if I weren't already smitten

I would have been after yesterday. Got an email reply from SO when I asked him how he slept the night before ~ "each time I woke enough to turn over, I thought of you and smiled."  Oh yeah, my insides melted with that one, and I walked around with a huge goofy grin on my face for hours.

Gotta love a man who has such a way with words. :)

want vs need

This came up for discussion on an online forum I post on, and I've been pondering it ever since. At first I thought about it only in the context of the relationship I have with SO. But invariably that led to thoughts of how different this relationship is compared to my marriage and well, there you have it. I've been thinking about the want vs need dynamic in my marriage. So even though I was only going to go forward with this blog, I think for tonight I'll be looking at the past, because I want to learn from that so that my present and future are better.

Hindsight is so wonderful, in its 20/20 perfection.

When I met my ex, I was needy. At the time, I didn't think I was, but looking back, oh baby, was I ever. Some of it was the neediness  and immaturity of youth, but a great deal more of it was the neediness that came from issues in my family of origin. I unwittingly was looking for a rescuer, and found that in my ex. He was needy as well. Again, some of it because of youth, but I think now a lot more of was because of issues in his family of origin. If you were to ask him though, I doubt he'd see it, even now looking back.

But there we were, me needing to be rescued from my dysfunctional family and ex needing the attention that he hadn't gotten from his parents growing up. That dynamic worked well for us for years, because I gave ex the attention he wanted, when he wanted it because he was my knight in shining armor who rescued me.

Somewhere along the way things changed. We got married and had children. I didn't have as much time to give ex the attention he needed, when he needed it. I also started to realize that I didn't need him to rescue me, I could learn to do that by myself. Now, I didn't just wake up one morning and know I didn't need him. It was a very gradual process, made in part because ex withdrew from me and our family as he became more discontent. I grew stronger because he wasn't there to be my rescuer. I stopped needing him.

That was really good for me, but I think it's what doomed my marriage. Ex equated need with want and assumed because I didn't need him, I didn't want him. And honestly, I didn't do such a good job of letting him know I wanted him as a husband. I thought I had plenty of time for that, when the kids were older. I was wrong.

So now I know that I don't need anyone to rescue me. I still have the tendency to want to have that knight in shining armor come to my rescue, so I really have to watch that. But even with that, I know that I do not need to have my SO in my life. I know that I can have a perfectly good life without him. However, I want to have SO in my life. And I will make sure he knows that, and how much I enjoy and appreciate that he is in my life. It's a lesson that was well learned.

went to my divorce support group today

and something the moderator of the group said made me wonder if he knows this online persona of mine. Or perhaps I've just been more vocal in group about the subject that came up than I realize.

It was a small group today, only 7 of us including the moderator, and despite only attending for not quite a year, I'm considered one of the old-timers. I think a lot of that has to do with my attitude as much as the progression of my divorce time-line. Being officially divorced puts me on the other side, at least as far as being able to help those just starting the process.

Anyway, half of the group today was in the trying to reach a settlement phase. It's an extremely frustrating time during a divorce, particularly if the soon-to-be-ex isn't cooperating and is trying to drag things out. Because that's where half the group is, we spent a lot of time talking about anger, resentment and forgiveness.

It was when the subject of forgiveness came up. That's when I got the feeling the moderator knows who I am on a forum I post on, under this name. Either that, or I live a life with a whole lot of coincidences. lol  But I've posted on that forum several times within the past week about forgiveness. Of course, I do tend to be rather outspoken in group at times so there's a good chance whatever I've said about forgiveness before made an impression. Not that it bothers me if he knows who I am on the forum, and he may not. But the timing of the subject, and his comment, was just a bit odd. Oh well, such is life.

you know he's a keeper when...

One of the things I'm finding rather remarkable about my relationship with my SO is how incredibly comfortable I am, despite doing a bunch of real life, normally embarrassing things around him. Turns out I don't blush nearly as easily as I thought I did, and I really like being accepted for who I am, and not having to pretend I'm someone I'm not.

I'm not sure it was a lesson to be learned, exactly. But I got to discover what it feels like to have someone care enough about me to take care of me when I didn't feel well this past weekend. I wasn't sure what to do with that, for a while. It's hard to let someone in that close and not be afraid he'll feel differently. It was sad to realize I hadn't had that depth of caring in my marriage, for most if not all of the marriage. I remember thinking that the last time someone did some of the simple, basic things for me when I was sick that SO was doing was when I had been sick as a child and my mom took care of me.

I think it makes SO  a little uncomfortable for me to be so appreciative of things that he does that he takes for granted, because they're such an inherent part of him. He has said something similar to me, about things I've said to or done for him, and I usually answer "it's just me, being me" so I think I understand how he feels.

But I'm going to keep on appreciating this wonderful man who came into my life when I least expected it and I'm going to keep him just as long as he wants me to. :)

it's just....creepy

I'm not one of those people that spills my whole life out on facebook. For one thing, I'm fb friends with my kids and a handful of their friends, and life has been pretty tumultuous for my kids this past year without them having to deal with mom sharing too many details of our lives on fb. For another thing, it's just better that some things are not thrown out there on fb, kwim? That's what semi-anonymous blogs are for. lol

So with my kids' best interests in mind, I do not talk about my relationship with SO on fb, nor do I show any type of relationship status. I guess that means I come across as available, or something. Every now and again, like oh say tonight, I get friend requests from men that I don't have a freakin' clue who they are. Do they bother to write anything in the nice little space facebook gives you to personalize the request? No, of course they don't.

Seriously, do these men really not get how creepy that is? Or that I'm not getting that they're just sending the request based on my profile picture? I suppose they think it's flattering, or something, but I just find it creepy. Blech!

Really? Am I really that interesting?

Apparently I am so fascinating to other people that they feel the need to keep tabs on me. It's a bit more complicated than that. It's really closer to cyber-stalking and harassment. Oh, not to mention credit card fraud and identity theft. And yes, that was reported to the police, with names of suspected perpetrators.

So guess what? If you know who I really am, good for you. If you want to keep playing childish games, once again, good for you. You got what you wanted, however the hell that turned out for you. If you really think that filling my inbox up with spam, or checking to see what I order online and get delivered will make you happy, or a good person, who am I to care?

You see, I have a life. I have people who care about me and support me. I can look in the mirror and face myself every day. I know I am a good, kind, loving person.

You are inconsequential to my life now, but apparently I'm rather important to yours.
 
Whatever.

people hear what they want to hear

I'm sure I'm no exception to that, but it's annoying nonetheless when someone asks for advice, I take the time to respond and then get no acknowledgment from that person, simply because I said something they don't want to hear and they choose to take someone else's advice.

I don't have a problem with them not taking my advice. It's not that. In this particular instance, I do think they're unwise to not take my advice but hey, there's nothing I can do about that. It's more about when someone asks for advice on a public forum, then only responds to the people who agree with them that irks me. Why bother asking if you're not going to even consider different viewpoints?

But the question, my reply and the other responses got me to thinking about how fortunate I am in my relationship with SO. The question was about figuring out where a relationship is heading when it's a new relationship, and it's a relationship after your marriage was ended by infidelity.

My response was to talk to, and ask the other person in that relationship with you. The other replies were more along the lines of how uncomfortable it was to put your feelings out there for another person to see, and that they'd rather wait and see what happens. Hey, I get that. It's incredibly hard to show any emotional vulnerability after you've been cheated on and divorced because of it. But one of the lessons I learned because of that is that I'd much rather know honestly where I stand in a relationship. And fortunately for me, that's what I have now with SO.