The calm after the storm

Ohh I drank a LOT last night. I was so very ANGRY with my husband for everything because I realised that so many of my body issues and the way that I feel NOW go back years and years … and I blame him. He has said some really cruel things to me without meaning to or intending to hurt me at the time, and I have come to realise that some of those things have caused my deep seated anxieties, the issues around my weight and my whole self confidence problem.

** Is that a control thing? It’s easier to blame someone else for my eating disorder than myself?

The funny thing is … I had such a blindingly good day today considering the night I had and the GUILT that I felt over eating that bit of pizza last night. Ohh and I justified that to myself today by only having a sandwich, so I HAVE eaten, but I’ve also compensated for a pizza yesterday. 

Funny, I don’t ever count my alcohol calories … it’s like they are the only necessary food group that I have!

I wore my “comfortable knickers” today. One of the only pairs of underwear I have that still fit me!! (I SO need to go SHOPPING!) from M&S (UK chain store) and they are the black seamless stretchy lycra kind. Not exactly “sexy” but not entirely “unsexy” either, but they ARE the most comfy knickers in the world … Just had to mention that as it’s kinda relevant to what happened later …

I saw AP (my affair partner) today. I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks since my husband found out that I was still friends with him. Incase you haven’t read my back posts or don’t know the story, I had an affair that started around September 2006 … it lasted around 4-5 months and eventually ended up as a pleutonic friendship when the sexual side dropped off. I haven’t had sex with AP since the affair ended at the start of 2007 although we’ve stayed friends and always been a bit flirty since then. AP always did boost my self confidence – it’s why I fell into an affair with him in the first place. 

There never was anything “romantic” with AP and I never did have any illusions about a life with him if I ever did leave my husband. We were two people who met – who had a need for each other in our respective lives at that time. I wasn’t the only one dealing with self esteem issues either – AP went through a lot of shit with his ex girlfriend… but at the end of the day we always did talk about how there never really was a future for us – it’s why it developed into a friends thing.

The sexual side ended between us because ultimately he wants to settle down and be part of a family … and I was a married woman who represented the things he could never have. But … we’ve always carried on our friendship and a kind of flirting – we’ve always been attracted to each other and I’ve always let him. I guess it’s the self confidence thing… but damnit I always did find him so f***ing attractive!

Anyway, AP didn’t DIDN’T comment on my weight today or hassle me about how much I had eaten. He just asked me if I was okay, then asked me if I was sure … and then he kissed me.

AP’s kisses are something else. They draw me out of whatever world I may be daydreaming into and no matter how much I battle against the thoughts inside me telling me not to kiss him back … I can’t help it. If you have ever been kissed the way you WANT to be kissed, then you know what I am talking about.

Soft at first … gentle and ohh so tender, but with a passion you know is just waiting to get started. Slowly it builds and you both feel it as the desire rises and you feel those fantastic warm glowy feelings that start at your tingly toes and work all the way up and then float right out of the top of your head.

Yeah … it felt good, and for the FIRST time in weeks I actually had a smile on my face!

Nothing happened … well other than a whole lot of kissing … AP has his own “body issues” that he deals with … he has a lump on his groin area – nothing to worry about and nothing infectious – purely a cyst … but he feels uncomfortable and doesn’t want it “seen” or be sexual until he has had a chance to get to the doctor about removing it. .

If anyone understands body issues and not feeling sexual because of the way you look … then I do!

The funny thing is … and this goes back to my comfy knickers that I mentioned earlier … it has been a pure co-incidence that whenever I have worn this particular pair … AP and I have ended up being flirty with each other and I’d mentioned that to him before. He spotted what I was wearing and laughed, telling me I was even wearing my “I’m gonna get horny” underwear! The mad thing is – these are such comfy NON sexual knickers! LOL

I have felt as sexual as a slug until so recently (err today!) Even when my husband and I had drunken sex the other night … I didn’t really feel sexual – that was more of a simple biological urge!! AP just wakes up things inside of me that have been buried for so long – and he makes me feel GOOD.

AP said to me today that the sparkle was back in my eyes again and that it was nice to see. Hell, It was nice to feel.

I miss it …

Intimacy I mean and conversation.

That’s what I miss … someone to tell everything to and hold me when I am feeling low. It’s not even a sexual thing, it’s just about being close to another human being and I miss it.

I talked to BF today (my good girlfriend) but our conversation was so brief and we didn’t really get a chance to even touch the surface on what we’ve both been through recently. She broke up with her long term boyfriend recently too and I have been so utterly pre-occupied over the last two weeks that I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it. I am a crappy friend.

She noticed my weight loss – it was the first time in a while I hadn’t worn overalls to work (what I do is messy – it’s easier) so the baggy overalls had hidden my changing shape. It felt good that someone had noticed.

*sigh* I am in a weird place right now and I’m not entirely sure how I feel. My husband keeps mentioning things like “when you move out I’ll be doing x,y and z to the house” and things along those lines and I do very much feel like a stranger in my own home. I think mentally I’ve moved out … or at least I am starting to. I bought boxes home today to start boxing up things like books, my craft stuff and summer clothes that I definitely won’t need before I move! I didn’t get around to actually boxing anything up, but it was cathartic to bring the big boxes home.

