Your On Your Own. And You Know What You Know. And You Are The One Who’ll Decide Where To Go….Boy is That Dangerous

So I commute a few days a week to one of my jobs.  It is a long drive but not too bad in the morning.  I can usually stay distracted during the drive but it is harder and harder.  Yesterday I asked what love was because I really don’t know.  I believe I love my wife but I feel differently about her than I do the other woman.  I don’t know who to explain it.  Anyways for a while I would talk or text with her during my commute.  It was easy because we were both up at that time and it was an easy distraction to driving.  Well as I drove I was trying to come up with the starting point of my demise.

I think it started about 2 years ago.  I was working when I had someone tell me that a much younger woman was telling everyone how “hot” she thought I was.  This floored me because I had never considered myself hot and I really still don’t.  I also did not figure I was because at this point in my marriage I had been rejected by her so much that I believed that there must be something wrong with me.  I equated her accepting me physically as my self-worth.  So because we did not have sex very much and she was constantly telling me no I did not think I was attractive.  I mean if I was attractive wouldn’t she want me?  I thought so, unless I was awful in bed (but that thought came later).

When this person told me I was hot I didn’t know how to respond.  Eventually I think I just said that’s funny and walked off.  I never talked to this lady and did not interact with her ever, but it made me feel good that someone felt I was attractive.  I think this was the start the end.  Now looking back I should have told my wife that this woman found me attractive, but I wanted to keep it.  I wanted it to be mine.  I was afraid she would laugh and say “You??? HOT??? That’s a good one.”  I probably did not give my wife enough credit because I really don’t think she would say those things but I wanted to feel good at least for this and I was never going to talk or interact with this person so I saw no harm in it.  I still don’t believe there was harm in it.  But it started to get me to think and that is never good.

I started to wonder who else found me hot, who else would think that I was attractive.  Maybe there wasn’t something wrong with me.  So I started to just look people in the eye and smile.  I would watch their reaction and make my judgments from that.  You would be surprised on what you can learn or think you know about people when you do this.  There were some that I know would not give me the time of day.  Was it because I was unattractive or maybe they were just having a bad day?  I didn’t care because I got a lot of positive reactions to this.  It was flattering and I thought harmless.  I wasn’t hitting on anyone.  I wasn’t talking to anyone, but it did make me feel better about myself.  Until I would go home.  Then it would be back to the rejection zone.  I could not figure it out.

I know we had a couple of conversations that I asked her if she found me attractive.  She always would say she did but just because she found me attractive didn’t mean that she immediately wanted to jump in bed with me.  I didn’t understand this, to some extent I still don’t.  Isn’t that the basis for physical attraction.  I am not saying we would jump all the people we find attractive but the base of physical attraction should be physical.  This obviously frustrated me more.  I am sure it frustrated her as well.  I don’t want people to think that she was cold and heartless, she wasn’t.  She felt bad every time she turned me down.  I know she did.  I think my persistence only added to her depression which just exasperated the problem.  She loved me, still does and she did find me attractive.  I know that more today than I ever have before.  I just didn’t see it then and I was feeling so low about myself because of it I started looking outside of our marriage for attention.  Yes, it just was eye contact and a smile but sometimes that’s all that it takes to get the ball rolling.

I pulled into my parking spot and sat there for a minute just thinking about how wrong I was, but completely understanding why I felt like that.  Hell, I lived it!  I know why I felt that way.  I just wish on some level that I could have talked to her about it.  Made her understand that I needed to feel wanted by her.  But how do you tell your wife that you are looking at other women because you don’t think she is looking at you.  We already had those conversations, just without the looking at other women part so I didn’t see the outcome being any different.  I mean, I know what I know and it drove me places that I never should have gone.

I feel bad about it everyday.  I haven’t seen the other woman since the beginning of the year and I haven’t talked to her in any form for a while, but it has been hard.  She was like a drug and I feel like I am going through withdrawals.  That is why I questioned what love was.  Maybe this is how you feel when you lose someone you love, maybe it is not.  I am not sure, but I do know that I want to be with my wife.  I do not know what life would be without her, which is what makes this so much harder and painful.  Uggghhhh……

Your on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go – Dr. Seuss