saving my own marriage yet I've felt so devoid of any emotion, I've hardly even had the inclination to try. The mental torture suffered over the last 4 years has beaten me down so far that I have no fighting spirit left. You could say that my inquisitive nature was the catalyst to it all. My almost obsessive need to know. My being 'obsessed by another bloke'.........' brain washed'...........'taken for a fool'. The actions I took to satisfy my curiosity caused so much damage. By talking secretly to Lee, I destroyed Pots' trust in me; confiding in my Internet 'friend' put my loyalty to my husband in question; the ad I placed on Gumtree to find out Lee's true identity made me look like a stalker, as did the phone call to his office when I finally tracked him down.

The consequences of my curiosity have been tragic. Lee often boasted that he knew 'how to press my buttons' but the question is, did he really intend to deploy the one marked 'destroy marital bliss'? When I look back at jealous comments he made in the early days, I do wonder.

I trusted Lee intimately which was quite a big deal for me. To have that thrown back at me was soul destroying and killed off a huge part of my trusting nature. When I consider the compromising positions I put myself in for him, I feel sick with shame and stupidity. It all adds to the overwhelming guilt I live with each day. All nails in the coffin of my former, happy life.

'F**k Off and Get a Life - seriously, get help'

The words on my lap top monitor stared back at me cuttingly. The sharpness of the tone sliced into my soul, hitting a few raw nerves along the way.

The e-mail from Lee's wife was short and to the point. She didn't wish to hear my apologies or care to share my insight into her marriage, nor did she 'give a shit about' what I'd been through. I can see that it wasn't her empathy that endeared her to her husband. He'd said she was a 'nasty piece of work', and here she was, threatening to show me 'what she was capable of'.

I know that she's capable of refusing her husband access to his children, should he leave, but I'm left wondering how she plans to hurt me. Handbags at dawn perhaps? A bit of hair pulling and face scratching? A vicious stream of aggressive, vulgar insults?

My confessional message of apology to 'the moody wife' (her ironically sarcastic words) hadn't been intended to hurt her. If I'd wanted to inflict a bit of mental pain, I could have simply mailed her the transcripts of the MSN conversations between Lee and me. I chose to write and tell her my side of the story because I couldn't stand the thought of being judged as a home wrecker or stalker. I wanted her to know the truth as I saw it, not how Lee had (or not) described the whole affair to her.

Another part of me hoped that my interference might stir up some sort of a reaction from Lee, a show of emotion, be it positive of negative. If my meddling resulted in me being told, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off, then at least I could accept that he was a cowardly, lying bastard and move on.

As far as 'getting a life' goes, I'm working on it. Miriam might be surprised to learn that I do have quite a lot of insight into the life of an intelligent married mother, juggling with the stresses of weaning, potty training, house moves, loss of libido, lack of sleep, work.................Perhaps she's jealous that I had enough time in my life to spend making her husband happy; or annoyed that Lee had caught a glimpse of another attractive wife who did all of the above and still seemed to show her husband love and support; maybe she's laughing at me because she knows that I was yet another of her spouse's 'meaningless indiscretions'.

On paper, I still have the same life I had before this all started: a doting (albeit estranged) husband; 2 happy, healthy children who excel at school, a beautiful home with hardly any mortgage; a career I love; supportive and trustworthy family and friends. I take exception to Miriam's opinion that I need to get a life, although I'll concede that I do need help. Perhaps she could recommend her counsellor.

Curiosity Killed the Cat......

......or, did satifaction make it fat? Discuss.

Last week, in the doctor's waiting room, I tried out one of those height/weight/BMI/bloodpressure/pulse rate/bra size/ hair colour measuring machines. It reminded me of the contraption used by the Clarke's shop assistant to measure my feet for new school shoes. After a few satisfying whirrs and beeps, out popped a receipt bearing my vital statistics. OK, so maybe it didn't show the size of my boobs or reveal my hair's greyness percentage, but it did tell me that I'd lost 2cm and gained 2 kilos. Yahoo!

For me, weight gain is a struggle. I know that makes me unpopular with a lot of women who have the opposite problem: to some, it's acceptable to call me a 'skinny bitch' ; others, who haven't witnessed my appetite, assume I am anorexic; holidays involving bikinis have been avoided by one or two. I wonder how those women would feel if I addressed them as 'fat cows', or assumed that their extra weight was acquired through greed or laziness. Perhaps I was nervous about my petite breasts being compared to my friend's ample cleavage, but I wouldn't let it ruin a potentially great trip away.

Anyway, the fact that I have put on some beef lately, comes as welcome news. Firstly, I can fill my bras without the need for 'chicken fillets' and secondly, when I'm holding The Bow position my hip and pubis bones don't dig into the yoga mat quite so painfully. I actually get quite excited when I see the beginnings of a 'muffin-top' spilling over the top of my jeans and it takes longer for my skin to turn blue when I'm out in the cold.

These physical signs are evidence of my improving mental state. Prior to the popping of my first happy pill, I was warned that I may put on a few pounds, however the drug had the opposite effect on me. I have been able to resign the medication to the back of the drawer because my curiosity about a few things has been satisfied.

Upon consideration of the evidence, it would be reasonable to say that, in this case, satisfying one's curiosities does lead to fatness. It does not however, take into account the notion of curiosity being fatal. This will be discussed in the next blog.

Until then, why not think about what gives YOU satisfaction? I'd love to hear your comments. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a rather topical poem:

Curiosity
by Alastair Reid

may have killed the cat; more likely the cat was just unlucky, or else curious to see what death was like, having no cause to go on licking paws, or fathering litter on litter of kittens, predictably.
Nevertheless, to be curious is dangerous enough. To distrust what is always said, what seems,to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,leave home, smell rats, have hunches do not endear cats to those doggy circles where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches are the order of things, and where prevails much wagging of incurious heads and tails.
Face it. Curiosity will not cause us to die--only lack of it will.Never to want to see the other side of the hill or that improbable country where living is an idyll(although a probable hell) would kill us all.Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all.
Dogs say cats change too much, are irresponsible,are change able, marry too many wives,desert their children, chill all dinner tables with tales of their nine lives.Well, they are lucky. Let them be nine-lived and contradictory,curious enough to change, prepared to pay the cat price, which is to die and die again and again,each time with no less pain.A cat minority of one is all that can be counted onto tell the truth. And what cats have to tell on each return from hell is this: that dying is what the living do,that dying is what the loving do,and that dead dogs are those who do not know that dying is what, to live, each has to do.