So my brother and sister came out to visit and help me pack. this is a few days ago, actually almost a week. they rock. they came out on their own and helped me toss stuff and hung out with me. they even helped me find a place.

my grandma is getting up there in years, and my mom always wants us to take her to dinner. my brother and my grandma are pretty close. me and grandma, not so much. for a long time she has been against my dad, and my dad and i are close. i called and asked if she wanted to go to dinner with us. i hadnt seen her in a day or two, and i wanted to. she and my sis are incredibly close, like two peas in a pod. she loves old people... and loves my grandma. she agreed. i was stoked.

dinner was good. we went to her sister's restaurant, and everyone had a good time. my grandma has started to tell me she is proud of me. it was an emotional dinner and i cried. she worked to sooth me. hand on my knee, on my arm. her touch is so welcome and so familiar. it is like home. we have lost houses and moved a few times together, but it doesnt matter, because she is home. wherever we are.

when we left i told her i loved her and she didnt respond. when i got in the car with my brother and sister i lost it. i have been angry since she left, but havent felt like i could express that. she was running, if i was angry would she run farther? so i have kept my anger inside. it all came out.

my brother and sister said we needed to watch a movie. we went to walmart and my brother bought Fireproof with kirk cameron. a movie about a firefighter that saves his marriage by doing the love dare. so i bought the book. and here i am doing the love dare.

the movie is bad. corny, overacted, and sorta ridiculous, but the message is sweet.

day one, don't say anything negative about your spouse... i can't tell you how easy that is when she doesn't live with you. i didnt talk to her much that day, so i didnt say anything negative about her.

day 3 is buying something small for your spouse that lets them know you are thinking of them. i was walking through walmart and i saw boondock saints 2. the first is her favorite movie ever. we watched it together early in our dating. as soon as i saw it i thought of her and knew it was the right thing. i told her that i was walking through walmart and saw something that made me think of her. so the next day we got to see each other and i gave it to her. i told her it was nothing, but that when i saw it i thought of her and had to get it. she was surprised and grateful. we walked towards walmart, and she put her hand on my back. nice.

day 4 call your spouse sometime during the day for no other reason than to tell her you love her and ask if she needs anything. i tried. she didnt answer. these days that's sorta normal. i left her a message, cuz that was the only option i really had. she didnt really respond. i have tried to call her occasionally since just to say hi and i love you. i don't know if its good or bad, she doesnt really say.

i skipped day 5 and 6 because we are talking about each other a lot in counseling. i didnt really need more negatives about me. i loved day 7 and 8 though.

for day 7 i was to make two lists. one of the qualities i love about her and one that i didnt. i made the list and then as soon as i was done i called her to thank her for one of the qualities that i love about her. i love that she is so caring. i love that she hates not liking someone. i love that it doesnt matter who it is she cares. i told her over text. sometimes thats the only way we get to communicate. i said thanks, and she said thanks for saying that. i think it did hit a little nerve... a good one.

day 8 was even better. i was supposed to take the list of bad qualities and burn it. i was excited. in hawaii we went to a hindu temple and got a private tour. the tour was given by some good friends, and they told us about a bowl at the entrance of the temple that is used for burning letters and papers that list things that people want out of their lives, or want to let go of. this sounded exactly the same. i went to work and burned the paper. it was cathartic. it was like my bad thoughts about her "bad" qualities went away.

i was to tell her something i was proud of after i burned the paper. we were on our way to dinner and i told her how proud i was of her for losing weight lately. not because she was skinnier, but because of the discpline it took for her to stick to it. i told her it just made me so proud, and that i was always proud of her.

day 9 sorta was hard. i was supposed to greet her in a special way... blah. i didnt do very well at it.

i think things are getting better... not very quickly, but getting better.

i like the love dare. i like that it sorta makes me work on myself. i love that i am putting her before me.

i plan on trying to update this every day or two. i want to get all the way to day 40.

