Forgiveness – or Lack Thereof

A week ago Saturday, I pulled a muscle in my neck causing excruciating pain and resulting in prescriptions for a very strong muscle relaxer and an equally strong pain medicine. The impact on my daily life was not too severe, as I scheduled medications around my work schedule and balanced daily activities with the sudden need for a 4 hour nap (and no, I did not drive or operate other heavy machinery while medicated). One interesting (in the Chinese curse meaning of interesting) side effect of the medications has been to remove all of the filters and controls that I have painstakingly layered over my emotions. I have spent the last 10 days feeling like an exposed nerve that just gets more sensitive every day. The pain in my neck has resolved, and the medications are a thing of the past. The emotional trauma, alas, has not been as easy to heal…or even to stuff back into the box where I had it stored.

The trauma started, oddly enough, in marriage counseling. With my self control slightly less controlled than usual, I responded less than favorably to my husband’s expression of his new found delight in me – in finding that I am passionate and sexy, that I am loving and caring and giving, that our child has turned out well in no small measure because she grew up knowing she was adored and appreciated and given limits mostly set by me, in rediscovering our history and the adventures we have shared,  in my enthusiastic appreciation for everything from sex to wildflowers to old movies. In fact, if I am honest, I was so far from favorably impressed that I barely managed to pull myself back from a full scale meltdown.

His pleasure turned to confusion and then verged on anger as I expressed my feeling that while I appreciate that he once again finds me worthy of knowing, it tears a hole in my heart and in my soul every time he says something that brings home the realization that I am married to someone who forgot who I was – who thought I was someone who he is not even willing to describe. He is a very intelligent man, in some ways even brilliant, but in this particular instance he seems completely unable to see that sharing his new realizations about how much he now loves me infers as clearly as if he shouted it out loud that he spent a considerable amount of time feeling like I was boring and unattractive and unworthy of attention or love or even daily kindness. He is also unable or unwilling to explain how long he felt that way or to understand why his words hurt me instead or making me feel special.

Instead, he responded angrily “She obviously hasn’t forgiven me!” Hence the title of this post.

Have I forgiven him? Yes, yes I have. I think one of the problems faced by those of us who find ourselves in this situation is the difference between FORGIVENESS AND UNDERSTANDING and NOT HURTING ANYMORE. I understand and have forgiven him for making a choice – in an attempt to make himself feel better, to escape his turmoil and confusion – that ripped my heart into pieces. Why was I able to forgive so quickly? Because I love him, I know him well, and he was tearing himself apart. He didn’t do it on purpose, I know he is sorry, I know he wishes he could take it back, AND SO I HAVE FORGIVEN HIM FOR THE AFFAIR. I think the confusion for those on both sides of the affair is that FORGIVING the cheater and UNDERSTANDING why he (or she) cheated doesn’t automatically erase the pain. There is a reason that in many cases the cheater’s spouse is called the “injured” spouse, that the vocabulary for someone whose spouse has cheated includes “recovery” and “healing” and “treatment”, and unfortunately in many cases involves actual medication.

I have been in a downhill spiral for the last week – no matter what I do, I cannot seem to get a handle on my feelings. I would love to write it off as an unfortunate side effect of strong medication. After all, you might wonder why I am not flattered at such enthusiastic appreciation? BECAUSE THOSE TRAITS THAT HE FINDS SO APPEALING ARE INNATE PARTS OF MY PERSONALITY – THEY ARE A PART OF WHO I AM AND WHO I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN – they are the things that my friends and family value and love about me. They are those exact traits that led him to fall in love with me exactly 31 years ago. He just forgot them, or ignored them, or somehow was unable to see me. Now he does, and expresses his delight, even saying that we are so much better than we were before the affair.

The changes I see in myself since my life blew apart almost two years ago are NOT positive – I am less confident, more introverted, more tearful. I sometimes have difficulty feeling the empathy for others that has always been a core part of ME. I find myself wanting to run away when faced with emotional turmoil in the lives of my friends and family and sometimes have difficulty sharing the joy experienced by those I love. Not only do I actually find it hard to reach out to others and use them for support, I sometimes find it almost impossible to be supportive. I am working so hard to hold myself together, to be normal, to heal while I so often feel fragile….and this weekend I finally realized why.

I have been in a holding pattern, waiting for him to catch up, waiting for him to put in the work that I have. I researched and went to counseling and discussed and wrote and examined – and walked him through the reasons for what happened and why he made the choices he made.  I put his feelings first and moved outside my comfort zone in order to make him happy and to feel secure so he could do the work he needed to do to heal himself. I never called him names or wished for vengeance or did anything to punish him or to make him feel more awful than he already felt. After discovering one lie after another, I insisted that he go to counseling – not with me, but for himself, so that he could rediscover the man that he really is and find some peace. I knew that he was going to have to heal himself if we were going to heal – that I couldn’t do it for him.  A few months ago he told me that I had managed to hold us together until he was able to step up and do the work he needed to do to build a stronger marriage. At that point when I cried, it was because I was happy – I actually felt hope – like maybe it had all been worth it.

Unfortunately, I now realize that I will never have what I have been waiting for. He will never apply that singular focus that is so much a part of him when he is really interested in something to me or to our relationship – or even to self examination. He is not able to help me heal because he does not experience empathy or even sympathy when I am in emotional pain – instead he experiences it as a personal affront, as pain being inflicted on him. We appear to be at an impasse. Maybe that is always the way it is – whether the marriage stays intact or not, whether the person works or not – the healing has to be done alone. No real help is available.

The Birthday Week

So – I’ve spent the last month trying to balance my emotional ups and downs – sometimes successfully and sometimes not. I decided to get off the roller coaster for a while and just enjoy spending time with my daughter, who was home for her “birthday week”. While here, she intended to take care of the last lingering business connected with her life here, and then move all of her belongings to her new home in Dallas.

