Ok, I shouldn’t be typing. My arms hurt. But I’m frantically repeating stuff in my head and I won’t be able to put it down until I do.

I’m worried about things with my cousin because of my tendency to jump into relationships with both feet and enmesh as much as is permitted. It’s complicated with my actual family as opposed to a friend I’m just meeting, but complicated doesn’t mean all good.

This specific family member is on the outs with the entire rest of my family because she’s got super fierce boundaries and she don’t take no shit off of nobody. If you have to stand in a room with my sister that will lead to fireworks. Most of my family is on my abusive, rapist sister’s side of everything for reasons I will never understand. So folks like me and the cousin who won’t genuflect and kiss the Godfather’s ring are… not popular.

I don’t play that kind of game with abusive bullies. Ask me about a friendship that went south last year. Or not.

She’s 7 years younger than me. I’ve known her for almost all of my life. We have only ever sporadically spent time together but we get along well when we do. I can’t recall us ever having a big flaming fight even though both of us have done so with every other member of the family. (This might be convenient memory… but I don’t think so.)

This has the potential to fill the hole that I have tried so desperately to fill for so many years with friends. The thing about friends is, they share what they have going spare and then they go back to their families. That’s not wrong. I’m not saying I’m angry at them.

I’m saying that for most of my life when it is time to go have family time that meant I was alone or finding some person to fuck me for a night because no one wanted more from me than that.

My life is so different now. I am cherished. I am appreciated. I am loved. I am cared for. My husband is a god damn miracle.

Oh hey, there’s something else I need to write down because it is eating me from the inside. I haven’t written the accolades that Noah deserves to receive. For the past year and some since I cheated, Noah buckled down. He didn’t reject me. He didn’t long-term punish me. He didn’t continue lashing out and making my life miserable even though I hurt him quite a bit.

Instead Noah spent some months pulling into himself a little more and then he turned to me like a flower seed getting water after a long drought. He has stepped up his game in basically every area. He is doing more household chores, more scheduling of day to day stuff. He has pretty much entirely taken over date planning (after I complained bitterly that I did it for years) and he’s so much better at it than me. He gives me menus of options for dates. He asks what I’m physically and emotionally up for.

Noah is so miraculous to me. The way Noah loves me isn’t really about filling my needs, though it does. He loves me this way to fill a hole in himself and I am just lucky enough to get to be the beneficiary. Noah decided that in this life he is going to be a good husband and a good father and he is going to do whatever the fuck he needs to do to be those things.

I feel in awe of him. I work hard. I change myself to be better at having relationships. Noah blows my god damn mind.

If you had asked me before we got married if I thought Noah would end up doing this much for me I would have laughed so hard I would have fallen out of a chair.

And now he treats me like I am the most precious thing he has ever been lucky enough to touch. Even though I’m frustrating and difficult and so expensive… he loves me.

I have said for a long time that I wondered if I would feel the frantic searching need for more sex partners if I had adult women family members. Phew. I guess we are going to find out.

My cousin has expressed several times that she would really like it if I contacted her basically daily. She doesn’t have anyone checking in on her except for her housemate who is a friend from middle school.

(Don’t knock those middle school friends. Those people are the fucking rocks that you build your world on.)

Talking to my cousin is interesting because on one hand I feel this soaring feeling in my chest. I feel so lucky and happy and loved and this is beautiful. She knows me. She knows my family. She knows our history. And she loves me. I also feel very small. Because my cousin has most of my problems and none of my support.

Where the fuck is her Noah?

Almost no one on this whole planet is lucky enough to find a partner who is as supportive as mine. And I don’t treat him as well as he deserves.

I really need to work on that. Just like he has worked so hard on treating me how I want to be treated.

Even if he is a white man, he’s worth it.