There is a part of the ceremony in which my marriage was solemnized not just for this life, but for the rest of life after death that is one of the highlights of my life. there is a symbolic curtain that represents the border between life and death. at one point you bring your wife through to the other side.

its symbolic, but when i did this with my wife i felt as if i was in another place at another time. i knew in that moment that this was a representation of what would happen after we died. of all the moments in my life this is the most treasured. this is the moment that i think about when life is hard. it is the moment that i hold on to when i need direction and meaning in my life.

there is nothing that i want more than to have this moment repeat after i die.

our second appt with the counselor went well. she spoke, and opened up. the counselor talked about how she was feeling and her tears made it clear that she was right. we talked a little. it was good. the counselor left and she grabbed my hand. "i'm so sorry," i said.

"its ok, well its not ok, but we are here." she responded.

she squeezed my hand. is this the vote of confidence. the statement that we are moving forward, however slow. maybe i am naive, but i took it as such. the rest of the appt went well. its her turn to do date night, and we planned a day for it.

we left and went to look at a house. she liked it and seemed happy. she chatted and chatted. i love to hear her talk. i didnt say much, just enjoyed her voice. on the way back to her car i said i was hungry. she suggested we go get dinner. dinner was more of the same, she talked my ear off, and i enjoyed every minute. i dropped her at her car and told her i loved her. she said love you too... i drove home feeling we were moving forward.

at the end of the appt, the counselor told me i needed to relax. i am too intense. she is your friend and is ready to fall in love again. you've made great progress. she seemed to agree with the counselor. so i am feeling that progress has been made, i drove home happy.

fri she was to come down and see some more houses. she woke late and seemed grumpy. i was surprised she came down anyway. we looked at the places and talked some about what we liked best... nothing earth shattering, so i said well i guess you'll go back to your moms...

she didnt seem to know what she was going to do so i said, "you can come back to the house."

i was surprised when she agreed. we cuddled for a few hours. it was unreal... when she was going to bed she said it was a good day.

i am trying to believe we are moving forward, but at least once a day i want to call her and tell her its time to be done. she isn't coming home. she doesn't love me. time to cut our loses.

i don't want to be divorced, and i am not ready to end the possibility that i will pull her through to the other side someday. so i hold on.

Dear XXXX-

Your name has been deleted to protect you. This is the letter I will never send, but I will always wish I had.

You may be a good person. You may have the best of intentions. This may have started innocently.

I can't sit here and bash who you are, your character, or the way you live your life. What you should know however, is there are more people involved her than you and her. Does your wife know? Your child? What would they think? Would they feel betrayed? Hurt? Angry?

I have felt all those things in the last 2 weeks. I know I have made mistakes in my relationship. I may not have pulled the proverbial trigger, but I put the gun in her hand. She looked for things outside our relationship that she wasn't getting within it. I understand my role in this mess, and I accept my culpability in this. However, the real question is why cross the line?

Why create this situation regardless of how pure the motives. Maybe you were just trying to make her feel better, to take away her pain. Noble. It stopped being noble when it started being an affair. When pictures only her husband should have seen changed hands. When the words I love you were no longer platonic. When the discussion included being willing to give yourself over to each other in every way.

If my marriage ended I would be lost; destroyed, but I would have wanted her to find someone else. I don't know how to cope with the fact that while we were married she gave herself to you. Whether it was physical or not, it may have well have been. I don't know how to deal with her sitting on OUR bed talking to you about intimacy. I don't know how to handle her taking pictures of herself in things I bought her and sending them to you. What would you do if your wife did that?

When I found out I told her to choose. She said she choose me. That she wanted to give our marriage a real try. I don't know if she has stopped talking to you. I suspect she hasn't. I can't compete with the fantasy. You have never had to talk to her about money, problems, or have worked with her health. It's easy to be perfect 3 states and reality away. I hope she sees that. The grass is greener because it has more shit in it...

I have assumed so far your motives are pure... or as pure as an affair can be, but what if they aren't. What if it feeds your ego to get a married women to say things to you she should be saying to her husband? What if this isn't the first time you have cheated on your wife. Perhaps this letter should be sent to her.