When Clothes Attack

Her first order of business was to visit our doctor for blood work to make sure she actually has red blood in her veins again  rather than pink water (Reality Check). YAY – her blood count is back to normal. While she was there, she mentioned that her shoulder really hurt, was examined, sent for an MRI, and will be coming back September 1st for a consult with an orthopedist. Why? Because two weeks ago, while trying on a lovely vintage cocktail dress at a resale shop, my tiny daughter got stuck in the dress (yes, stuck in the dress), wrenched her shoulder attempting to get out of it, and had to cut herself free using her Swiss Army knife. Her doctor didn’t even laugh at her since last week he had a patient actually arrive at his office straight from the mall with a dislocated shoulder, still entangled in a dress – I never realized that competitive shopping was a dangerous sport. Em’s biggest complaint, other than the constant pain, is that since she slit the seam, she felt compelled to pay for a dress that she characterized as seriously unflattering. My biggest complaint is that my child now has a torn tendon in her left shoulder and may need surgery again. Since she almost bled to death after her last surgery, I am really not eager to go down that road again!

Rushing Towards Her Future

Next on her list was to finally defend her capstone project for her degree. She missed her originally scheduled defense because she was in the hospital recovering from the aforementioned hemorrhage, and this was the first time that she and her committee members had all been in the same state. She held it together, acquitted herself well,  and was congratulated by her committee, who were luckily unaware that in her terror she had misremembered the time of her defense and almost missed it. To round out her week, she interviewed with a prospective graduate advisor, who welcomed her to the program and helped her finalize arrangements to start school part-time in two weeks.

The rest of her plan involved finding full time work. She spent July in Dallas applying for jobs, becoming more and more discouraged because she was not receiving much feedback – even in Dallas the job market is tight for recent college graduates. A long shot application went to a private university searching for an administrative assistant for the Dean of the College of Business. Something in her resume caught their interest, she successfully completed both phone and face to face interviews, and while she was here, she received news that she had been selected. She is relieved to have landed a reasonably well paid position in a very tight job market. I am still trying to wrap my mind around the image of my daughter serving as the gatekeeper and organizational staff for the busy dean of a nationally ranked business graduate program – my daughter who turned 22 last week and sometimes loses important papers in her car…. Her last employer, who is a friend, assures me that at work she is well organized, detail oriented, and very self directed, so I will just have to trust that the messy, scatter brained girl who I see at home shows a much different face to the rest of the world.

Birthday à la The Gilmore Girls

As mentioned earlier, my daughter (influenced by a long term obsession with the Gilmore Girls) believes that birthdays should be celebrated for at least a week, topped off by a dinner of her favorite foods prepared by her dad and I, and served to a group of her favorite people , concluding with singing and cake. Every year is slightly different, sometimes with a theme and sometimes not. She has never believed in the inadvisability of mixing age groups or circles of friends – she just invites who she wants, they generally come and everyone has a great time.  19 involved a visit to the zoo and lasagna for her closest college friends and our closest family friends. At 20, since she had just moved into a house in town with a roommate, she and her roommate had a huge potluck party inviting her friends, her roommate’s friends, our friends,and everyone’s dogs. At one point there were 10 dogs, children ranging from 1 to 15, young married couples, single professionals, grad students, middle aged married couples, the recently paired, and wild college kids. No one was bitten, nothing was broken, and no one had too much to drink or threw up until after the “grownups” and the children left. Last year involved a tiara and dinner for ten at her favorite restaurant, topped off with a giant margarita to celebrate turning 21.

I don't usually do guilt, but this year with the cake I did feel guilty. One of these cakes is the one I would have liked to make, one is the type I usually make, and one is the one I actually made. Guess which is which...

This year she decided on hamburgers at our house for family friends, followed by carrot cake. It sounds simple – except that we are remodeling, our oven ceased to work 3 weeks ago and has not been repaired, and an invasion of company requires a level of cleaning that I had not planned to do. Oh well, my only child only turns 22 once, so we managed to finish most of the bathroom remodel, cleaned like maniacs, bought and prepared food, made a carrot cake and baked it in my neighbor’s oven, and managed to have almost everything together when guests arrived. I didn’t discover until I went to put candles on the cake that they had  been destroyed by household pests and disposed of by my husband. In searching for a substitute, we discovered the cleansing candles I bought at a voodoo shop in New Orléans,  so Em ended up with a birthday celebration and a spiritual and psychic cleansing at the same time. She received a phone call about her new job in the middle of cake, so perhaps the process was beneficial.

Letting Go

Finally, the birthday week came to an end. We loaded all of her things into a U-Haul trailer and transported her to  her new home in a new city. She is happy, excited about the new possibilities in her life, and a little scared. Her dad and I are holding on to one another for dear life – I wonder if all parents feel this way when their children fly away for real – not to college, or in the same town, when they know that they are still their child’s first call, first line of defense, but when they have to accept that their child really is capable of caring for herself and is creating a new support network. I am happy for her, so proud I could burst, but periodically and unexpectedly tearful. I guess I am still working on acceptance – I miss the little girl who liked to nap on my lap.

Gender Roles

Yesterday I was reading a blog entry in which the author expressed her need for a knight in shining armor to rescue her from all the current disasters and complications in her life and her husband’s perception that his inability to do so somehow made him “the bad guy“.  Her life is complicated for a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with marital discord or infidelity, but it set off a train of thought about the damsel in distress/knight in shining armor paradigm. Feminists have taken issue with the idea for decades since it makes a woman much less than an equal partner in a relationship. Others feel that modern society has ruined relationships because it has made men less manly and women less feminine.

The Knight in Shining Armor and the Damsel in Distress

Last night, I was following an elusive thought that the need for rescue – for “a knight in shining armor” – could explain infidelity in some cases. I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of gender. Everyone wants to be rescued when their life seems overwhelming – and who do we expect to rescue us? The person we love, the person we know best – our spouse. If the spouse doesn’t meet the need for rescue, then the spouse becomes a bad person. Unfortunately, it  is not possible for the most loving spouse to meet the interior needs of another person – a person who is not clear themselves about what they need or why they are dissatisfied. The person in distress then looks to someone else to rescue him or her.

In trying to explain this train of thought to my husband, he pointed out that if I were his knight in shining armor, then he must be one of the seven dwarfs, since he is is not a damsel or a princess. This certainly put my train on a different track, since one of the issues that we had prior to his affair was his feeling that I did not “need” him during my cancer treatment – I handled the details, took care of myself, and supported what I thought was his need to care for his dad at the end of his life. Somehow, I appear to have stolen his armor and set off to slay the dragon alone. The result: he was vulnerable when a woman came along who spoke damsel language – who admired him, who needed him, who flattered him and told him how strong and wonderful he was.

