Got off the pot
2007-10-19, 3:48 p.m.

Day 1153

The session in general didn�t turn into a �he said, she said� fest. It even stayed away from a finger pointing fiasco. Didn�t bring up Wednesday nights trivial exchange over the missed dinner. It went about as good as it could have I guess. Which, considering how poorly it could have gone, is a really good thing.

I have committed to stop seeing Ms. CL. That is going to hurt mightily. But Cindy & I have voiced our desires to work on reconciling things and we have a witness. As part of our both deciding we want to work on things, we had to agree to throw ourselves 100% into it. Cindy has also agreed to see a separate therapist to work on her own issues. Annette (my own personal shrink) felt two things � Cindy definitely could benefit from some 1 on 1 sessions and that it would be a conflict of interest for her (Annette) to see me privately, Cindy privately, and do the couples therapy all at once.

There are a bunch of things Annette has suggested for us to think about as we continue to try and open up communications again. Anyone that�s been the therapy route probably knows what those suggestions are. Those that haven�t been through therapy either already do them without conscious effort, or you need to try them with lots of conscious effort.

We have a homework assignment too. Due next week. We each have to list 5 things we like about the other and 5 things we dislike. This is going to be harder than I thought at first. The more I think about it, the more it scares me. I�ll have to start it soon. Hmmm . . . .

Hey � at least there�s bowling tonight!! Last week we started in 5th, at eth top of a heap that could find us in 15th if we had one very bad week. Instead, we had a very good week and took all the points from the other team. This will certainly leave us no worse than 5th, and could have moved us up a spot or two. Still too early in the season to sweat it much. What�s more important at this point is getting my own individual game back in shape. Made some subtle changes last week, moved even farther outside, and got better results. Need to tweak those a bit more, get more consistent and keep my speed down.

5 things I like, 5 things I dislike. Couldn�t we start with 3 of each? Geeze. Honestly? The dislikes are going to be easier.

Saw these new shopping bags in a news blurb. I�d be kind of excited about them except for the $15 price tag for ONE!! Why can�t being ecologically friendly extend to being economically friendly too?

Our local grocery mega store, Wegmans markets their own re-useable bags right at their checkout registers. I own like 8 of them (cost a whopping buck a piece � see what I mean about economically friendly?) Downside? They live in my van or in the garage and never make it back into the store. I can�t wrap my head around remembering to take them with me. Yeah, yeah, 30 days to establish a habit � unless it contains nicotine. I just gotta stick with it till I get it right.

Bowling last night was pretty cool. Brothers both had to cancel for various reasons. Hauled Zach in to sub for at least one of them. We didn�t do too badly either. Took 6 of 8 points. Zach hung right around his average, I beat mine by almost 50 pins for the night. Did NOT think to take videos last night either. Would have been a good night too � in two of the 3 games the strikes were coming fast & furious. There was some definite pin powdering going on too. Someone will have to remind me about doing the videos next week.

Sadistic Bastard was a little easy on us this morning. There were a couple of new folks in the class, maybe he was going easy for them. In reality though, it�s all in how much resistance you decide to dial up on your flywheel. No one knows how hard you�re really pedaling, so whether the instructor seems easy or not makes no difference. Hmmm. So maybe Gary isn�t such a sadistic bastard after all. Maybe I�m just a masochistic bastard instead. I�m sure Gary would appreciate that news.

This reconciling is going to be a challenge. Cindy�s attitude is better, but she�s putting a lot of effort into it. She may be in �fake it till you make it� mode. It was clear from the session we had yesterday that she has a lot of internal anger. The good news is that a surprisingly large portion of it is NOT aimed at me. To learn to deal with that, she�s signed on with a separate therapist and already has an appointment to see her. It�s 2 weeks off still, but we have a couples appointment next week too. The ball is rolling, we�ll see where it stops.

Other good news? Cindy is beginning to grasp the concept of letting go of old, painful resentments. That�s pretty cool in itself. We�ve swapped some emails today where we each vented (politely) about some recent event and agreed to let it go. In theory, this is a lovely concept. We�ll see how well it works. For the record, for Cindy it was getting pissed at me for telling her brother �she�s been doing better about her drinking the last two months�

For the life of me, I can�t understand why she�d be upset about my telling her brother she hasn�t been a raging drunk the last two months. (I didn�t say it like that. I was much nicer, and it waas in context with a question he asked me. So there.) It�s not like he didn�t know she had a drinking problem. Besides, when I told him he was genuinely happy to hear she was doing better. I told her that too. Maybe it�ll help.

I need to learn to let go a little better myself � and I must, absolutely must, lay down my boundaries and even some expectations. One boundary? I�ll give her some time to be pissed about my affair. At some point though, she�s going to have to accept her own complicity in it. To that end, I will not tolerate her wielding it like a weapon, using it in some passive aggressive way. To further that end, she�s going to have to do some serious work on WHY I was out looking in the first place. I�m getting older, but I�m not dead. Yet. I may have mentioned this before, but I really do believe a lot of women are in denial about why husbands cheat. Some guys are simply horndogs that have this burning need to free Willy, it�s true. I believe a lot of the others (my demographic ferinstance) are just looking for what they�re not getting at home. They�re looking in desperation. Seems like such an easy thing to fix � but maybe that�s just me. I really want to see how this one is recieved.

I leaked concerns about 2 issues during our email fest today. She insists we talk about them over dinner tonight (fish fry at Pineapple Jacks � sorry � no Web page). Don�t know how appropriate that is, but we�ll give it a whirl. Hopefully the restaurant is either really dead because it�s so early or jam packed because it�s Friday Happy Hour. Either way, I hope we can do this without titillating too many blue haired ladies. (Heee � titillating ladies. I am SO 12 years old!)

Gotta go to R@dio Sh@ck shopping for prototype parts. At least it gets me out of work early today. Big whoop!!

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