Three's Company

Or is it Three's a Crowd?

So last night, in a burst of spontaneity brought on by the joint intoxication of one night without children, two shots, and four beers, Husband and I did something that we never do.

We did IT.

Yes, we Fornicated Under Consent of the King. In a friend's bed, no less, because he lived across the street from the bar and we couldn't drive home. See what wanton hedonists we become when Grandma has the babies for the night? Like damn teenagers, I tell you.

Now, I don't normally talk about my sex life in public, and I don't think I've ever talked about it here, but this was a momentous occasion, and so I feel that it warrants recognition. It was the first time that we had sex since he admitted his affair.

We've been avoiding it since then, for complicated reasons that haven't been clearly defined. Partly because we're working to start our relationship over at the beginning, learning again who the other is, how to love and trust each other again, etc. and sex just complicates that process. Partly because you never know what kinds of cooties he could have picked up from his whore*. Partly because sex involves a level of trust and intimacy that we don't have back yet. Partly because we're sharing a guest bed in a room with the baby in a house that's so not soundproof. Whatever. We haven't been doing it. And that's just fine for now.

However.

Sometimes you just want to do it. You know?

So, in my whole alcohol-induced, inhibition-reduced state, I was all sure! let's do it! really! no, seriously, take your pants off! And it was enjoyable, in both the usual sense (duh) and in the sense that hey, we don't have to worry about waking the baby or whether his sister is eavesdropping on the other side of the wall. And, in typical drunk-girl fashion, I was lost in the moment and not thinking about any of the other... *aspects* of the situation.

Until. Suddenly, mid-coit, I had a vision. Of him. And her. Doing what we were doing. And suddenly, I was consumed. *How* did they do it? Was it good? Was she better than me? Was he thinking of her, right now?

I almost blurted out the question right there, but through the haze I realized that it was neither the time nor the place for that conversation. And maybe I don't want to keep talking about it. I have a pretty good grasp of the logistics of the situation, thanks to my morbid curiosity about it. I keep asking the nosiest questions, which is awkward at times, but I feel like I'm entitled to know. So I ask. It's usually not as bad as what I'm picturing in my head, which is comforting in a very strange sense.

I pushed it out of my mind, and went back to enjoying myself on a more elemental level. I never did ask, and I probably won't. I'll always wonder, but I don't know if it would help anything to keep asking about the details. We're really working hard at communicating, being open and honest, and building our relationship up again from the ground up. Would asking questions about the sex act itself help move us forward? Probably not. I think I just wanted reassurance that he *wasn't* thinking of her, that it *wasn't* any good, that she *wasn't* better than me. I feel pretty damn inadequate right now, as you might suspect, and I feel like I need a constant pep talk - I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. Otherwise, I've got a massive inferiority complex going on, and I constantly keep trying to build my confidence back up.

I want my self back, and I think I'm doing really great in that realm. I'm very happy with my job. I'm glad to get up in the morning and tackle another day. I'm working to strengthen my bond with the girls, and we're all getting very close, which I hope stays the case for the rest of our lives. I'm being totally open and honest with Husband, even in cases where I usually would have taken the path of least resistance, compromised to make peace, kept silent for the sake of preserving the status quo. I'm not angry nearly as much as before, and my depression seems like a bad dream. I'm really working hard at the *me* part of this equation.

But I want my husband back, too. I want our relationship back. I want our life back. And we're working on that, too, although it takes a little longer because two people are working, not just one. I have faith, though. It will come. All in the fulness of time.

But most of all, I want her ghost out of my bed.


*I'm not sure what the PC term is for the person that someone cheats with. Co-conspirator? Partner in crime? Homewrecker? Those all sound weird to me. I like my word better.

Well, remember how I sometimes talk about how things with Husband are less than Ideal? Like how we haven't lived in the same state in six months, or how he lives in his own little world, which is fine with me because I'm too busy dealing with my own shit to try dealing with his? Or how he's a shell of his former self?

Have I mentioned any of this?

Recently, things came to a head.

We're finally living in the same state, in the same house, again. Ever since he came back, Husband has been avoiding me. I found it very unusual for him, and it was really bugging me, but I just threw myself into work and tried not to focus on it. Eventually, things reached the point where we were seriously considering getting a divorce, because it just wasn't working. How can you spend the next eighty years of your life with someone who won't even talk to you?