To paraphrase the Cowboy Junkies "Where Is My John Wayne? My Marlboro Man? My happy ending? Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

Before I could really sort out what I was thinking, this morning I read another blogger expressed her dissatisfaction with all the “Lost Boys” in the world, men who can’t sustain an emotional commitment, who don’t give, don’t share, are not strong – who are not men. In America, the stereotypical “real man” is the cowboy. Country music is built around the idea that such men are strong and loving and true, women are sexy and maternal and supportive. Half the songs in this genre indicate that infidelity is the result when either partner steps outside his or her role, i.e. Your Cheating Heart, I Wish I Didn’t Know Now What I Didn’t Know Then, Before He Cheats, Here’s a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares).

Is it really so simple? Are all of us who are struggling to put marriages back together or who have lost a marriage that we valued in this shape because we messed up the basic cultural belief that the man is the knight in shining armor and the woman is the damsel in distress??

I refuse to accept this premise. I don’t think sticking to stereotypical gender roles helps anyone to be happier. I just think we have not recognized yet that our expectations and our realities don’t always match up. Men are expected to be more sensitive, but still be strong and manly, to be more involved with their children, but also to be professionally successful and support the professional goals of their spouses, but are not really given the  tools to handle emotions in a positive manner. Women are expected to be professional and maternal and sex goddesses – without any understanding of how to manage the conflicts built into these roles. I have friends who still believe that it is their husband’s job to support them financially and resent the need to work, or who are stay at home moms, but feel smothered and ignored, and men who expect their wives to handle childcare and housework, even when they work full-time. Reading seems to indicate financial pressures and the constraints of domesticity push some over the edge – regardless of gender. If these problems are complicated by health issues, death of a loved one, career pressures, or God Forbid, a lack of appreciation, then infidelity rears its head.

Instead of searching for or trying to be a Knight in Shining Armor or John Wayne or a Damsel in Distress, might I suggest the following as a more positive approach:

The Really Empty Nest

Over the July 4th weekend, we helped our 21-year-old daughter move to the metroplex. She now lives a 4 1/2 hour drive away from us with her boyfriend. She is looking for a post-graduation job, and they are looking for their first home together.

To say that I have mixed feelings about this newest development is a definite understatement. I am pleased that she is adult enough to have pulled it together and graduated. I am pleased that she feels ready to move away, find her first professional job, and take care of herself.  I am pleased that she found and values a boy who seems to be the yin to her yang. I know that is backwards, but he is the grounded, nurturing one and she is the volatile, fiery one, although I have seen them change roles. They have been together for over a year, through serious illnesses, family holidays, cross-country travel, the mixing, matching, and ditching of friends, a move for a job by him and the resulting distance relationship. They have both unpacked and sorted emotional  baggage, and had discussions about their future that indicate similar values, desires, and long range goals. He really seems to be an excellent match for her. So why are my emotions mixed? Why is joy for her not the only emotion I feel? After all, I have prepared for this since she was born…..

Practically, I am still very concerned about her health. Six weeks ago she hemorrhaged and almost died from complications from a tonsillectomy, and then resisted taking care of herself with all the fierceness of a young adult sentenced to imprisonment in her parents’ home.  Her hemocrit level is almost back to normal, she has more or less recovered that feeling of invincibility that makes young adults both so charming and so annoying, and she is no longer as pale as a ghost. Still, she is not 100%, and I find it hard not to want to keep an eye on her – to make sure she is eating the right foods, drinking enough liquids, still taking iron supplements. She has chronic depression, and usually does well with medication, but stress can increase symptoms. She is looking for a new job, house, and adjusting to a change in her most significant relationship as well as to a new geographic location, so I worry…..

Honestly, the biggest problem for me has nothing to do with her physical or emotional well being. The biggest problem is that she is still my little girl. Intellectually, I know that she no longer needs to be hauled to ballet, or gymnastics, or Girl Scouts, or play rehearsals. She no longer needs me to bandage her knees, or make chicken soup, or watch her favorite movie or TV show with her when she is sick. I know she no longer needs me to help her with her clothes or her hair on those dress up occasions. I know she is a grown up!

So, like all the mothers before me and all the mothers to follow, I have reached the point when I have to let go – she has the intelligence (and the stubbornness – note the photo) to succeed at whatever she wants. She knows that we are here if she needs us. We will help her ferry the remainder of her belongings, including her aged cat and her 105 lb dog, to her new home when she is ready.

It is time for me to settle in to the really empty nest, and adjust to being at a distance from the daily ins and outs of her life. She does, after all, have an IPhone – so voice, text, and photo are all just a touch away.

Menopause or Martial Arts

Even as a child, I loved sleep – snuggling down and drifting away. As an adult, I love sleep even more. It is in much shorter supply, so I enjoy every extra moment, and there is usually fresh coffee when I wake up. In addition, I have always felt better – calmer, happier, more centered – when I wake up, even from a nap. Recently, the mood elevation is not longer true. I have been waking up tired and angry and feeling hopeless.

The anger has been hard to deal with – I am just not an angry person usually. Don’t get me wrong – I have a temper and have never believed that it is better to hold it in and pretend – but my anger has always been of the flash variety. It has always taken a lot to make me angry because I can usually see the humor or feel the other person’s trauma. When I got angry, my temper would flare, and then it would be gone very quickly. In fact, when my daughter was a teenager, she complained. She would do something teenaged, I would be furious, she would gear up for the big sullen rebellion against the angry parent, only to find that I had totally moved on and wanted to have lunch, shop, etc.

Lately, my anger is no longer a flash. It has felt like a continuous low boil that manifests unexpectedly in a flood of heartbroken tears or furious words. I know why I’m angry. I’m angry that the other woman is still attempting to insinuate herself into my life. I’m angry that my husband is NOW working to heal our marriage – things that I asked him to do twenty months ago when it would have prevented twenty months of pain and confusion. Unfortunately, recognizing the problem does not help me handle it. After a couple of weeks of attempting to work through this on my own without success, I decided that, since I am 50, it must be menopause. I searched for menopause symptoms online, and sure enough, mood swings are a part of hormonal change, so suddenly life made more sense.

