To have and to hold

I've just been over at Proper Prophet
who seems to have come up with seven reasons not to clear out your wardrobe, which gave me an idea for a new post. My Jaeger suit. It fits all of her seven reasons...

It was very expensive, it has sentimental value, my mother gave it to me (for my 21st birthday), I'm sure I'll fit it again one day..

And some of my own

• I think it may very well have come back into fashion,
• it is a classic (oh you can see past those 80s shoulder pads),
• it is pure new wool (although that lamb popped its cork many years ago) ,
• it was Made in Great Britain - Look see the label, can you beleive that whichever designer shops get their stuff made in "Great" Britain these days???
• and my favorite, it outlasted my marriage

Now come on girls I know some of you have wardrobe issues, and hold onto things longer than you should, but this suit has been with me since I was 21 which is nearly half my life. It deserves a medal.

Second adolecence

Here I am, nearing 40 in a relationship I can't feel sure about, behaving like a teenager

...and not in a good way either... not in a reckless, in love, knickerless through a cornfield kind of way...

No it seems at the moment, I am totally incapable of knowing what is best for me, so I either behave impulsively or rely on other people to make decisions for me.

Where have my frontal lobes gone???

I continue to try to have a baby to try to make Neil happy, just like a teenager has unprotected sex because her boyfriend pressures her to.

And like a teenager I wonder about how he will react. Not if I get pregnant, but if I don't. A teenager would worry that her boyfriend wouldn't stick by her if she got up the duff, I wonder how he will react if I don't. Will he take his sperm elsewhere????

I will be relieved when the whole pregnancy thing is off the agenda.

In My Shoes

I am finding the handovers on Simon's weekends are a bit easier these days, and perhaps more so the being apart. I used to feel physical pain at being separated from my wee boy when he was only 2 but now I can stand it.

One feature of handovers that still makes me sick to the core is seeing my ex's shoes laid out near the door with his new girlfriends' and my childs'. I have always had a low grade foot fetish (how else to describe it) and because of this, the line of shoes is a domestic metaphor that I just cannot handle.

I remember in my uni days coming back from a trip taking trains around Europe to find my long term college boyfriend had not only left me, but moved in with someone else and negleted to tell me ( a very bad moment in my life). I went round to catch up with him, saw the evidence, but because I loved him, and needed to be near him, agreed to stay for coffee (she was not there). Man that coffee stung my throat, but it was the line of shoes that brought on a wave a nausea. I had never met the woman, but her shoes were like small birds, all tiny intricate and brightly coloured. There was no ignoring her presence in is life. I fled and cried for two years.

Prince Charming

I have spent much time recently watching or reading fairy tales with my 4 year old. I don't wish to rob him of the really rather beautiful fairytale concept - They met, they fell in love, they married, they lived happily ever after - but these days, it says nothing to me, it is actually irritating and cliched to the point of nausea. It seems plain wrong to indoctrinate children, and particularly girls, with it.

How little either of the men of significance in my life resembled prince charming. Imagine the handsome, strong jawed strong brave, hero

(1) Breaking down in tears and turning to cinderella to sweep him onto her horse and take care of him forever, or

(2) going off and bonking the ugly sisters in his lunch hour?????


Saints preserve us

Two year reflections III

More two year reflections

I am sure I have said this before, but I still don't understand my divorce. It is different from not understanding why he left me. I have been heartbroken before, and I know the agony of thinking everything was fine and then having someone walk out on me.

I feel the need to call myself to account, to have a consistent story to tell myself and maybe one day my son. I don'twant to dress it up, lie or fill it with platitudes. I need something that makes sense. So here are three versions, the best, the worst and Simon's ( I can only imagine Simon's)

