My goal was to try and get back into the swing of things this past weekend but honestly I was just having too much fun. Amos was home and my need for adult human contact was reaching an all time high, I jumped on it. We didn't do anything wild and crazy (still healing from surgery, remember?) but it was so good to just be with him. We were swimming in baby puke and toddler diarrhea but I was happy. After the kiddos went to bed on Sunday, Amos and I popped in Super Mario Brothers 3. Yes that's right. On old school Nintendo. There was alot of teasing and laughing and smiles. It was good stuff.
Until about 4 AM.
About 4 AM is when I started to get the bug. My sweet babies decided to share their virus with both myself and Amos. Those little monsters are lucky they're so cute.
Should we talk about the thing you are really wondering about? Shall we talk about sex? About porn? About masturbation? About romance?
Let's do that. There has been no sex. Abdominal surgery has seen to that. I worry about masturbation. He says there's been none. I ask him and he assures me he's clean. Honestly, I don't believe him. I want to. I try to. I don't. Trust hasn't been reestablished. Maybe he hasn't. I hope he hasn't. Mostly, I hope he isn't lieing.
The program I use monitor our computer is called x3watch . It's the program that caught the porn sites in August. Amos is aware of the program. Last week I found the x3watch program pulled up. I asked Amos about it. He said he didn't do it. I found it open and I KNOW I didn't do it. There's no one else in the house. That means Amos did it. I closed the program and moved on.
I would like to interject here that when you're in a situation like mine, when you are trying desperately to reestablish trust, your mind does some interesting things. You start to wonder... did I pull the program up and forget about it? Did I click on it accidentally and didn't realize it? Does it have some weird automatic setting that causes it to pop up automatically? My brain wants to rationalize it. If this isn't proof that I want to trust him I don't know what it. I'm basically begging to be able to call myself an idiot in order clear his name. Weird huh?
Back to the story. Amos has listed himself as an accountability partner on the x3watch program. This means that he, along with myself, will receive the accountability reports via email. I am 100% okay with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with him receiving a copy of the same email I have. But now I have the x3watch program screen pulled up for no apparent reason? And apparently no one did it? What's a girl to conclude other than he's tampering with it? I think he sees it as a challenge. He's an IT guy after all. Computers are his forte. Years ago, I put Net Nanny on our computer. It took him about two days to learn how to disable and get around it without my knowledge or notification. Recently (a month or two ago) during a conversation Amos and I were having about our current accountability program, he confessed this to me. In this confession, he told me not to rely on x3watch. He told me he could get around it if he wanted to. It was a rare moment of raw unprompted honesty. And I wonder now, is this what is happening?
All in all, we've had no arguments. Only this cloud of doubt hanging around tainting things. We received "The Love Dare" book for Christmas and we will be participating in that when things calm down. Our next counseling appointment is the 17th. Monday. Honestly, I'm not excited about it. I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. I feel like we're spending 90 bucks for the ability to feed her 50 minutes worth of back story. There has been no "Let's try doing this when you get home..." Nothing that we can work on at home all. Obviously some changes need to be made but nothing has been pointed out as an area we can work on. I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping that up without some forward momentum.
I must say this though.... Amos has picked up a tremendous amount of slack since my surgery. I've been useless and he's working hard to keep me comfortable. I couldn't ask for anything more from him, and I'd be willing to bet that there aren't alot of men out there who would do so much for their ladies. For that, I'm humbled and thankful.
Let's talk about weight. I weigh 217 lbs. Big girl eh? It's not so bad when you take into consideration that in September I weighed 286 lbs (right after I had my son) and in November (when I really decided to push to lose the weight) I weighed 250. This means that in less than four months I've lost 69 lbs. It's hard to feel bad about that. But I still do. I get excited when I look in the mirror. I see that my face is smaller. Then I'll run an tell Amos all about my smaller face. When I look at my hands, they're smaller too. And my belly, and legs, and arms... But... when I look at myself all put together... I still look the same to me. I still see every stretch mark, every roll, every dimple. I can see the loss when I only look at one individual piece, but the whole picture still depresses me. I'm not stopping. I still have a long way to go, and I'll do it. I'll do it.
Weight- Everyone does this. No matter their size. Women over 1,000 lbs, my husband at 160, even the ones who are (literally) model perfect. You've worked hard, made tremendous progress, and it would be a shame for you to take that away from yourself.
ReplyDeleteSex- If my husband had pulled that little "I can get around it" comment, I would have flipped out rather than seen it as honesty. He straight up just told you that despite you trying to establish healthy, safe boundaries, he doesn't give a flip and won't respect your efforts with his own restraint. That's how I would see it anyway. And yay!!! Love Dare!!!
I hope it helps you two as much as it helped us!!
congrats on the weight loss..you are doing amazing! I just started south beach and hope to drop weight as quickly as you have..
ReplyDeleteHowever, if Amos stated he can get around the 'setup' i, unfortunately, would not be as trusting. it seems as though he is back to his old ways with the pop up showing it has been activated and also that you have been out of commission due to surgery.
Hopefully things work out, but you can only try so much. You deserve much better my dear. Any man can treat you good, but a good man will not cheat on you.
Congrats on losing all that weight, that's hard work and you should be proud. If it's too hard to see the whole picture, just focus on those individual parts. You're an inspiration- I have about 60lbs of baby weight to get off..
ReplyDeletePraying for you and your man.
Peach-
ReplyDeleteI keep telling myself that same thing. That I need to give myself credit. Hopefully one day that'll kick in. Blah!
As far as the sex comment.... Maybe I portrayed it incorrectly but he wasn't saying " I plan on busting around that" he was saying that he needs help. It was a confession, not a dare. He was telling me that he doesn't posess the self restraint to break his addiction alone and that it will take more than an accountability program. He was telling me not to trust it, not in order to hurt me, but in order to force me to dig deeper and keep him accountable. He wasn't being ugly. If I flip out on him for coming to me with such raw honesty, what would be his incentive to be honest with me?
Anon- I've heard of the South Beach diet but I don't know much about it. I hope it works for you! The best piece of advice I can give you is to make it a lifestyle change and to diet THROUGH the obstacles (like christmas, parties, birthdays...) instead of AROUND them. (That last tidbit is from Amos and it made all the difference with me). Good luck!!
With the pop-up... What choice do I have? I'm not ready to end my marriage over a pop-up that he INSISTS he didn't bother. And the x3watch reports have been clean and they havent stated that the program was ever turned off (and they should if he actually turned it off). What if I was wrong? I do have to give him credit for what he IS doing which is to go to counseling appointments at my whim, to not touch the computer in the morning (which I CAN confirm), and to basically let me beat up on him when I'm struggling. And he does. You're absolutly right in that it is suspicious though. All I can do it is have faith that my husband WANTS to change and that he is putting forth the effort and be dilligent. Anything less would be setting him up for failure.
Shannon -- Good luck with your weight loss... Those babies just don't realize what we do for them. 60lbs is sooo doable! You can definatly do it! Thanks for your prayers, that's what we really need!
Oh, I see. I read that comment wrong then. If his tone was more of an "I need your help" vs "I can beat that sucker" then I wouldn't have chewed him out either.
ReplyDelete