So, off I went to my doctor earlier this week. He is a lovely man with a very relaxed manner who has managed my daughter’s continual medical disasters with a deft mixture of reassurance and information overload. The more questions we ask the happier he is. I knew he would be delighted to advise me about the changes I could expect, the steps I needed to take to stay healthy, and how I could best manage my feelings. He took a complete history, looked at my most recent lab results, asked a few more questions, and then earnestly recommended martial arts.

 I almost fell out of my chair, and then burst out laughing. As it turns out, he was actually serious. I am not in menopause or even perimenopause. He is aware of the infidelity, since his office performed the STD testing last summer. He went on to explain that I am angry because I am in a difficult situation through no fault of my own – a situation that I cannot fix. Even divorce would not “fix” the way I feel. He recognized clearly the anger I was feeling and the impact it was having on me. He went on to say that he felt strongly that it was necessary for me to find an outlet for my anger instead of burying it.

I was aware that he had divorced his wife last year, and that it had been complicated because she was not only his wife and the mother of his two children, but also his partner in a flourishing medical practice. When the divorce was final, he moved his medical practice to the other side of town, and my family moved with him. It all seemed very civilized. He went on to say, however, that the divorce had been very difficult, and managing his anger would have required massive doses of Lexapro if he had not been doing Taekwondo. He went on to say that he is actually not as good as he was at this time last year because his anger has dissipated.

So, when I left his office he gave me a prescription for a mild antidepressant to get me over the hump in dealing with the anger, and he extracted a promise that I would immediately begin some form of vigorous exercise, preferably a form of martial arts since the combination of discipline and controlled violence would be most beneficial.

Honestly, just the image of me in the belted tunic and pants, attempting to kick over my head made me laugh out loud, so I left his office feeling better than I have in weeks. I am a pudgy 50 year old bookworm whose idea of enjoyable exercise is antique shopping. I followed up the visit with lunch with my best friend, who has known me and my habits for 20 years. When I told her the story, the level of laughter that ensued should have resulted in our removal from the restaurant.

She then went home and told the stress and exercise story to her black belt husband (who also found it hilarious), and was overheard by her 14 year old son, who promptly posted the following message on my Facebook page:

• R G You might not be able to physically kick somebody in the head, but you would learn forms, stretches, punches and blocks. you would also learn some simple techniques to disable an attacker with a very small amount of energy. It would be good exercise, and you would learn how to defend yourself. I think you should do it. 1 person likes this

While I appreciated the advice and his earnest tone, it led to other comments.

• T K .Just picture trying to kick somebody else in the head, it’s very relaxing.
• P B There isn’t an aggressive bone in your body. ha ha!1 person likes this.
• T K it’s awesome. and don’t listen to RG, you can kick somebody in the head if you want to. 😉  No, listen to him or you’ll pull muscles in very unpleasant places!
• T KI can still kick somebody in the head, for what it’s worth.
• R G I think it is a good idea, but it is your decision. 1 person likes this.
• R G I believe after some training you could kick someone in the head. Just make sure you are limbered up, I have made the mistake of not doing that before.
• T K yeah, it’s no fun to pull those muscles
• ME OK, I actually laughed out loud sitting alone in my office…I hope no one heard me 🙂 1 person likes this.
• P H Maybe we can enter you in a UFC fight. I’d pay to see that. 🙂 1 person likes this.
• PB I would drive MILES to see that! 1 person likes this.

OK – how could I hold on to stress when my friends, their children, and former students were so entertained with the idea of me engaged in martial arts? I went home felling calmer than I had in days, turned on the news and almost choked on my iced tea. One of the lead stories concerned the opening of a Twitter account by the Papacy. Yes, the Pope tweets. Not only that, but the news clip showed Benedict XVI holding his IPad and posting a tweet. My world actually shifted for a moment.

My stress level is currently GREATLY reduced – if the mental image of me engaged in martial arts is not enough to induce laughter, the image of the leader of one of the most reactionary organizations in the world, God’s representative on earth, tweeting is enough to do so. Of course, in my head the tweeting pope is Innocent III or Gregory VII.

The Red Pill Or the Blue

I haven’t posted anything for several days because my life and my thoughts have been too chaotic, and then I read the topic of the day on The Daily Post and it seemed to be a perfect starting point:

Topic #169:

If given the choice, are you the kind of person who takes the red pill, or the blue pill? Why?

“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” -Morpheus (from the film The Matrix)

I am definitely someone who would take the red pill, and the last 1 1/2 years have truly seemed like a trip down Alice’s rabbit hole.

Am I at the bottom yet? No.

Do I wish I had just taken the blue pill in October ’09 and gone on my merry way? No.

I would rather be unhappy, even devastated, and live with truth than be happy with a lie or even a more palatable version of truth. I would not have continued to work and to push otherwise.

While I was trying to sort my feelings and put them into words for this entry, I received the comment that follows in response to my advice to the other woman – Get Out While You Can.

• If only this were this simple. Yes, many websites support these ideas –but always consider the source. Sometimes we act like we care because we don’t want to lose what we know – family, friends, etc. We’re good actors and can tolerate our spouses – who THINK we’re close to them. We’re not really close to anyone. The ‘other’ person got close, but the price was too high. That’s how it has to be. I”m just sad that it’s not as simple as you suggest. But find happiness knowing your spouse has made his decision. He won’t be going anywhere. Trust me.

I started to reply and then realized it was too long for a comment. So do you think this is really true? I made a decision to “take the red pill” when the blue would have been so much easier. I am really trying to look at the truth – the real truth, not the palatable version. I know that people have affairs for many reasons – sometimes for love, more often out of a need for validation, excitement, an ego boost, a sympathetic ear, feelings of lust, as a reaction to anger, resentment, or stress, or just because they cannot manage their own lives and feelings and are looking for anything to make them feel better.

I know people also marry for many reasons – hopefully for love, but often for security, a fear of being alone, looking for happiness in another, and sometimes because the relationship just drifts that way. I have several friends who got married because they got pregnant, a friend who got married because it made leasing a house in a new town easier, several friends who got married because their parents would not have approved if they lived together, and the list goes on. I think each of these couples loved one another, but that was not the primary reason they made a commitment.

I also know couples who have stayed together in the face of deep unhappiness, through mental illness, alcoholism, affairs, financial infidelity, and not for love, but “for the children”, or because divorce is a sin, or because they share a business and their financial status would change, or because they won’t let someone else win.