The best:
After 13 relatively happy years of marriage I finally realise my dream of having a baby. Simon meanwhile realises that he has been living a lie, there is no way he can keep up the pretense of doing his stressful job and earning enough money to support a family and a comfortable home life (ie earning the same as me). He always wanted to keep his options open - not have kids, and not commit to a career, so that at any minute he could up stumps and go back on the road. He wanted me to be a playmate, not a breast feeding, baby obsessed homebody. It is not fair to
himself or his wife to commit to the 2.2 kids and white picket fence, and he has just realised. He panics, he feels suicidal, he tries to back pedal, and ends up trying to take his life because he feels so trapped by it all. He is completely out of his mind and begins to get a lot of psychosomatic symptoms, he behaves bizarrely and I do not recognise the man I married. He is blind to what he has just done, halfed the household income and left me literally "holding the baby" working full time, picking connor up from daycare, running to and from the psychiatric clinic everyday, I am under a lot of stress, my work suffers, when he says "I can't give you what you want" and "I am very ill I may never work again, you have to tell me - Are you on this journey with me or not??". I remain numb and can not answer him, having a very keen understanding of my marriage vows. When he leaves, I feel nothing bur relief. What he was offering me was an adult child, he never empathised with me, he never pulled his weight, and now he was asking me to support him financially and emotionally for the rest of his life. I thought (rightly or wrongly) I could do better on my own.

The worst:
I was a selfish woman who negleted her marriage vow "in sickness and in health" and ruthlessly upgraded, within a year, to someone who could give my child and I the stable home life I craved. And the outcome was.... what poetic justice, I was hoist by my own petard and moved in with a self obsessed, potentially BPD, possibly violent, unfaithful man. All the opposite attributes of simon who was - no no they have something in common - self obsessed, ineffectual, gentle, idealistic, sensitive, dependant, failure of a man.

Simons:
We were happily married for 9 years and then Fiona became desperate to have a baby. This was made worse when she lost twins at 15 weeks and then had another earlier miscarriage. I hated to watch her go through so much pain, I think she was depressed. There was nothing I could do to support her. I felt the best remedy was to give up on having kids. She had other ideas, she practically forced me to go through IVF with her (after 5 years of trying we had now been married 14 years). No one understands what IVF is like for a man, it is so disempowering, it is all about the woman. It caused me a lot of stress, I worked hard and took a better paid job that was frankly beyond my capabilities.

Although she was successful on the first round of IVF she had a difficult pregnancy, she was in and out of hospital, it was like having an old car that was always going wrong. I was afraid the whole time that she would lose the baby and I couldn't face the effect it would have on her. I swore I would never go through this again. When the baby came along, Fiona was happy, but she was so wrapped up in the baby she didn't notice (or understand) the stress I was under. She took 3 months unpaid leave from work, and I hung in with my job until she returned to work full time and could support the family, feeling unsupported and utterly stressed I didn't realise what was happening to me and a year after our son's birth I tried to take my own life. In a blur I had Fiona get me admitted to a mental health clinic for my own safety and where I could recover. She visited me with connor, every evening or almost every evening, but I don't think she ever understood my illness. At one point she said "I just want a functional husband".

After 4 months I came out of the clinic. She was cold and hard and impatient with me. She seemed focussed on the past and determined to stick to her goals of having a big family and buying a home. I told her I could not give her what she wanted, to have another baby and buy a house. I told her I would probably never work again and asked her if she was on this journey with me or not. Around this time she got angry with me, lost patience and cuffed me.

She broke my heart in that moment. I was at my lowest ebb and she could not support me. We went through counselling together, but we had nothing left, our goals were just too different. Eventually I moved out.

Silent scream

Who to tell? Thank god for my blogging friends..

I have been in a sort of personal purgatory, visiting and revisiting the events of last year and trying to make sense of them, finally resolving to talk to someone and speaking to a counsellor who says "you tell who you like!" so I agonise over to whether to tell my mother. She has always been my chief confidante. I felt sure she would see something amiss, ask a few well directed questions and I would crumble and spill the beans. It was just a matter of which, and how many beans I would spill. So I prepared my responses in increasing levels of shocking detail.

It was almost a releif to find no questions whatsoever. But then

is she interested?
is she too busy?
how much more alone I feel

I find myself impatient when my family club together and try to resolve the minutiae of my life when they know nothing of the lumbering iceberg that lies just beneath my psyche, and are apparently now unable to detect it. I feel overwhelming sadness when my family, and particularly my mother, appear to be no longer on my wavelength.

Infaithlity infertelity ??

For half of last year I was undergoing IVF treatment. I have been through this before, and I know the indignities one suffers. Including prodding probing and testing for both parties (but chiefly the woman) Often you are asked how often you have sex, or even if you are having sex successfully :) as part of the early fertility work-up. And to maintain sperm count and quality you are advised to have sex "every other day"

Had a funny thought today... If I had known what was really going on with Neil, when the Dr asked these questions I could've answered "Oh yes doc, my partner has no problem ejaculating - every other day for all I know - just not with me" What a truly insensitive man he is to let me go through that and not be 100% on board with me.

