Tonight I have a date with Jacob. A real date! With two kids, I'm sure everyone can imagine how difficult it is to plan an event like this. :-) I can't say it's completely sans kiddos, but my baby son will be in bed before anything interesting happens anyway. He is not a handful so long as I keep him well fed.

Jacob and I have been exploring new parts of our relationship. Watching Joshua fall in love brought back a lot of memories and helped us to appreciate each other. It also brought us out of the hohum of everyday life. So tonight, we have a date. I wish I had the money to buy a new bedroom sheet set to spruce up the room, but I don't, so we'll just have to make the best with what we have. I do fully intend to make wine part of this evening so perhaps we won't even notice our surroundings...

Joshua has his turn at the end of the night. Things have changed a bit for us since I have begun an e-mail friendship with his lover. Getting to know her has helped me a lot--to make her a real person with real dreams and a real life outside of the internet. She lives in a different time zone, so one nice thing is that she is sometimes tied up until it is late for us--which means I get the family time for us and then can go to bed. Because of our date, I have made plans for us until midnight, and I asked her if that would work for her as well. Now I don't have the feeling of, "Oh, she had better be okay with it because I was here first." At this point, I understand that she is quite willing to take turns, which makes it so much easier for me. So I sent her an e-mail to say, "Hi, how are you, etc., what about 9 your time tonight?" And she writes back, a rather lengthy e-mail (responding to another e-mail I had sent) and says, "Oh yes, 9 is great, I won't even be home until 8." And so now I feel all the better because I can enjoy every moment of my time and then say, "Okay, your turn." What will I do at midnight? Who knows. I might read. Or maybe type on our laptop.

Have a lovely weekend!

Life is sometimes normal...

Sometimes life seems so terribly normal. Why do I have this blog, again? Why should I spend my time explaining to the faceless internet what my life is like? But something in me is encouraging me, and surprisingly enough, my husband is also pushing me to keep writing and get it all out.

I have to confess that I'm not in the mood to type a play by play of watching a switch happen, but I suppose I can type a list of "Some things you may not know about DID!" (And in my head, that is said in a very chipper, annoying voice as if we are talking about a cute but rare animal.)

1. DID isn't always caused by rape or sexual abuse, but rather, any sort of trauma that is so great that the personality must split in order to protect itself.

2. That said, DID is a way of protection. If a person is not strong enough to handle a situation, an alter forms to protect the host (the main personality) from being damaged. This alter may then "soak up" any abuse that would otherwise harm the host. You may think of it as a situation where a man jumps in front of another in order to take the oncoming bullet.

3. It is speculated that DID is a form of self hypnosis, and therefore, anyone who is easily hypnotized is especially vulnerable.

4. Schizophrenics do not have multiple personalities--they have the equivalent of an alternative world in their head. To learn about them, read "I never promised you a rose garden."

5. Not all people with DID are aware that they have another personality. Frequently they will simply "lose time" which would be when an alter is out and they are unaware of their surroundings. A good book to describe DID is "Sybil" (of course, a classic psych text).

6. Treatment usually involves hypnosis to merge all the personalities back into one. It can be a very long, painful process, and it is not the best solution for everyone.

7. Because of the split, the host (or main personality) may be unaware the abuse even occurred. Remember, the alter soaked up any abuse and altered any memories that may have suggested the occurrences. All this was done in order to protect the sanity of the host.

8. In nearly every person, there is one alter who is aware of all and is in charge of protecting all. That personality can be the key to any sort of therapy.

9. Alters usually interact with each other in the mind.

10. Not all alters know everything. One might excel at something another cannot do. I believe it was in Sybil where one alter has lived through an entire school year, and therefore was the only one with that book knowledge.

11. You remember the part about childhood sexual abuse? Most people with DID are women. One man that comes to mind, however, is the author of a very, very good book called "First person plural."

Okay, Jacob, okay, Joshua...how did I do?

You see? This is what happens...

After a long weekend and a lot of thought, I have come here to explain, in part, what has been going through my head since I last posted.

First, there was the feeling that I didn't need this blog any more since the "crisis" had passed after two arguments between the two lovers. They were done, and I was thankfully prepared to go on with how my life had been working before I got mixed up with their relationship. However, they managed to mend their ways, which prompted my last entry on here. An argument ensued between myself and both my husband and his alter, and we'll just say it was messy. Things were resolved Saturday morning, shortly before I left to visit family. Now, I am back to work, the kids are back where they belong, and my mind is settled (for now, at least).