Love is the only reason I married my husband, and the only reason I am still here. Our original decision to be together was a conscious one based on feelings of passion, peace and joy. I think that the decision to stay or not must also be a conscious one – for both of us. We never intended to to be halves of a whole or to know one another better than we know ourselves. Our goal was to be stronger as individuals through the sharing of ourselves with another. I will not accept less – which is why we will come through this stronger and more self aware, whether we are together or not.

The following poem was a part of our wedding vows, and J sent it to me again when he asked me to stay.

Khalil Gibran “On Marriage” from The Prophet

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

I had this relationship for more than 25 years, and somehow we lost our way. I do not wish to accept less now.

How about you? Red pill or blue?

Done?

Would this work? Names changed to protect the guilty.

The recent discovery that the OW has still not let go, that as recently as a week ago  she created a You Tube channel and installed a video of my husband in it, just put me back on the affair hamster wheel. I thought that my life was moving in a more linear direction, but here I am…dealing with it again. Friends worry that I obsess about the OW, but honestly, whenever I feel like I have packed up my feelings about her intrusion into my life and put them away, she intrudes again. We get a little peace, and then there she is again, and her moves are becoming more and more blatant. Maybe we should just take out an ad about the affair here, in the town where they went to high school, and across the metroplex. Would that take care of it once and for all?

I really think that it wouldn’t bother me as much if I didn’t feel like there were still things that I don’t know, that J still has not told me the complete truth about the affair. His time line regarding the affair is still fuzzy and confused, and I am still getting “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember” as answers about what happened and when. His reactions to her repeated intrusions into our life don’t make sense to me. For example, he wanted his archaeology video removed from You Tube, but NOT because she had claimed it as her own and that freaked him out, but because he felt like it was poor quality and did not represent him professionally in an appropriate way. He has no explanation or suggestion for why she would STILL be holding on so tightly that she would go public by confessing to a gossipy mutual friend and connecting herself with him in a forum as public as You Tube – 19 months after the end of the affair. After more than a year and a half of refusing to trust my instincts or listen to my gut over and over and over again until both are just screaming at me, I really cannot avoid facing my conviction that something still lingers unsaid. I think perhaps escalation on her part forces me to listen to my instincts when I have tried to stay in a happy place. Unfortunately, the happy place just doesn’t stay happy very long – something always intrudes and that something is not usually related to me….

I feel like my life is no longer in my control. My peace is in the hands of J’s emotional stability – and there is none. My needs and wants are not a priority, even when he is struggling as hard as he can to consider me. Unfortunately, his needs and his wants and his emotions are always in the forefront. He says that he feels like he just ends up dashing from one problem to another, focusing and trying to get a handle on it and then something else comes up that is more important. My reaction to the video discovery has been such an incident. He says that the affair is no longer an issue – that instead we need to work on what caused the disconnect between us – that led him to treat me with so much disrespect. I agree that it is important to address that topic, but whenever the OW shoves into our life again, I think we have to look at that and the feelings it brings up.

His frustration with his job and his inability to cope with it or to see a way to change his circumstances IS the most important aspect of his life and therefore of ours. He cannot focus on or discuss any other emotional issue without his job bleeding over into it and coloring his feelings and his ability to cope. Nothing I feel or try to express gets through when he is feeling particularly unhappy with work.  I understand how frustrated he feels – I can feel it emanating from him in waves, but I don’t know what to do. I think a part of the reason that I don’t want to listen to J complain about his job – or even more, I don’t want him to be unhappy with his job is because I don’t want to move again. I’m barely hanging on as it is, and I don’t want to move somewhere else and have to start over again without a job or a support network…I’m just too tired. I don’t trust him to make decisions based on what’s best for me or even to consider my needs. I am washed out, emotionally drained, tired of having my hopes dashed, my self confidence shredded.

Bottom line – I don’t want to live with someone I don’t feel safe with – who I can’t trust to think about me and what is best for me when he makes decisions. At the best of times – when the love flows between us and we are sharing enjoyment, entertainment, intellectual pursuits – just sharing – he expresses so much delight at who I am. He then is totally confused and somewhat miffed that I feel devastated, rather than admired and appreciated. The problem is that I am not different in any positive way than I was before the affair – the interests, characteristics, the core me that he now finds so new and interesting is the same me….so how did he forget who I am? Do I want to live with someone who has lived with me for thirty years and had no idea who I am, or had forgotten? I don’t know if I want to live with someone who constantly makes me feel less – less important, less special, less attractive…just less. I don’t want to live with someone who doesn’t tell me the truth – and is willing to let me feel like I am slowly going insane because I know something isn’t right when he insists that it is.

What would my life look like without J? It would be lonelier I know, and my sex life might be dead in the water, but it seems like it would be much more peaceful. No disappointments, no disrespect, no emotional assaults about things that I don’t care about or think are important – especially not when I am falling apart inside and out and don’t know what to do and cannot find any peace or get any help. No more second guessing myself and how I feel. No more wondering if every positive thing in my life is based on a lie. This last fight has really made me ask “Am I done?”

I Am A Reader

No, not “I like to read”, although I do. No, not “Reading (or English, or Literature) was my best subject in school”, although it was. I am a reader – reading is actually a defining characteristic. I really cannot remember not being able to read – I was allowed into the 1st grade at 5 because I was already reading on a 5th grade level, and spent 12 years of school in trouble for trying to read when I should have been doing math or science or recess. I was the only person I knew who ended up grounded from reading – take away the TV, the phone, playing outside, going out with friends, and I was fine. Not allow me to read, and suddenly I paid attention!

Reading is my favorite for of entertainment (tied with loving, passionate sex – but that requires the right partner), it provides comfort when I am sad, bored, stuck at a doctor’s office. It provides the information I need in my life. Difficult child – there’s a book for that. Sudden need to design a web site for work (you want me to do what?!) – articles abound on this topic. Breast cancer diagnosis – read current medical journal articles. Did I spend time exploring cooking, sewing, gardening – only a little because there were too many books begging to be read – too many murders to solve, too many planets to explore, too many castles to visit, too many spies to catch, too many characters to know and love.