Wistfulness be gone!!

After a particularly acid interchange with Simon over the handover of Connor, wistful thoughts are banished from my head -temporarily at least

Chanelling my Inner Joni

The two year post divorce inventory continues. The fog cleared, I looked around and whilst I thought I had been doing OK, thought I had moved on, it would appear there is a pile of ex-marital debris to be sifted through. So what do I see...

The shared memories..
- aforementioned rice paddies at sunset and more in the travel genre (you'd like to hear it?)

The unique marital culture
- how we used to tell the story of how we met, to each other, to our friends and make everyone laugh
- the in-jokes
- the sheer smug gloating acheivement of staying together as long as we did

My mother-in-law
- oops there she goes again popping her head up from the rubble

Being able to tuck my son in every single night.. and the unique joy of parenting together
- no-one can share him like my husband did.
- Neil is good with him, they love each other even
- ...but imagine gazing on the cherubic face of the adored child you created together. - Priceless, unique, lost.

Joni Mitchell captured this wistful feeling quite well ..

and when she says "But now old friends are acting strange They shake their heads, they say I've changed Well something's lost, but something's gained In living every day" I know she's right and I live every day for the sheer joy of it, and the hope that I will soon be able to enunciate those gains, and they won't be merely financial ones.

Dear friends I enjoyed putting those losses out to the universe, in the hope they are not lost because someone out there will identify with them, and they can once again be shared.

Blind Alley

I've been away, for days, thinking. I guess my blog (life?) has come to some sort of dead end. Here I am having been through some shocking stuff in the past few months, and yet oddly seeming to accept my position for the time being. Almost in apathy. I have read far too much on the Internet about Neil's issues and have worried myself half sick, meanwhile he blithely carries on focussing on his career, giving me and my happiness never a thought.

I worry about it at work, I take notes and think about it when I should be working.

I have to make a promise to myself to work at my career, whether I can follow through on this remains to be seen, some drive needs to come from within. For myself, for Connor, for whatever the future holds, I let myself down when I spend so much time pandering to Neil, worrying about Neil when he doesn't afford me the same honor. He let me down, he did the bad thing, I am wearing it, while he remains productive.

Where is this post going? A resolution. To focus on work more, and Neil less.

Nervous/Marriage Breakdown

Another little reflection.

When Simon had his breakdown, he reinvented his life, and reinvented me out of it. He put his past behind him and moved on.

I was indulging in a particularly vivid memory of walking through rice paddies in Indonesia as the sun set (part of our travels)..

when I thought. "Its OK for him to breakdown and choose to forget everything about our life together, but I don't actually want to be "broken down" as well. I choose to remember".

However, in leaving me that is what he has done. I have no choice but to bury our past, many of our mutual friends, people in his family who I knew and loved, and start over.

This is no mean feat at our age.

Here we are in our 30s, he through his illness, therapy and subsequent reinvention has lost his past, by choice, I have had mine ripped from me.

"The One" Part II

Over the years of my marriage to the dour and depressed Simon, I often sought out the company of other friends (male and female) who were live wires. A lot of my female friends are this way. Sassy, funny, keen observers of human nature. The male live wires were generally part of a couple, and whilst enjoying their company I would envy their wives. Imagine living with someone who was so much fun! so clever and quick witted!

Incidentally before I emigrated, the extended family in which I grew up was also like this. The intelligentsia. A collection of eccentric, talented, articulate people.

I slunk back to my humourless, self obsessed, angry husband, and consoled myself that at least I had these friends and family. After all a husband doesn't have to be everything to you does he?? Often you find your emotional support, humor, fun, elsewhere. The trouble is I found everything (bar sex !!) elsewhere.

So I have always thought someone who made me laugh would make a great life partner. Neil rarely makes me laugh, although he is quick witted, his humour is often bawdy, at others' expense, and heavily focussed on the double-entendre.

...But the other day, I took a look at myself. I am rather quiet (until you get to know me), serious and bound by duty. Often my life is so full of caring for others, doing what I have to do (work) to the best of my ability, and keeping myself sane that I don't have two funny stories to rub together, I struggle to even keep abreast of current affairs. So I am most unlikely to be a magnet for the live-wires of this world. I believe a witty, erudite, polite, informed person such as that would be looking straight over my head.

