'Tis the season ....

Today is a virtual Christmas.

What this means is that the custody schedule gives me the boys through the afternoon of the 24, at which time I deliver them to Wife.  So they and I are visiting my parents this weekend and holding Christmas early.  Brother and his girlfriend will be coming over, we will all open presents, and everybody will eat and drink too much.  Tomorrow (Monday) Debbie will stop by to visit for an hour or so … not actually on the day of (virtual) Christmas itself, but nearby.  Then Tuesday we’ll pack up the car and I’ll drive the boys the three and a half hours to where Wife is living now.  After that, I’ve been invited to join Debbie’s family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (meaning the 24 and 25, this time) … so I’ll log a lot more driving.  But I expect it to be fun.

I haven’t been posting a lot lately, and last night I tried to figure out why.  I think it’s because this blog has outlived its original purpose and I haven’t really found another for it.  The very first reason I created this blog, at the most basic level, was that I had to have somewhere that I could say – “out loud” as it were – that my wife had spent years sleeping with other men.  The secrecy had become such a burden that I had to tell somebody.  And there were a lot of other things I didn’t understand about my marriage, that I didn’t feel I could discuss with anyone because a gentleman does not tell that kind of story about his wife … no matter how much of a tramp she might prove to be.  So I opened a blog and began writing about her: her affairs, her tantrums, her crazy mixed messages; writing in anger, in frustration, in wonderment.

Then I started my affair with D, and the picture got even more complicated.  Now I had a clandestine affair of my own to manage, and so there was a lot to talk about on that front too … things I couldn’t tell anybody except D, and stories that I wanted to record so I wouldn’t forget them.  And so I posted quite a lot.  Gradually I began to see that D was way too much like Wife for my liking in the long term, and that I seemed to have a pattern (which was not serving me well) of falling for “high-maintenance women”.  So I began to ramp that down.  When the boys were both safely in boarding school I told Wife I wanted out, and we began the process of separation.  For a while, this too generated enough drama to write about.  And I enjoyed writing about my courtship of Debbie.

But things are stabler now.  I deal with Wife mostly through e-mail, and our interactions involve less emotional turmoil and more business.  I still have to work out what fatherhood is going to look like for me in this new world, but I’m seeing a therapist to help with that.  Debbie and I still have to work out how our relationship is going to work when we live a hundred miles apart, but there’s not a lot of drama in that figuring-out process: Debbie is willing to sit with problems until they become clearer, rather than railing at them, and the change is a good one.  We can talk without knowing the answers, and feel our way forward instead of shouting.

So what exactly do I need a blog for?  I’m not sure any more.  I’ve posted a little bit lately, but mostly because I wanted to keep my hand in.  I like being Hosea, and I don’t want to give it up.  I’m just not sure if I have anything more to say, really ….

Maybe I should do like Debbie and just sit with the question, rather than having to have an answer right now.  So I won’t do anything precipitate like closing up shop, or at least not right away.  But I have been pondering the question ….

Time to go be Christmas-like with the family.  More later … I hope.  And to all of you, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!