These few bits serve as very lonely sign posts stretched out across the valley between a Pilgrim’s mind and his heart…

This journal is now truly the only place left to me.

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I sneaked a look into her e-mail after telling her I would not. I can’t really imagine myself confessing to it. I tried, but all I can really imagine is how to minimize it, how to justify it, how to explain it away. So now I’m sitting here with a secret too.

How could I possibly bring up any of my issues now with the chance that she’ll just look at me with a calm, superior demeanor and say…”well you went back on your word and looked at a private e-mail…so YOU can’t be trusted.

Wouldn’t that just make everything peachy? I’m a fucking idiot with no impulse control…that’s the problem. I’m a fucking idiot.

I could just confess and defuse the whole thing…or rather: set off the bomb right in my own face by confessing.

Or I could just shut-up and take it. That seems to be the theme of the last year or so. Shut-up and take it. I will wear the badge of “sneak” for having looked at that e-mail. I will wear the badge of adulterer for having looked at porn. I will wear the badge of liar…hell, I’ve worn THAT one forever.

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I confessed about the e-mail…so the power struggle I was worrying about is over: she’s in the driver’s seat. At least I confessed for the right reasons: I couldn’t get near God with that sin hanging over me, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I’m stuck. We’re in the same place we were months ago…the place we were in 18 months ago: We’re hiding from each other.

She still doesn’t understand that THAT’S the point! Whatever has happened certainly carries with it a great deal of pain, but it’s nothing compared with the on-going pain of knowing she hides, she deliberately keeps me out of her life. That has always been the center of my pain, and nothing has changed.

But she doesn’t see that. She sees that repentance has occurred…and that’s good.  But my offense comes from being shut-out. From being treated like a little brother who has to be kept out of the club-house, and not like a man who can choose for himself.

From the beginning of this whole fucked-up episode she’s not understood this. Our counselor has not understood it, her new found sympathizers don’t care, and the “old” community are wrapped up in their own dysfunctions, needs and philosophizing…so I’m hanging out here all by myself.