It bothers me sometimes when I hear people say 'most marriages that stay together after an affair become stronger and more loving'. Never mind the connotation that affairs are good for a marriage, I just have a hard time imagining that my marriage will somehow feel 'stronger and more loving' after all this.

Moments like that, I remind myself that statistically, a marriage takes 2-5yrs to recover from an affair. We're just getting started.

But still. I've been through this before. The pain never entirely goes away. And to have more added to what was already there causes some rather thick scar tissue.

I suppose a marriage could be stronger and more loving in the fact that there are now two people doing the loving and being committed, rather than just one. Perhaps it feels stronger and more loving to the person who strayed because they have decided to rejoin the party. But to me it still just feels fractured, broken, tainted, and damaged.

Infidelity, especially physical infidelity, is not something you can take back or make right. No matter how good things become, it's still there. It still happened. And it could still happen again. I think some things in this life only certain people are mentally capable of. It's something you're either susceptible to or you're not. And I don't think that making that mistake somehow makes you more capable of resisting the next time temptation strikes. Well.. maybe more capable, but not necessarily fully capable. I don't know. I used to believe that that was the case. I used to think 'He did that once. He knows what a mistake it was and how badly it hurt me. He learned from that mistake and there's NO WAY he'd ever do that again.'

But I was wrong.

And I accept that. I'm certainly not going to say that that makes it okay for him to do it again.. or that I expect him to do it again. And when I stop to think about it, it's hard to decide if I'd even want to know. I don't think I would. Not unless he decided to just go ahead and leave, then I'd want to know why.

I guess it just feels somewhat insulting to hear people say that marriages often become stronger and more loving after recovering from an affair. It's as if they're minimizing the pain and strife that a betrayed spouse has to endure to get there. And I have a hard time believing that our marriage will ever be as strong and loving as it could have been had he been faithful.

I don't like confronting the reality of my life.

At all.

When I do? I can't help but regret. Regret, regret, regret. I think one of the biggest regrets I have, was letting my parents find out about 'what happened' when I was a kid. I think that was probably the single stupidest thing I've ever done. I don't know how I deluded myself into thinking it was a good idea. All it did was hurt people.

I often wish things could be how they were. No, they weren't ideal. But we were all getting along just fine. And it's not like I was thinking about it every day or hurting over it all the time or something.. I gained nothing but a big set back from letting it out. And for what?? I mean.. honestly.

I realize that I wasn't even talking to my brother to begin with. I hadn't heard from him since we'd moved a year before. But I was at least communicating amicably with my sister in law.. and still do, on occasion. But things are... awkward. And now? I couldn't just call him up and say 'hello' if I wanted to. I wish I could. I had no desire to hurt him. And I had no desire to ruin what relationship we had with him and his family.

I'll never know why he's grown so distant and aloof toward our family, and especially me, over the years. I hope it's just 'who he is'. But, whatever. The damage is done, I suppose. No fixing it now.

I also further damaged my parents' view of me as a person. I think that's a bit harder to swallow. I finally felt like we had a real relationship, like I could really trust them and be open with them.. After my husband's affair, they had been so supportive and caring and non-judging. They really helped get me through a VERY hard time. Yes, that 'hard time' was partly to blame for trudging up my yucky past.. but why shed light on it to everyone else? Like I said, dumb mistakes. But hey, thinking about childhood crap sure was a nice break from thinking about my husband's betrayal. Perhaps that's why I suddenly turned so much focus and attention to it, it helped me avoid the bigger issues in my life.

And now my parents and I are right back to where we were.

I'm so glad that I'm such a loner. So thankful that I am so accustomed to keeping everything in and not talking about all the things that go through my head.

But now, I feel so crazy sometimes. I read stories about other people and bad things that have happened to them and something stirs within me. Something that wants to get out. I don't know what it is, and I don't want to. And it makes me feel crazy, cause there isn't anything that should be there wanting to come out. Does that even make sense? ... See what I mean?

Yeah.

Someday, I'll have a time machine. I can go back and undo all this and just start over. Or perhaps I will just have amnesia and wake up far away from here.. I suppose the latter is more realistic.

I'm not sure exactly what I intend this post to be.. only that I felt the need to say what's on my mind.

Each day I seem to fool myself into thinking everything is okay. I don't really see anything wrong with this until little bits of ugliness come popping up. I'm trying to live each day for itself and, if I could, I would erase the past from my memory so that I could simply make new memories.

Slowly, bit by bit, I'm dissociating myself 'now' with myself 'then'. I don't want anything to do with my past or 'the old me'. All of my memories are tainted and I can't help but wish they were different every time they come to mind. It sucks.

Lately it's been a bit of a struggle.

People we know have added little ones to their families. I know that I should be excited and rejoicing with them.. but I have no interest. I don't want to see them or their children or say how wonderful it is that they have been blessed with these little people. I have a hard time even thinking that they are even blessings.

All that comes to mind is 'I hope things go better for them than they have for me'.

Part of why I wonder why I'm even posting on this blog is because by doing so it makes me think. It makes me think of the negative things in my life that I associate with this blog. I don't want to think about them. I don't want to acknowledge that they even exist.

I'm just a normal happy mother of 5, with normal day to day frustrations to deal with. Normal happy life with normal average problems. Nothing to see here.. move along.

But I guess that's not really true?

I feel bad for my kids.

It makes me mad.

I need to stop thinking about it because I always come to the conclusion that they would be so much better off with someone else. I know that no one else can see that, cause they're all blind or something.. but I'm a shitty mother and it seems that no matter how hard I try I can clean up this mess of things that I have made and be better.

No child deserves to grow up in a home like this.