2014 refections start here...

Just a short one today to reassure you that I’m ok - just been monstrously busy for about 4 months now.  Another month or two of pushing and hopefully I can relax a little.  She says.  She is also filled with doubt about that.  I think I just keep telling myself that to try to keep going!

I was prompted to write really by an email that I sent to a friend this morning.  Feeling in a very reflective mood today, I was thinking about my relationship with my wife and why I’ve stayed and even more, why I left and came back.  It is fundamentally that I care about our kids and her - and that however confusedly I feel about our relationship, that I highly prize our friendship.

But anyway, in the email, I wrote, “Knowing that the one person I care about the most hates the real me and only wants to love me when I pretend to be someone else is actually heartbreaking.”

I know I’ve covered this before here, but it was a timely reminder that bought tears to my eyes.

At the end of the year you do reflect and my conclusion is that professionally 2014 has been a great year.  For Rhiannon, its one that I would rather forget to be honest.  I’ve gone a long way backwards: in health terms, in confidence, in time actually spent being me, in having fun shopping for shoes :o), in times out with friends.  I thought that I’d done all that for the right reasons until that sentence flowed from my mind earlier and I realised instead that I’m still trying to maintain a relationship by pretence.  I want to be loved for 100% of who I am, not for just the “acceptable” bits.

Another friend recently has reminded me how short our time is - and having reached 40 this year, I’m at least a third of the way through my life now :o).

2015 needs to be a different year altogether.