Realisation

I have come to some sort of an uneasy compromise about leaving my life as it is for the time being.

(1) The house is an investment - whatever money I put into it, I will get back- so I shouldn't sweat it. Just get a good pre-nup to ensure this happens.

(2) I have bound myself financially to Neil, but I don't need to do so via kids. No need to make that mistake again. I have a reason to embrace the menopause within the next decade - it will set me free of this decision.

(3) Home comforts and stability are best for Connor

(4) I can never rely on Neil to be faithful. That's the bottom line.

Despite all this, my gut is telling me to run. Funnily enough the last time I felt this way was as a teenager/in my early 20s the time would come, a boyfriend had done nothing wrong in particular, I just suddenly thought yeuch, I don't need this I'm going to move on. Trouble is now I have baggage.

I read to many blogs by vindictive, discontent divorcees. I know they write for themselves, and for comfort no doubt. Like them, I never intended to do more than share my diary, but the washing of dirty linen in public makes unsettling reading. I vow to view the world with more humor and less catharsis.

The One

In my two year reflections I have started to contemplate the idea of The One.

(1) How is it that two people in a relationship can have such different views with one believing the other is the soul mate, the one, and the other looking at the door?? Neil frequently calls me his soul-mate, the love of his life, his one and only etc. But I know the thing he is in love with is a pale reflection of the real me. Is he honestly in love with such a superficial, disengaged person that is really nothing more than a warm body? None of my true self comes out around him. The real me is interested in the arts, gourmet cooking, travel, outdoor pursuits and more than a little angst and introspection. My life with him is a trawl around a shopping centre sharing fart jokes and looking for donuts.

(2) Should we all strive to find The one even if it means being alone in the long term? Yes!!! the romantics chorus. But we all know that many people are out there quite happily living with another.

(3)And what about arranged marriage? isn't there a joy to be had from "working at it" and building a home and a family together, and looking back at that long hard life together to finally realise that you are partners, you rely on each other, and you have unwittingly become soulmates. When you divorce, you give that away. I wonder, if I was meant to have a life of quiet endurance, wouldn't it surely be better to have done that with my husband and the father of my child???!!!

(4) Panic. I know I have never had The one in my life. My married life was one of cosy, conjugal, cooperative (for the most part), cohabitation. But I never yearned to be with him. When he was away, or I was away, I enjoyed my own company and didn't miss him for a minute. Sadly my current relationship is the same.

(5) But I do know the euphoria of being with someone you truly love, of feeling your heart skip a beat, of wanting to hold them tight and never let them go, I feel all that for my Son.

2 year Milestone and Me

I feel very blue. My last post about 2 years on was 7 days ago and I still feel the same. It is something approaching divorce regret. I can't believe my feelings have been so deeply buried for so long it has been 2 years!!

And now I wake up to myself.

I grew up overseas and met my Scottish husband in the UK. I never planned to emigrate. I spent the first 10 years of my married life in wistful regret. My childhood, the family so far away, so many memories I couldn't share. How I envied those who could walk down the high street and bump into an old school friend.

But at least I had him.

We travelled, we saw the world we developed a new history together, and finally we had a baby. It was beautiful. Until it was unbearable. Living with a controlling, grumpy, depressed person wore my down. It was like having another child, nothing I did could make him happy.

Now I have another set of memories to keep to myself.

I write because I love to reflect. I have kept a diary since I was 14. What an irony that I should be forced for my entire adult life to live in the present, to live on the surface with a yearning for a deeper connection with my past.

I even miss my mother in law! There, I've said it.

Now I feel so removed from the things that I love and value (starting with my parents) that nothing bothers me. I am unable to connect with anything at a meaningful level. I just survive.

2 Year Milestone and my child

2 years post separation and I am finally starting to feel the effects of my marriage breakdown. Chiefly through the lens of my son. By allowing the separation to occur I robbed him of many aspects of his future, and made his childhood more difficult. It is not that I did not consider him. Things moved too fast, my ex pulled the plug and I was left barely keeping my head above water and very numb.

Connor is starting to try to understand why Mum and Dad live in separate houses, and starting to notice that whilst it may be normal for him (he has really known no different) it is not normal for his friends.

There was no point "staying together for the kids" at least that is the conventional wisdom, and at the end that is all we had. We had weathered many a bad patch, but this was much more fundamental. And friends and counsellors assured me that kids are happier when their parents are happier.

