Day Nine

He comes home tonight, has been gone for 10 days and staying in a hotel for the next two nights so that we can figure out how to be around each other before he sees the kids.  I am picking him up from the airport and anxious about how he will be when he sees me.  Will he realize how much he loves me?  Will he realize how much he doesn’t, how much he loves her instead?  Has he missed her these past 10 days that he has not talked to her?  I have decided to my make first, of many, efforts in healing our relationship… I will park and be inside the airport when he gets off the plane (as opposed to sitting curbside waiting for him).  I worry that this decision sends a “doormat” message, that he will think he can get away with what he has done because I will be there.  I want him to see how strong I can be, how I feel that we can get through this, if he chooses me.

If he chooses me… How terrible does that sound?  I am the one who was betrayed, I am the one who feels lost and powerless, I am the one who is stuck with images of the two of them together, yet I am waiting to see if he chooses me.  That is not what I signed up for when I married him.  I signed up for a life of love and support, a life of honesty, a life of obstacles that we overcome together, not ones that bring him into the bed of another woman.  BUT, I signed up for better or worse… I have got to give this everything I have.  For me, for my kids, for my future relationships (should there be any).  THAT is what I am doing.  I am bettering myself for my own future, regardless of who chooses to share that with me.

We had dinner and drinks at a restaurant by the airport and at first the conversation was strained, talking about the whole situation, then it took a turn I never expected.  We flirted and fooled around.  I felt powerful, amazing.  I looked great and felt on top of the world, in a weird, insecure way.  I know that we have never had the sexual relationship that we each deserve and I decided, in an instant, to change that.  We made out like teenagers at the restaurant then finished up in the car before we went our separate ways, me to my home and him his hotel room.  I went to bed feeling renewed, sexually satisfied and hopeful.