Finally, as we were driving around aimlessly, trying to decide whether or not we want to get some counseling and work this out, or whether we want to call it quits, he finally tells me.

He had an affair while we were apart.

There aren't really any words to describe the way that this kind of information makes you feel. I am crushed.

There's so much more to be said here, about where our relationship is heading, about the things we're working on, about my feelings on it all, but I wanted to get this up and out there and off my chest. I've been sitting on it for five days now. Things are not all good, but things are not all bad, either.

Divine Intervention

Hi. No, I'm not dead or gone. I'm here. I've been... busy.

Our Internet was out for, oh, I don't know, EVER. It was so freaking inconvenient. What did we do before the Internet? How did we get our information? How did we waste our time? I know I lived without the Internet for like 18 years, but I can't for the life of me remember how I did it.

Remember all the headaches I went through to get a job? How I was so grateful to get a damn job, any job? Well, I quit. A week before I was supposed to start. The principal who hired me was leaving, and I didn't get a good feeling about the new principal, and the school system was giving me this whole big runaround about paperwork and other random red tape and jumping through hoops. Since I hadn't officially signed anything with them (!) a week before I was supposed to start, I just gave them a big fat "screw you" and told them I wouldn't be coming to work for them.

So then I was unemployed. Which was freaky. It was kind of scary, but also kind of liberating. I swore I wasn't going to teach this year, that I was going to find a "real" job. I spent about a week scavenging job boards and postings, only to be told about 23498745029485 times that I'm not qualified to do anything but teach.*

Then, one day, while I was surfing craigslist, I stumbled across an ad that had my name on it. "HEY! JANE! You know you want me!" It was for a teacher, of all things, in my area of specialization, in my grade level, at a fancy-pants private school! In my city!

Naturally, I sent in my resume and cover letter, not so much because I thought I would get the job, but because you just can't pass up an ad like that.

Five minutes later, my phone rang.

24 hours later, I was sitting in an interview.

Five days later, I was organizing my classroom.

Yeah. I found my kick-ass, so amazing, never going to quit, going to retire from this awesome, awesome school, love it love it love it, wonderful, perfect job on *craigslist*, of all places. A week before school started. How unlikely is that? Some call it coincidence. Some call it fate. Some call it divine intervention. I call it "holy shit, this kind of stuff *never* happens to me!"

So I've been busy as hell trying to clean out, clean up, organize, and decorate my classroom, as well as get some serious lesson planning done. I'm so damn excited that it doesn't even feel like work, but it is a little crazy. Add in the commute from my in-laws' house, the fact that my house is still not sold, and that I need somewhere to live, STAT, and things have been kind of hectic.

In other news, my children have morphed from sweet, precious little babygirls into tiny little hellions. I am not pleased.

The Bear vacillates between sweet, clingy, nervous, and a screaming, shouting, defiant little dictator. (Dictatrix?) She's like Dr. Jekyll and Miss Hyde. A lot of that has to do with the fact that she went back to "school" (daycare) last week, and she's always super slow to adjust to change. Some of it also probably has to do with the fact that her Daddy is sort of back with us, sort of not, and there's some adjustment going on there, too. Top it all off with a wicked summer cold, and things are kind of hairy.

Tank isn't any better - she's teething like crazy**, and she's hit the Terrible Twos, just like her sister did, at 18 months. She can throw a tantrum with the best of them, will sit down wherever she is (think produce aisle, parking lot) in protest if she doesn't want to do what you want her to do, and has learned to say "I don't want to." Awesome. She's adjusting to "school" better than her sister (duh), but is still a little extra clingy when I get home.

Husband might as well be living on another planet. He's so involved with the old house and his new job that we barely talk. I don't know if that's... well, I don't know what to make of it, but fortunately I'm too busy to worry much about it right now. Either we'll work through it as things settle down, or things will fall apart. I trust that the universe will unfold as it should.

So, yeah, that's the (very) brief synopsis of what's been going on here. Life is good-ish, and hopefully will be getting better as we go.

*Note to any undergrads out there: major in some sort of career field. Journalism! Engineering! Public Relations! None of these esoteric, liberal artsy-fartsy majors will ever qualify you to do anything but teach. English! Philosophy! Latin!

**She cut those 8 front incisors, and then the bicuspids, and *now*, after all that, she's cutting her eyeteeth. So they have to squeeze up into that little gap between the teeth that are already in, and it just *looks* painful.