So... here I am. Again. Well, not *here* again, but somewhere... again. My internet connection is tenuous at best, so who knows what updating will be like. I guess we'll find out.

I'm tired. It's the end of a long day and a not very good one at that. I moved out as of yesterday, got as much of my stuff as I could in two car loads and left. It's only temporary, I need to think and decide. Who I am, what I want, where I'm going, what I can give. You know, the little questions in life. I though when I had the conversation last night... on the phone, that is, that it was going to be okay. My marriage counselor even called this morning to promise that it wouldn't be an ambush.

Sure didn't feel like it to me. I felt very attacked. Mostly by my husband. The therapist was good, trying to keep this from degenerating into precisely what it did. But my husband is pissed. As if I chose to do what I did. I've said a thousand times, I didn't go looking to have any kind of affair, emotional or otherwise, sometimes love just happens. But he was so confrontational. And it only got worse when I tried to leave.

I left the office, went to the ladies' room and then out to my car. Where he was waiting. I didn't particularly want to talk to him, and I walked around him to get in my car. When I tried to shut the door he blocked it with his body. I asked him to move. I told him to move. I said I didn't want to talk anymore right then. He goaded me into an explosion that I hope does not cause any pain to the man I love, (the not-my-husband one, that is) but truth be told I have no idea what my husband did after I left him. I tried to shut the door, he blocked it open with his body. By now I was pretty damn furious. So... I made a point. I dropped the car into reverse and hit the gas. And he responeded by pushing back against the door hard, so that I had to stop or lose my door. Then he leaned in with a very ugly expression on his face and I don't even remember what he said, I was so upset at this point. I asked him again to let me leave. I told him I didn't want to talk to him. I told him to move. I tried to close the door again. He kept it open with his body and by force. I finally said I was tired of being physically restrained in this marriage. He insisted he was not restraining me physically and I pointed out that he was using his body to keep me from leaving when I'd told him repeatedly that I didn't want to talk anymore because I was angry. That was when he spit out, "Fine!" and stalked off.

I had to go home, I had a couple things I'd left there that I wanted. I had to pick up my prescriptions at the pharmacy in town. I was going to pick up my daughter and take her home, but one of the first things he said to me at the car was that he was going to do it. So when she called I told her Dad was going to pick her up. She told me she'd just talked to Dad and I was supposed to pick her up, Dad was already home. I had no desire to have a confrontation with him *again* so I chatted with her on the phone until I was past where I might see him and then told her to call him. I told her why, too. No details, only that we'd had an argument and I didn't want to see him again just then.

I have the name of a lawyer that specializes in Elder Care Law, I need to call her tomorrow, as soon as I have time. I told my husband this, and he came back in a nasty voice that I'd better make sure I do something about it or he'd get the state involved. And add to that he's pissed at me that Mom didn't remember this morning what I'd told her yesterday about my leaving. Well, I sort of expected that, she has *no* short term memory. But it's as if this is all my fault. Every last bit of it.

We've been having problems for nearly four years. The are the result of actions and inactions on both our parts. But if I hear him say one more time that he doesn't want to debate "whether he jumped or was pushed," I'm going to scream! As if, either way, he took some unhappy road down and everything was roses for me. How about whether I jumped or was pushed? You know I may have withdrawn from him in some respects and perhaps I didn't do a very good job of handling the relationship during that time, but I'm not the only one who fucked it up. Nasty has its own rewards, and he was plenty nasty to me.

He said today that one of the things he was upset about was that he felt something that was exclusively his was taken from him. What he doesn't see is that he threw it aside and treated it as if it had no value. When someone else entered the picture, suddenly it was all possessiveness from him. I'm not an object. I am a person. With thoughts and feelings and wants and needs. If you're going to kick around and trample on those things, can you blame me, could you blame anyone, for liking it when someone treated them with gentleness and respect?

He was my friend, my not-husband love. Just a friend. Who listened to me. Cared about me. And yes, desired me. I can't apologize for liking the way that felt. We talked. A lot. I got to know him, and he me, much better than we ever expected, I think. And without meaning to, without ever thinking that it would be possible, I fell in love with this gentle, caring, deeply spiritual, loving, giving man.

Things pretty much suck right now. I don't know how to save my marriage. I could, of course, "repent" and vow never to do it again. But that doesn't fix what's been wrong for four years. It doesn't change the man who has physically blockaded me on more than one occasion. I can't and I won't take the blame for everything that's wrong. And if his answer to the problems involve intimidating me into what he wants, I don't honestly know if I want to continue this marriage.

The other man I love has been forbidden to have contact with me. I don't blame him or his wife one bit. She probably feels much the same way my husband does now. The difference? They have a good marriage. They love each other and respect each other (though some would argue that falling in love with another woman goes counter to that). She wants his undivided attention. I can't blame her for that one bit. But he was my friend before he was my love and not being able to talk to him hurts. Hurts a lot. And to have everyone pounding on me, "So are you going to leave him alone?" doesn't help.

I'm tired of all this. I'm tired of being made out to be the bad guy. I'm tired of being treated as if I caused all this. That it's all my fault. Love is a gift, it shouldn't be a burden. I didn't go looking for it, it came and found me. And I never took anything that wasn't freely given. Or at least I thought was freely given. I don't know anymore. Mabye it was all in my head. Maybe it is all so much fantasy, as was implied today. I love him, I can't define why, just I love him. Perhaps if I could single out the reasons, enumerate each one and present an argument for and against, perhaps I could eradicate the pain that slices through me every day. The eternal mystery for me is what he ever saw in me. I am like a hurricane, brining destruction and devastation in my wake. They name them after women for a reason, you know.

This isn't self-pity talking. It's exhaustion. It's frustration. It's feeling all alone. Am I the only one who cannot accept that this is the end of a friendship that means so much? My love did not die ten days ago simply because I was handed a judgement. I believe, I want to believe, that his did not either. But I don't know anymore. Everyone blames me, no one wants me to even stay friends with him. I guess I just have to wonder if it isn't time to just walk away. From everything.

I'm tired. It's late. What I want, what I need, seem unimportant. Even to me. God, please help me get through just one more day. We'll deal with the rest after that...