I started this blog as a place to vent when things were not going well, but I feel like perhaps it would be nice to vent even when things are okay. After all, how can I expect anyone to understand when I only come here during my worst moments? But as a part of that, I also must be so very careful to protect our own lives so that our identity is not for public knowledge.

So I suppose I will close this short entry by naming us, for my own ease of writing. I have a baby boy, a little girl, a husband named "Jacob" and his alter named "Joshua", and Joshua has a lover named "Emily." (And for the record, I picked those names based off of top twin names and top girl name so there could be no connection between real and fake names).

Tonight, Emily will not be available, so Jacob and I will be doing a few things together on the computer before bed. Last night she was available, but was teaching Jacob and Josh how to do something new with paint shop pro. I was taking notes before I fell asleep on the chair (loooong weekend). As a favor to me, Jacob was the one spending time with me, and Josh merely led the words to Emily. And to explain, I will have to promise a future entry dedicated to outlining conversation with the two of them....

I
am
not
okay.

Here we are again

I go through phases, really. This morning after talking, I was feeling wonderful, like everything could definitely work out with no problems.
And then, I felt lonely.
Right now I am counting down until 1 a.m. Why should I wait? Why should I be in any way put out? I didn't sign up to be one of many. When we conceived my son, we didn't think any of this would become an issue. And now, this lovely internet woman would like to bear a child to my husband's other side.
Yes, if you are reading that and thinking this is insane, yes, you are absolutely right. Yes! I am not strange; I am not so different from you. This isn't a crazy house! This is a house with a 4 year old step daughter and a 6 month old son. This is a man who holds a quite normal, everyday job with quite normal friends. We don't come home and suddenly turn into different people...we come home and argue about the same household issues and look forward to dinner dates out together.
So, how in the world would this work? Would we all live in a house, a la Big Love? Do we somehow schedule time with each other? Well, for right now, yes, we do. And as lonely and empty as I felt today, well, I managed extra time. And as I'm sitting with my husband I'm half thinking of what would happen if I just said no, I am not okay, this is not okay, I will not share. And I could. I know I could.
Why not?
Because this "other man" is so happy right now. This man who never thought he could have his own relationship like mine with my husband, well, now he is experiencing love for the first time. He knows, very well, that in actuality this will never quite work. But he hopes. He hopes and he plans and he prepares to be disappointed. And simply because I care for him as well, I hope and plan right along with him.
But that doesn't make it okay for me. That doesn't keep me company while I wait downstairs.
1:04 a.m. My turn.

and the solution is...?

...stay? Leave? Have an affair? Become so obsessed with my children that I don't notice? Find a hobby? Sleep more? Lose weight? Become religious again?

I suppose the answer is that there is no good answer. I love my husband, period. And I can't say that he's having an affair, because an affair implies secrecy, perhaps a loss of love on one side, etc. However, my husband loves me, and is in no way interested in another woman. It gets complicated to explain the dynamics of how there is another personality involved, another man with an entirely different attitude, voice, range of interests, name, etc. But this "other man" whom I also care for (though not romantically) has finally found someone of his own. In the nearly 3 years that we have been married, this has never quite happened before. There were women online that stayed online, but this is an online woman who would like to enter the real world.

This woman knows the details, as a matter of fact, I spoke with her myself. She understands the "roles" and even gave me the nickname "head momma." And honestly, she is a dear woman, someone that I would love to have among my friends. But when I'm on here, or out, or sleeping, she is on the phone enticing the same body that I used to entice. Eventually she would like to visit (she lives some distance away) and meet the man she is speaking with. And for whatever length of time that she is here, that means me, putting aside my desires for companionship with my husband.

I feel that I am rambling in my attempt to convey my feelings. If it were as simple as an affair, I could go to anyone, or the internet, and say simply, "My husband is having an affair." And then I would face the choice of either forgiving him and staying, or leaving. No one would doubt me, or have questions, because really, aren't affairs as old as time? But involve a mental disorder and suddenly the waters are so muddled. What does it mean to have DID? Am I SURE it isn't my husband? And in the end, it always ends the same way, "You are such a wonderful person for going through this. I could never do it. I could never be as understanding as you are."

Maybe I'm not so understanding. Maybe I just don't know how else to be.

Are you there?

Upstairs, my husband is having phone sex with his internet lover.
Downstairs, I am on the internet, listening to the background noise of late night television, trying, above all, not to visualize.
And I thought just maybe, there is someone out there that would like to listen, or would listen and would give me a purpose to these lonely nights.
My husband is a multiple. I am an only wife.