My husband and I are definitely avoiding eachother. He leaves the house at 8am in the morning and it’s kind of arranged that he sorts the kids out first thing when he gets up, and then I take over from 7.45am, so I see him for 15 minutes in the morning. I see him then for maybe half an hour when he gets in from work … and perhaps 2-3 minutes before I go to bed. Conversation is strictly limited to things about the children and what plans either of us have for the next couple of days so that we can conveniently avoid each other further!

I am feeling alone, insecure and confused… I realise that … and because of that I am clinging to the memory of what once was – but it is also what can never be again. I tried so hard with my marriage and at the end of the day I do harbour so many feelings of resentment towards my husband. I blame him for not listening to me. I blame him for ignoring me and using porn and I blame him for the reason why I looked elsewhere.

I blame him for so much, and although there is so much about our marriage that I miss, I know I will never get over that despite the fact that *I* had an affair and ultimately I was the one that broke our marriage vows. We didn’t stand there and say “I promise never to wank to porn” … we said “foresaking all others.”

Shameful isn’t it and trust me I feel shitty for feeling that way. The truth is, if it had been the other way around and my husband had done the things I had done, I would have kicked his ass to the curb a long time ago. I am full of guilt about it too. As a parent you try to teach integrity, honesty and truth, and all the while in the back of your mind is “you had an affair and you told LIES.“ 

I have a lot of soul searching to do before I can get over that one. I KNOW that my marriage is over and that even if we were to try again at this point … then it never could work with even the best therapy in the world. There is just too much water under the bridge and we have both already started to move on.

I can’t ever imagine being intimate with anybody else ever again … in a romantic sense I mean. It’s just not a place that I am in mentally or emotionally and I just need to be by myself for a long – LONG time. The thought of letting somebody close enough to really get to know me – when I don’t truly know myself … *big sigh*

On the upside, I did feel better for going into work for a bit earlier. I didn’t actually achieve much, but I did enough to make myself feel good about accomplishing something for the day.

I ate “properly” today too and I feel okay about it. I weighed myself at night (big mistake) and the scales showed a gain of 3lbs but I know that was only because I was weighing in the evening and I’d *just* had something to eat plus I’d drunk a pile of water and coffee during the day so I KNOW that is the only reason the scales said that.

I had a cucumber sandwich around 2pm and then I ate a filo pastry mushroom thing this evening. It’s the most I have eaten in days. It’s just easier to eat something small in front of someone than avoid talking about why I haven’t eaten.

Where it started …

I know exactly when it started… although it took many years to really surface.

On our first wedding anniversary we went out for a meal and I was talking about my post baby body and how I felt I needed to tone up and lose some weight. Now … you’d kinda HOPE that on your first anniversary that your husband would say something like “I think you look terrific already, but if you feel you want to lose weight then I’ll support you” … or words to that effect. My husband said …

“Well you are a bit fat aren’t you!”

Needless to say I mustered what little self dignity I had left, downed my glass of wine and walked out of there until I was out of eyeshot of the restaurant and then I started running. That was almost 10 years ago now. Maybe I should have carried on running back then …

Before I met my husband I never ever remember having ANY issues with my body or my size or anything. I am not directly blaming him, but I have no doubt that was my first toe in the water down the body issue route.

I wish I had enough fingers to count the number of times during our 11 year marriage that I found porn on his computer. Sometimes I just pretended I hadn’t seen it and convinced myself that things were okay… and sometimes I threw it in his face … more often than not with something physical like a plate or a cup and we’d have a huge row and he’d promise never to do it again…

I woke up not long after my 30th birthday and realised how desperately unhappy I was and the first place I looked was to my husband and my marriage. I DID try. I can hold my head up high knowing that I did try. I bought new sexy lingerie, tried spicing things up a bit … but after being rejected more than just a handful of times when *I* made the first move … I kinda gave up. My husband never seemed that bothered – dismissing things as being fine. I even remember one time after sex where I tried to get him to talk about what I could do to make things better … and I remember he described me as “laying there like a wet fish” – well, when you’ve given up – sex becomes prefunctory doesn’t it. What was the point?!

Even then I tried harder. I truly did. The problem was … my husband and I never seemed to “try” at the same time and our marriage really started to break down. I’d already lost a few pounds, but this was when I started seriously trying to lose weight. I lost another 10lbs but was still ever so slightly in the “overweight” zone. It affected me deeply and I reached a plateau where I just didn’t seem able to lose any more weight. I exercised and ate sensibly … and stayed exactly the same. It was also around this time when I had an affair that lasted 4 months. My husband found out about it after it was over, and we were supposedly “working on it” but I guess neither of us actually were.

Okay bringing this forward now …. it was just over a couple of months ago … I remember the date … July 28th when it occurred to me that I hadn’t really had an appetite for a few days and I just made a note of it in my diary. I was weighing myself daily and realised that without starving myself, without being hungry and without even trying … I was losing weight. I have so far lost 35lbs in total (the last 20lbs in 9 weeks) and it has been literally falling off.

It’s a slippery slope … I can feel myself slipping down and I don’t want to stop because although I still have lots of weight to lose … I am looking better than I have looked in a long time.