Garrie, I guess I am a pretty complex person....

I'm coughing my guts out with the flu or something right now, so suffice it to say that an open relationship and an open marriage worked for Raul and me up until now. I've always had a very different view of love, committment, etc., than most other people. For instance, to take the Jerry Springer show as an example... you see wives beating up on their husbands' lovers to supposedly protect their marriage... I'm not one to blame the lover, but my beef would be solely with the errant spouse.

And it is now. My anger is not at Amy, who is very much my friend... I invited her into my home, and I invited her into my marriage as well. Neither of us knew that my husband was hiding the fact that he'd already fallen out of love with me, and was already sort of halfway out the door concerning our marriage. (The wife is always the last to know, right?) Anyway, I guess the simple answer on why we had an open marriage, is that neither of us believed, at thetime we met and all through our life together, in the traditional view of marriage, that he owned my body and I owned his, and that we were never to desire or touch another person ever again. Up until this point, our adventures always enriched our love life, always brought us closer in the past.

The only committment I wanted from him was a committment of the heart and mind. I knew he could not or would not be faithful to me in body, but I was confident he would always come home to me because that's where his heart was. And it was true, up until a little while ago.

I don't expect anyone to really understand. I've always been a radical and difficult to understand.

It's not Amy's fault that Ra had problems he was not willing to talk to me about. He held them inside, let things fester, and let the romantic, passionate love die. All that's left inside of him is the friendship, the instant camaraderie that he and I shared from the moment we first said hello to each other. It hurts, it's unfair, I hate it, but I can't go back in time and MAKE him talk to me about the things that were bothering him.

He disengaged from me, and ruined our marriage. Why he's fallen madly in love with Amy, and Amy with him, I may never know. Apparently, he's been secretly lonely and heartsick for a long time -- and hiding it from me, in spite of my best efforts to draw him out. He says he was trying to spare my feelings... but in the process, has hurt me more than any other person ever has.

He didn't mean to do so. He has to live with his stupid decisions and denial, andthe fact that he ultimately betrayed me, for the rest of his life. And he may be supporting me, too, for the rest of his life, if I am ultimately unable to become self-supporting. Believe it or not, he's willing to do this... or at least, he feels that way now.

I'm not going to trust him for anything in the long run.

I've now found myself able to disengage from him. I destroyed all our wedding artifacts, including my marriage journal, while I was out of my mind with grief and rage. So be it. He destroyed our marriage; I destroyed the outward signs of it. I hurt him almost as much as he hurt me.

I'm now quite decently out of love with him, too. Right now I feel like I'm living with my best friend Amy and that guy I lived with for nearly 7 years. Yes, I'm still pissed at him, but we are still learning how to be friends, just friends. It stinks, but that's the sad reality of it. In doing what we're doing, we are achieving something that most couples never do: going all the way into healing all the hurt. Repairing ourselves and each other.

So be it. It looks strange, but my life has always looked strange. It works for me right now. If I tried to make my life look the way other people tell me it "should" look, well, I'd really be up the creek, mental health-wise.

As for my mother-in-law... well, her moving in with us was my idea as well. At first, we all got along very well. She was good for me, and I was very good for her. That is, until she apparently stopped taking her medication. And subsequently, acting completely off the wall. Dangerous, even. I had no idea. She seemed so harmless, and so accepting of what she had to do for herself. Now what I have to do is to protect my family and myself from her threats... and to find a way to get her into a place where they can care for her. She'll hate it, and she'll hate *me* for doing it, but it's got to be done.

When she showed her true colors, in terms of being the manipulative, vindictive, ego-centric person she really is, she killed off all the sentimentality I had for her. She uses her mental illness toget what she wants. I can't deal with that. Not for one minute. Maybe somewhere down the line, we can be friends again. I dunno.

I guess the only way to understand me... is that no matter what, I put one foot in front of the other and I walk. I walk my talk, too. I try to make the best of every situation, and I try to figure out what Spirit wants me to learn / give / receive from every situation.

If I just out and out rejected everything and everyone that is extraordinary, unusual, not what the neighbors would do, etc., well, I wouldn't be me. I don't do what I "should" do, but I always do what I think is right.

Anyway, enough of me for tonight.

Bright Blessings,
Lil