The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good: I saw him last night...in some of his clothes. Only from the neck down and probably fairly sedate for him, I think, considering what I've seen in the pictures, but appropriate for what I was ready to handle. In all honesty, it was a little strange and awkward at the beginning of it- he felt exposed and I felt very self-conscious. In spite of that, the sex was intense - the trust is an incredible turn on for me and you know what the turn on is for him.

The Bad part came afterwards when, instead of focusing on the beauty of the moment, I focused on "me" and "before". It tainted, a little bit, the Good. The crux of my self-consciousness: Last week, after my discovery, I had asked him if he found me sexually exciting. I'll give him credit for answering that honestly, but oh, did the answer hurt!!! He finds women sexually exciting, but not necessarily me. Wow. Wow. Wow. Follow-up questions revealed that it's mostly my excess weight/visual issue for him, but that because he loves me, he can get past it. I guess I can understand that, but last night, it was very prominent in my mind. I hid behind him when we stood in front of the mirror - when he was being "visual" and looking at himself. I didn't want him to see me in the picture with him. Instead of thinking about him, all I wanted to do was hide myself under the covers... It was much better for me when we moved away from the mirror and toward the bed.

The Ugly:
The "Before". It came to the forefront of my mind as I looked through his clothes. As I browsed through them, all I could think about was "Where was I when he bought this? How many times has he lied to me? How much planning went into his lies? How much has he taken away from me?? Our marriage?? Our sex life?? How did I not know?? After the sex, these thoughts circled and circled around in my mind. Again, to his credit, William is being as supportive as he possibly can be . He laid awake as long as I needed him to in order to answer my questions. Despite all the thoughts in my mind, I only needed to ask a few questions - the biggest one that I am still thinking about - which items were bought before our marriage and which ones were purchased afterwards? I feel that I am truly okay with the ones purchased before, but my feelings about those that he bought after we were married are pretty intense. How wrong is it of me to hate those? How unreasonable is it for me to want them GONE? I'll even help him replace them (he has indicated an interest in shopping together.) I'm not rejecting who he is, but I can't stomach what it took away from "us" for so many years...

So.. this morning, I realized that we are left with two different issues. There is almost a line in my mind dividing my life before September 17 and my life after. When I think about the after, I feel a little breathless with excitement and anticipation and nervousness - like a virgin on her wedding night. Thinking about the before though, is...painful. I need to work through the discovery that my spouse was unfaithful to me. He took away so much from my marriage, dividing himself between me and "the other woman." oh, I know in my head that he really didn't have an affair, but it sure feels like he did...

Just so you know, we did discuss most of this this morning - and the sex afterwards was good. I think that we have just defined our first boundary. We need to deal with the "before" part of each and every little piece of his as we introduce it into our marriage so that we don't taint the "after" part. Make sense?