Did that mean I didn’t and don’t have a “real life”? No – it means that reading was just woven into the fabric of my life. I survived a chaotic childhood (bipolar father, mother with narcolepsy – that’s a blog in itself) by immersing myself in other places. My high school and college friends loved me, but thought the reading was just another quirky part of my personality – like not being able to find my shoes or losing my keys. Did the 100+ Barbara Cartland books I read mean that I had unreal expectation about true love and romance? No – I have always clearly differentiated between fantasy and real life. I knew my husband was “the one” because he also loved to read – and had read some of the same authors. My daughter and I have shared books since she was born – at first I shared the books appropriate for her age, but by junior high we were exchanging books and sharing tips on new authors. One of the difficulties we faced when she first moved into her own house was splitting our library – who got custody of which books, which authors…. That dilemma was solved with a trip to Half Price Books 🙂 Most of the friends I have made in adulthood are readers with whom I exchange books, and who have introduced me to new authors, new genres, new formats (although I am still not sure that the ebook is for me, and I still prefer my novels wordy rather than graphic).

How did I really know that I was depressed in the fall of ’09? I stopped reading – even old favorites. I wasn’t even tempted to pick one up. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a book with me at all times. Instead I spent all my spare time staring into space, or planting and harvesting fruit and rearranging and decorating my farm on Farmville, or completing sudoku puzzles (to prove my brain still worked!). I still went to work, I still cooked dinner, I still watched TV (although I can now watch programs from that period, and I don’t recognize them at all). The fact that I would rather plant fantasy raspberries than read a new novel by a favorite author finally scared me enough that I scheduled an appointment with a therapist, took her advice and started an antidepressant, and low and behold, I started reading again.

So what did I do when my marriage blew apart a month later? Well, for the first five months I read everything I could find on emotional affairs and reconstructing a faltering marriage because that’s what I thought I was dealing with. With D-Day version # 2, I started reading everything I could about physical affairs, and then physical affairs in long term marriages, which led to the male mid life crisis, which led led to Irritable Male Syndrome, which explained a lot. I read about stress and its impact on marriage. I read about self esteem and living an authentic life (I actually spent 2 weeks wanting to kick Phil McGraw!). I work in an academic library as a research librarian (I’m not a librarian – but that is a separate topic), and read academic articles on effective counseling for marriages struggling with infidelity. I ordered ebooks from online infidelity gurus. I read books from the library, and books from Hastings, and books from Amazon.

One area I avoided. I read nothing that involved anyone else’s experiences – I read online articles, but never the comments. I read counseling blogs, but not the comments. I avoided personal blogs. Why? I told myself other people’s stories weren’t relevant, other people’s pain just made me feel bad without adding to my understanding of MY situation. After D-Day Version # 3, I realized that those were all excuses. The reason I was avoiding was because I AM A READER. I started reading other accounts of infidelity – not just the advice or the counseling issues, but others revealing their discoveries, their pain – and was unable to avoid seeing the parallels to my own situation. When I read, I analyze, I look for the threads that apply to me, I look for the life truth – even in fiction. Seeing the life truth in someone else’s pain was unavoidable.

So, after DDV3 I spent 3 months reading blogs from others in my situation and eventually reached a point where I commented. After DDV4 and DDV5, especially when the OW started reaching out again, I started reading blogs written by other women and eventually by married men who had strayed. All of this info led me to some useful truths that have been addressed in putting my marriage back together, as well as some truths that I wish I knew how to share with other women – both those in my situation and those who are the other woman. Basically, I feel like I have survived all of the crap in my life because I read and analyze and look for truth.

I still have not been reading fiction – in the last year and a half, I have read only 4 new novels – something a used to do in a week. I have, however, given up Farmville and puzzles and Law & Order. Instead, I am writing and reading blogs to help me understand and make peace with the truth of my life. I am reading books on co-dependence, midlife, and attention deficit disorder to become a better me. I am reading library journals and books on library studies to become the best librarian that a historian can be. I do still, however, long to just sink into a day of exploring David Weber’s future world, or the alternate present of Laurel K. Hamilton and Jim Butcher, just for the joy of it.

Reality Check

Sometimes it is easy to forget that my life is much bigger than just dealing with the aftermath of my husband’s affair. Another blogger suggested that we write about our “other life”. She was suggesting that we are all more than cancer survivors and that we flesh out the pictures that we present to one another. I realized that I rarely even think of myself as a cancer survivor – I was barely achieved survivorship when my marriage of 28 years blew apart. At the end of last week, as I was considering the emotional energy that I have put into the survival of my marriage – sometimes to the exclusion of all else – I had a wake up call.

In addition to being a woman in a struggling marriage and a breast cancer survivor, I am the mother of a twenty one year old daughter. In fact, from 1989 until the fall of 2009, I considered “mother of E” as my primary role. Yes, I was a devoted wife. Yes, I was a high school teacher who really loved teaching. Yes, I had great friends and an extended family and hobbies and health issues and pets and many other facets to my life. The largest proportion of my life, energy, and emotional wherewithal, however, went to my daughter. She is bright, loving, and has been successful at anything she has really wanted to do. She read early, well, and continues to love it.  In middle school, she adjusted to three schools in three years and survived. In high school, she took A.P. classes, participated in theater and academic competitions, won medals and scholarships, had her heart broken, and graduated at seventeen with honors and 18 college credits. She graduated three weeks ago from college at 21 with two majors, a minor, and a solid academic record.

On the surface, it seems like a very smooth situation. These facts do not, however, really show her struggles. She has had chronic health problems since she was a preschooler – if there is a bug to catch, she catches it and then has a lot of difficulty throwing it off.  Her reactions to medications are completely unpredictable – drugs that knock others out make her wired. She has had hives, tachycardia, and hysterics all as reactions to medication. In 2009, she had the flu three times, complicated by bronchitis, and by Christmas had developed chronic asthma. She has hemiplagic migraines and spent a month in the middle of a spring semester with a neurological deficit on her left side, adjusting to various medicines intended to keep it from happening again, but which actually made her throw up, pass out, or something equally unpleasant. She is attention deficit and struggles constantly with organization, focus, and completion issues. She cannot, however, take medication for this condition because she does not sleep. She was diagnosed with depression when she was sixteen, which is generally well controlled with medication but can show up when she is under stress as panic or anxiety attacks. She also spent one memorable spring semester (not the migraine one) sitting on her couch staring at the television, and only leaving the house if someone actually went and made her get in the car to go to class, or to dinner, or anything else. This problem actually was fixed with a medication adjustment, just in time for her to tackle 21 hours so that she could graduate on time. We breathed a sigh of relief when she walked across that stage three weeks ago.

