Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

Anne was tired last night. As we watched TV together, she started talking about going to bed. I was nowhere near ready for bed, but her eyes were getting heavy. I didn’t want her to go without me. I mean I REALLY didn’t want her to go upstairs without me. Over the past year, she had headed up to our room a lot while I sat in front of the TV. Many of those nights she went up to chat with her friend on the phone. The thought of her going upstairs without me had triggered memories and feelings that hurt.
The contact between Anne and Dick (not her friend’s real name, but the first one to pop in my head) had developed quite some time ago. It didn’t seem like something I should be threatened by, and any troubles I had with it were dismissed as irrational in my mind. As the contact increased, I became less and less comfortable with it. There were so many nights that I wanted to go up and tell her to hang up the phone. There were many nights I thought about going up and just distracting her off the phone by kissing her neck or some other intimate contact. What if I had acted on these thoughts at the time? If I had voiced my feelings then, would we be in this now? What had kept me from her? The more I thought these thoughts, the more troubled I became. The fact was that as the situation developed, I became afraid of what I might learn if I tried to stop their contact. I was feeling that maybe he had become more important to her than me. What if that feeling was true? I told myself I was being stupid, held my feelings in, and gave her my blessing to continue. I told myself I was being supportive. I told myself that keeping my feelings to myself was the way to be a good husband. The idea that what I thought was being a good husband might be exactly what allowed this to happen was a disturbing thought.
It is obvious to me now, that I need to reexamine what it is to be a good husband. I certainly don’t have it nailed down yet, but one thing is obvious. It doesn’t center on keeping things to myself. Anne and I are getting better because we are talking to each other. Every thought and feeling gets aired and discussed. If holding in did, in fact, contribute to what happened, then communication is the key to healing.
I don’t know there is anything I can do to stop drifting to thoughts of what I did wrong. I do know that those thoughts are painful and distracting. What I should have done or could have done before is irrelevant now. That doesn’t keep them from coming to mind. I guess I just need to focus on using those thoughts to create a new, better future.
Don