These are some of mouse's thoughts going through this process, lifted heavily from our private blog -- rewritten or altered a bit for clarity; and put here on our main blog for clarity purposes -- we decided not to allow comments.
There must be more than a million words within this blog. Millions of words about our relationship. Recently, we hit a wall. Things that have happened, things that careened out of control. While O's therapist is very understanding, everyone has limits to their understanding.
Maybe if we were both just vanilla it would be easier...but we can't pretend that.
We're kinda different now with each other, distant but not entirely so. We share a bed. It's kinda strange but during the night after we've both fallen asleep, mouse will scoot beside him...he'll pull her close....
Mind you we're asleep. We love each other. Deeply. We connect on intimate levels most don't get. We have our problems and they're all about the past. All of them.
We decided to work on them, slowly, pick them apart, forgive each other and ourselves. He likes the word forgive...mouse doesn't. To her it's more about accepting the past.
Because there's nothing to really forgive. It happened. It is, what it is. What we were, the way we were...the way we are...
We aren't ready to give up.
One day last week, he came home to a dark, empty house, because mouse had taken the kids up to new house with the dog. When we all walked through the garage door the look on his face...We hadn't planned on staying so long, mouse was looking at paint swatches (a rant about those will be coming).
He has his own triggers or rather land mines (thanks Mystress). He stepped in one. He calmed down quickly, regained some composure while mouse tried to figure out what the hell was for dinner. In the end it didn't matter...he pulled mouse close to him and told her to forget about it -- he'd get his own meal. Now, mouse thought he was angry about dinner. It wasn't that...He thought for a split second thought that mouse had decided everything was too hard and just left.
We stayed up all night talking. Honestly all night. About the past. Our mutual past. Our lives are tangled almost miserably so.
The outcome is we can't change the damage of the past. We can't ever expect to undo the conditioning or all of it. We need to be aware that it's there and understand that mouse will always require more attention. People might argue that mouse was fine before O came back into her life. But really that's not very true. During those years, especially after she moved from California, she became very isolated. Trusted friends were very safe, no one else had a chance of getting in. Seriously, it's why she got a dog.
O came into her life and there was sooooooooo much more! It was like going from black and white to color. Still, mouse remained so cautious of him. At least until her walls came tumbling down.
Song selection: The Way We Were; Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, scored by Marvin Hamlisch