She is loving and giving and loyal and in most ways mature ahead of her years. I never had those concerns during her teen years that many parents have to deal with – she was careful about her personal safety and pragmatic about sex, drugs, and alcohol – unlike many of her classmates. She was and is, however, emotionally high maintenance – not self soothing, not analytical about her own emotions, not always able to see the long term effect of those little choices we all make. Until the fall of 2009, I was her mom, her friend, her cheerleader, and her reality check. I always encouraged her and supported her efforts to take that next step – into the dorm, to study abroad, into a house with a roommate. I was always there in the background to provide a safety net. And then, after a really rough summer and fall that resulted in my own bout of depression, I discovered that my husband had had a short affair….and I suddenly had less emotional energy to give. On most days, I was able to pull it together and almost meet the emotional needs of those I love, but there have definitely been days when I have barely been able to pull myself together enough to walk and talk and act like a semi-normal human. So – during one of the most exciting and difficult periods of her life, I have been going through the motions – and she has felt it.

And then, two weeks ago today, she had a tonsillectomy. It was planned. It is the most commonly performed surgery in the nation- go in the morning, get out in the afternoon, a day or two at our house with ice cream, and then on with the rest of her summer – big canoe trip, capstone project presentation, camp counselor, and then the big move to live with her boyfriend in the “metroplex.” My first inkling that this might not be as easy as I thought was my conversation with her doctor before she came into the recovery room – he told me that  “although the tonsils were deeply embedded, the surgery went fine” (????). He went on to talk about closely observing her for 3-4 days and the 12 -14 days she would be out of school and off work with a greatly reduced activity level (????). Finally, he went on to talk about the level of pain she would be in and the necessity that she take her pain medicine – and then handed me a prescription for Demerol. Demerol!!! Things were a little rough for the first 2 1/2 days, and then she was fine. The pain was manageable, she stopped the pain medicine, went back to her own house, and started resuming her life – although SLOWLY!. Everything was going better than expected – and then she woke up spitting up blood on Friday – ten days after the original surgery – and her ENT was 7 hours away at his aunt’s 100th birthday celebration.

So – off to meet her and her roommate at the ER, an examination by a substitute ENT called in by her doctor, followed by chemical cauterization, and her release to return home and sleep, while we went to work, all slightly shaken but glad it was over. Her boyfriend arrived for the scheduled canoe trip (canceled of course) in the early afternoon, and my husband and I went thankfully and exhaustedly home. I went to bed at 6:30. Yes – to bed at 6:30 on a Friday night. At 8:30, J woke me up. E had called, the bleeding had started again and was much worse, and her doctor had made arrangements for her to see a specialist at the ER in a slightly larger town 30 miles away. We arranged to meet them there, and I threw on clothes and splashed water on my face, and off we went. When we arrived, the nursing staff was attempting to prep her for surgery, and she was refusing to cooperate until she had seen a doctor. When he arrived, he explained that the bleeding she had is called a sentinel bleed, and is a precursor to a hemorrhage if the site is not repaired. OK, no choice – surgery again for electrocautery. She came through it well, although her red blood count was low, and was released to go home sometime after one o’clock. She returned to her own house, boyfriend in tow, and the remainder of the night was peaceful, Saturday was low key, but pleasant, and she called Sunday morning and was great – no real pain, still on a liquid diet, and she had made arrangements for her roommate to substitute for her at camp for the first part of the next week.

Her roommate called early afternoon, the bleeding had started again and was much worse – what should they do? Go to the ER!!! We met them there, to find an ER staff that did NOT have itself together – she was sitting cross legged on a hospital bed dripping bright red blood into an orange juice bottle…no one with her but the panicked roommate. The next hour and a half had the characteristics of a nightmare. It took over an hour for the on call physician to call the ER back – the ER doctor and nurses did not know what to do, they were not willing to try and stop the bleeding in case any action caused an arterial bleed, so there she was – bleeding into a sterile bag and gargling ice water. The surgeon finally called back and had them start an IV, and her gargle with hydrogen peroxide. Then blood started gushing out of her mouth and nose – she was vomiting blood that had been collecting in her stomach. When he arrived, he examined her and had her prepped for surgery.

Four stitches and electrocautery of both sides of her throat later, she was back in recovery, on the borderline of needing a transfusion, and required to remain in the hospital over night. As might be expected, the pain medicine made her wide awake and jittery, and by 5:00 a.m. she was hysterical. With the help of a small dose of Xanax, she got a couple hours of sleep, which I used to shower and pull myself together, and then her doctor came in on rounds. He was very concerned about E and extremely apologetic for being out of town, which I found quite amazing. He was the one who had made all of the arrangements, including both surgeries, and had called both doctors who had seen her. He was also in constant contact with the nursing staff during all three emergencies – and was actually the one who had prescribed the Xanax for her the night before – from his car, while he was driving in from his celebration. I had no complaints. He was quite serious with us, however, and said that the surgeon had repaired every bleed he could find, but had not located one that would have caused the volume of blood loss that she had experienced, so she needs to be carefully monitored and any bleeding will require an immediate return to the ER. She had lost enough blood (5 oz pumped from her stomach alone) that if she loses any more she will have to have a transfusion.

Meanwhile, the last couple of weeks have been difficult ones in my marriage – it feels like we take a few steps forward and then a lot more steps back. We were in the middle of a huge argument when E’s roommate called Sunday afternoon. We have had some really joyous occasions, including E’s graduation and visits from family and friends, but I have been on autopilot and not really feeling the joy. That stops now. I almost lost my daughter to a kid’s procedure – a tonsillectomy. I intend to live every moment fully, and enjoy the moments with the people I love. The reality is – there are many worse things in the world than a husband who had a fling.

On a lighter note, the first words out of my daughter’s mouth when she came out of the 3rd set of anesthesia were “Mom, I’m so sorry – I got a tattoo on my hip two years ago – I’m really sorry! I don’t like it, and I won’t ever get another one.” She almost died, and her only worry was that I would find out about her tattoo….