Leave my wife alone. Respect the promises we have made each other. Try and respect your wife enough to leave her before you start this. From one man to another, try and imagine being blind-sided by this. Maybe this happened to you in your first marriage... if so I can't believe you would cause this pain...

its been a while...

things have gone from bad to worse. she didn't make it on vacation with me. i was sad and hurt. she promised she would be in vegas but she didnt make it there either. the night before vacation she said i love you and i will see you tomorrow. i didnt see her again until nearly 8 days later.

she told me the morning that i was leaving that she didnt want it to be over. i dont want it to be over she said, but thats all i can tell you. i wasnt sure what that meant... i am more sure now.

my brother called me in vegas, you see it is his cell phone account that we are on. he wanted me to know, didnt want me not to know that my wife was spending at least 1.5 hours a day on the phone with a guy in colorado. i had always known. i had even confronted her about it. she had promised it was nothing, over and over.

when i got to my hotel i opened gmail... there they were, she had forwarded texts from her cell to an email acount she didnt think i knew about... or maybe she did. the i love you's and the references to them being intimate together threw me over some sort of proverbial edge. there were pictures as well... it hurt. mostly because some of those things were things i wanted her to say to me... had wanted for years.

i couldnt sleep. i paced. finally i sat down and started to read. it was one of her favorite books i had brought with me. i couldnt read it. it just made me think of the things i had seen. i picked up scripture. when i was young it always calmed me. i thought it would have the same affect. it was better than her book, but not perfect. i read all night.

i called her. it was time. i wanted to wait, but i couldnt. i told her i knew. she cried. she said you know the problems have been going on for longer than he has been in my life... he was a catalyst. i didnt care- that was hurtful. no wonder she had to leave. no wonder she had to go away. she needed space, not from me, but to talk to him.

i told her whatever the problems were she had to choose. she couldnt have us both. she couldnt sit the fence. i told her if she didnt choose we WERE done. that was my decision. i wouldnt try and compete with someone who was perfect on paper, whos crap she hadnt seen. i cant and wont try and beat that.

she said she would need to call me back. she couldnt breath, she was going to puke. ok i said. and hung up.

i had told her that everything about him needed to be erased from her computer, her phone, her facebook.

it was nearly 3 hours later in the car that i noticed he was no longer her friend on facebook.

has she erased everything? i still don't know. i hope so. i want to believe her. i want to be the person that trusts and gets burned... at least then i can say i was doing the right thing. i dont want to not trust and find later i should have.

she called that night, and said that if going to our counselors appt and trying meant he had to be out of her life, then she thought the appt was that important. good i said. we talked. she said she didnt know if it would work. didnt know how she felt anymore. that was hard to hear, but i understood. there had been someone else for at least 2 months...

she said she didnt want to fail, that she was doing this to fail, but there were no guarantees. i agree... no guarantees. we talked about mundane things too... needing to move, do you want to go look at houses with me? i asked. she said she did.

we looked at houses the next day. it was a little uncomfortable, but we were both nervous. it went well. we found a place we liked. then we went to hang out for a bit before she had dinner with her mom and some family. i was a little hurt to not get an invite, but i tried not to let it show.

on the way to the mall she said something about soft skin that reminded me of one of the texts and it made me cry. whats wrong she asked... just a little hurt, im sorry, im ok.

we hung at the mall. i sat close, touched her here and there... she didnt much touch back. i understand, still trying to work through feelings. we talked. it was nice.

her mom got there and she hugged me. thanks she said and she kissed me. ill text you later. ok... and i left.

shes texted a lot since then. more than the previous three weeks combined. thats good i hope.

yesterday was hard. found out some bad news. she hadnt been telling me everything about some other things. i asked her. she apologized... i only screw up with you, she said. i just screw everything up. i dont want to be like this.

i told her i wasnt angry, that i wanted to work on it together, and make it right. today is the first day of our marriage... we start over. no more lies.

ok she said. we start over... i hope that part of starting over is her coming home... today makes 3 weeks.