So what did I do? move from one unhappy marriage to another. This one is just unhappy in a different way. Now have the bizarre inclination to stay in this one for the kids even though he is not his kid.

Values

I wake most mornings at 5am and lie there for an hour or so worrying. The topic of today's worry was the effect on my son of being raised (partially) by my current partner. There are a lot of things about his dad that I really liked. We had a lot of shared values about the big things like faith, honesty, integrity and love, the medium things like diet and exercise, and the mundane like table manners and etiquette. When we separated, the one thing we could agree on was to do our best to raise him together, and to make him our priority. It seemed simple at the time. Life had become unbearable together, we could not give each other what we were looking for, and we would go it alone. (As you know no sooner than the 'ink was dry' on our verbal agreement, he made a priority of dating, and I made a priority of working full time and looking after a toddler, getting some sleep and not going mad. Connor's dad was too sick to take a major part in his upbringing at that point - but that's another story).

Soon I realised how alone I truly was, and how I had next to no support, my family live far away, and all my friends were very transient. Some helped me out by picking connor up from daycare, occasional babysitting, but one by one they all moved on.

Then I met my new love. He was a breath of fresh air, he was relaxed, successful, enjoyed food, and most of all loved me, and cared for my son. His values seemed good, very different, but good.

The focus of his values are; The big ones; work hard, give back to society, and look out for yourself and your family, because nobody else will. The medium sized ones; there is no need to feel guilty about anything you do as long as it is not illegal and nobody gets hurt, life's too short for boring stuff like exercise, religion causes wars. What's the point in wasting time on fancy recipes, cook-in sauces/ takeaways save time and do the job - food in belly. The small ones; no need to be prudish about farting or belching in your own home, let it out.. be it at the table, in front of the TV wherever, what's the harm in eating ice cream straight out of the tub then putting it back in the freezer when you've had enough? - lighten up.

A slightly more incidious one is playful lying. Through his games he has taught connor all the basics of good lying:

(1) Denial - me eating sweeties? No!
(2)Just say no - I have no idea where that sweetie packet came from no, nada, not me
(3)Offence - don't accuse me of eating sweeties!!! I was just eating a carrot
(4) Accuse someone else of lying - you must've eaten the sweeties
(5) Gas lighting - I think you're imagining that you had sweeties
(6) Collusion - don't tell mummy

Now maybe all 4 year olds lie, and playful sharing/hiding of candy is fairly harmless, but in my predawn worries I saw this as a workhop/test bed for the bigger kind of lies my partner carries off so effortlessly. Connor should never lie, and there should be nothing he can't tell mummy about. Though his father may be a improvident, ineffectual and self obsessed, he would never cheat, lie, disrespect other's beliefs, morals or personal space, or cross the boundaries of good taste.

Short cuts

I was at a kid's birthday party at the weekend, observing how all the SAHM's manage their kids - for good or bad, these gals have had 100% input into how their kids are shaped, and as far as I could see it was mostly for the good. By 4 you start to be able to see the effects of discipline, routine and good nutrition and (sigh) a stable home environment. I noticed their kids listening to what their mothers said, minding their Ps and Qs and going into time out without a fight if things got bad. My son on the other hand, talked his way out of every problem with increasingly eloquent explanations, leant across the table to get what he wanted, and was very territorial. I had a wake up call. I have not had 100% hand in his upbringing, in a fortnight he spends roughly 35% of his waking hours with dad, 41% with me and 24% at preschool. So I have really passed over a lot of his upbringing to others.

When we separated, the situation was so dire, I somehow imagined I would get custody and would be tucking him in every night. My husband ejected himself from the marriage and spun off uncontrollably, he was unwell, and he focussed his efforts in the early weeks and months on finding someone else. This I assume was his (possibly subconscious) shortcut to getting himself back on his feet. His new girlfriend attended to his support (emotional, physical and financial) then he set his mind to getting joint custody - or as near as he could.

Meanwhile I found a shortcut of my own. I wanted a house and family (something like my family of origin) whilst I still could, I went for what I thought was a safe bet, the first man I fancied, who wanted these two things as well and was able to help me attain them. He was bright, he was funny, and he had helluva lot of baggage.