We Should Have Stayed Away From Austin

So – a year and a half ago, my husband had a mid-life crisis brought on by so many factors that I am surprised he didn’t have a stress induced stroke instead. He chose to have an affair, and while I do not view his affair as a positive event, I prefer it to a stroke.

As I have made my writings from the last 1 1/2 years public, I have spent some time re-reading things I have not looked at in a year. At times I have been overwhelmed with disbelief that we are still “in recovery” and still dealing with the same things AGAIN. At others, I am amazed at how much we have accomplished and how beautiful the future we are constructing looks. M has expressed over and over since the disaster occurred that he felt isolated and distant from me, and we have looked at actions on both of our parts that contributed to our distance. It has always seemed so weird to me that I didn’t notice, that I didn’t feel it, that I didn’t make some effort to get us back on track. I realize that I was stressed and depressed, but the most important part of my life has always been my relationship with M – why didn’t I make an effort to pull us back together?

Until just now, rereading some of what I wrote that fall, and summer, and spring, I had not realized that I had given up hope on us. I didn’t recognize it or acknowledge it – if anyone had asked me yesterday or last year or in November 2009, I would have insisted that I was perfectly happily married when the disaster happened. When I look at snippets from that time, I realize it isn’t true and the common thread that runs through the narrative – the epiphany that came today – is that we should have stayed away from Austin.

It sounds like the title of a Willie Nelson song, but it’s actually just a fact. Throughout 2009, we kept going to Austin to spend time together and reconnect romantically – we actually talked about it in advance clearly in just that way – and every time was an unmitigated disaster. We went to Austin for our honeymoon, it is one of my favorite cities and I know it really well,  and I have introduced friends and workmates to an Austin they didn’t know existed…what exactly was wrong in 2009?

First, in April ’09, he was going to a friend’s wedding and he talked me in to going too – even though I wasn’t going to the wedding. We arrived, checked into our hotel, and I dropped him off at the wedding at 6:00. I sort of milled around downtown, went to Whole Foods and got some chocolate covered strawberries and other food for a romantic picnic, and then browsed at Book People for a while waiting for him to call, since he thought the wedding ceremony would be over around 7:00. I finally went back to the hotel around 8:00 because he hadn’t called. By 9:00 my feelings were hurt, and I ate without him. By 10:00 I was seriously angry, called and finally got a hold of him….it turned out that he only stayed for the ceremony and then decided to go out to dinner with friends. Not even friends from the wedding who I did not know, but I was so angry, but forced myself to calm down, went and picked him up and we just came home the next day. No romantic reconnection for us. I let it go and rationalized away my hurt feelings since I know how chaotic interaction with these friends can be, but I think it really chipped away at my self confidence. After all, why had he called friends instead of me?

The next visit was never intended to be romantic, but it was supposed to be an opportunity for us to relax and reconnect as a whole family. This time I was the one with a reason to be in Austin – a week long meeting at the end of July to work on curriculum. We had arranged for M and C to join me on Friday, and the weekend should have been a bright spot in a fairly sucky summer. Unfortunately, even though they joined me on my trip, I still ended up at the bottom of the priority list and was basically abandoned at the hotel – again. After lunch, we were supposed to do a little shopping, go to dinner, and then to the movies. I finished my meeting, and they were nowhere to be found. As 1 became 2 and 2 became 3, I finally called.  and they were eating a very late lunch with friends – the same friends from the last fiasco. So, I was abandoned in a hotel in Austin again, only this time with no car. I spent the rest of the afternoon planting fruit on Farmville. We barely made it to the movie on time, and I ended up eating left over chicken salad with a spork in the car on the way to the movies. I was so NOT a happy camper! I let it go again, since there seemed to be no point in  throwing a fit and ruining the rest of the weekend. It just seemed so weird.

Believe it or not, we tried it again. I had another meeting in Austin in the middle of September, and M decided to go with me so that we could spend time together. It was a debacle – AGAIN – and only made the situation worse. He planned to kayak while I was working, and then pick me up for a romantic dinner at 5:00. My meeting ran late, and I called, left voice mail, and sent several texts to let him know. When I finished, he was not waiting and had made no attempt to contact me. He had spent the day with the same friend and was tired and wet, and most importantly, he was still in south Austin.He suggested that I just walk back to the hotel and order room service. I didn’t actually have much choice since I was starving and in the middle of downtown Austin without a car, so I walked back to the hotel in heels and a skirt, changed into PJs, and ordered room service – so much for romance.

After this disaster, our relationship stopped drifting and went straight down hill. M was not often home, and when he was, he was incredibly moody and unpredictable – occasionally loving, mostly stressed, emotional, and sometimes actively hostile. I spent a lot of time at home playing Farmville on Facebook and working puzzles. We were still communicating about home, work, and C, still following normal routines when he was home, but there was no real affection exchanged, and his actions showed frustration and dissatisfaction, although reasons were not clearly expressed. I chalked this up to work stress and tried to ignore it. He did occasionally make a sexual overture, but put no effort or affection into it, and in fact was more than a little hostile about the whole subject. I told him more that once that I didn’t want to have sex with an angry person, but this only provoked more hostility. While he still kissed me hello and goodbye, he wasn’t interested in hugs or longer kisses, or any other type of affection that didn’t lead to sex.

After re-reading my writings from the past, my own feelings and the time line of their change shows up clearly in a way that I really had not realized before. Every incident caused me to feel less valued, less loved, and therefore less interested in being loving. By the middle of October, it wasn’t so much that I was not pursuing opportunities to have sex, I was changing long established habits in an attempt to avoid situations where it might be an issue. I stopped showering with him. I started staying up until I knew he was asleep. I started sleeping in until after he left in the morning. I stopped making any effort to make sure I was home when he was, and I made a tremendous effort to make sure he only saw me fully clothed. I stopped listening to his work frustration. I was disengaging from him for the first time in 30 years.

And yet – we were going to try again. I had another four day curriculum meeting in the middle of October, and he had a one day meeting farther south, and he persuaded me that we should go together. That he would go early and stay with me, drive down for his meeting, and then come back so that we could spend the weekend together in Austin relaxing and having fun. We put a lot of work into finding a nice hotel and making plans. And then I couldn’t go……