The girl that was me

My parents gave me a good start in life, and I was a hard-working, clean, ambitious little girl. I did my piano practice, went to church twice on Sundays and did my best in pretty much everything I tried. There were no ugly violent outbursts in my home, no desertions, we were not itinerant - staying in the same town for my whole childhood. My parents loved and were faithful to each other. I had my fair share of teenaged angst, but life was safe, life was secure and predictable. I had reliable friends who I still keep in touch with to this day, although they are far away. I could talk to my mother, who would sit me down for long girly chats over a cup of tea after school. My father's high expectations of me, a burden at the time, probably projected me into the enviable position I am in my career today. So how did I become this confused, disenfranchised, co-dependant jelly? Perhaps because this gentle upbringing did nothing to prepare me for the seamier side of life into which I (and regretably my beautiful son) have now plunged? Fifteen years of marriage served only to freeze me in my schoolgirl innocence, and I emerge a sort of post marital rip-van-winkle, ill equipped to deal with the harsh realities of the world. I treasure that girl, and I don't want to let her down.

Photo courtesy of belfast high school

Mess with my head II

Since I have been with Neil, apart from the obvious "don't falsely accuse me" followed by discovery of at least one affair (I say at least one because he then realised he had an SA) one woman doesn't make a SA. Life has been tumultuous.

Then there was the STD scare. I went overseas for a month and a half - came back with peculiar symptoms "down there" and I knew for a fact I had only slept with him - Still he suggested I had caught it elsewhere and that he struggled, and yet was benevolent enough to give me the benefit of the doubt - ha ha

There were of course a number of lies associated with the infidelity, which are hard to expunge, usually cast back on me

"listen, I turn off my phone because I don't want your snooping to come in the way of our relationship - an innocent mistake could ruin everything we've got".

"Could you leave the car at work, and get public transport home, its so hard to get decent public transport when I'm working late" - sure did need that car to drive to another suburb late at night

"I've been run off my feet all morning" (once again with the phone switched off) - sure was "off his feet"

"Its all about you isn't it? it's your way or the highway! Why do you always get like this when we have a big decision to make (buying the house) You are hormonal

Hormonal, hmm quite likely, I have been having fertility treatment lately, however even I can't see an excuse for what happened yesterday, I got mad about a series of sms he seems to be getting from a woman (the ones I have seen are x rated) so I took a look at his phone.

When I would not give it back he knocked me over to get it back. His story now is that I slipped. But I'm pretty sure I know the difference between slipping and being chucked to the ground - I am quite a sturdy girl (145lbs) but how I experienced it was this. An approach by him, being lifted off the ground ( or possibly having my feet knocked from under me) , a period of stillness (airborne?) and then "Whooomf" hit the wooden floor with elbow and head simultaneously. When one slips one normally puts out a hand and does not land on one's head.

I was quite livid and went to the ER immediately, it was a 15 mile ride so I had to stop for a cry by the side of the road frequently, I was (once again) in utter shock.

Later in the day I call him and he says I'd better not tell anyone because that would be libel (in fact I only told the professional counselling staff) further, had I told the hospital about the drugs (hormones) I was on? And all the time "What on earth is wrong with you Fiona? why are you behaving this way?" Also he implied that he would not report me for hitting him - I have no idea how this happened but there was a graze on his chest after the altercation.

For some reason once again I came home, locked myself in my room and slept all day and all night, I have not discussed it with him, and to be honest I am frightened. He has been uncharacteristically kind.

He is quite effectively managing to convince me that a) I am hormonal b) no assault took place and if I label it as such I am lying c) this is my problem.

A pattern emerges of everything being blamed on me, his conscience is alarmingly clear about everything (he is very happy in this relationship - whilst my life is tumult, he is very happy and relaxed - a sign of my mental instability of course!!). Even the infidelity - Fiona, take your blinkers off!!! it is remarkably common!!! 1 in 4 kids are not genetically their father's. It is not against the law!!!

I have (in my fog) managed to work out why I stay, I love my house and I dream of a home and a larger family, but who in their right mind would pursue it with this man???? He professes to love me, but what is this? I am aware of my faults, often hormones do make me grumpy and sometimes I get angry and lash out, but I still can't help thinking that a line has been crossed.

It is utterly disrespectful to sleep with other women, addiction or not, and to maintain feisty sexual email contact with others, and culpable though I may be in many ways, it is utterly wrong and disrespectful to throw someone you love on the floor.