This week

I sat with a complete stranger in his living room as he got drunk and cried like a baby while his wife - a new friend - was inside packing up to leave him. Said wife is now staying with me while she looks for a place.

I know why she had to leave him and I thought I agreed with her reasoning. But how could she? If she ever loved him - or even if she didn't - how could she withstand seeing him in so much pain?

Not sure whether I should admire her strength of mind or be put-off by the apparent lack of concern on her part. She doesn't seem unhappy to me at all. Nothing like you'd expect a woman whose marriage just broke down to be. And that makes me uncomfortable somehow.

But then I don't have all the details. Who really knows what's going on in a marriage? Other then people involved. Sometimes not even them.

Look how much I don't know about mine.

My husband isn't happy she's staying with me. Or maybe he is unhappy that he'd never heard of her until he called and I was out and she happened to answer the phone.

But not as unhappy as I was to go on facebook and find pics showing work that he's been doing on his house. Not his parent's house. His house - which is about an hour's drive away. If he can get away to paint and change wallpaper and work in the garden and fix things there then why can't he get away to see me?

I don't know. I just don't like it that he's been getting out so much and is not 24/7at his father's bedside. Only I'm not going to say anything. Just like he didn't say anything about the friend he doesn't know who is staying with me.

More things I found out about him that he hasn't told me and that we have yet to discuss:

1) The drinking has stopped but he doesn't pray anymore.
2) He reads a lot - mostly work-related stuff.
3) H's going back to work in May.
4) He hasn't looked up old friends or let anyone know he's back in town. And when people find out and call or come to visit he generally doesn't like it. He tends to do everything on his own and avoid company as much as possible.
5) He's converting one of the bedrooms into a walk-in closet for me. Spends a lot of time working on it.

No.5 is exasperating. I am always complaining about all the stuff am having to get rid of because his old room can only hold so much and I don't want to take over his parent's house with my stuff. So he decides to do something about that. Great. Wonderful. But why not SAY SOMETHING? I mean, doesn't he think I need to know that I now have all this extra space and may therefore keep some of the stuff I'd planned to get rid of?

So what DO we talk about? Lately not very much. We keep it light and meaningless. I spend a lot of time thinking up things to say or text that will make him smile. The exercise makes me smile too.

I email him lots of pics. Sexy pics. Funny pics. Sometimes he sends me pics too. The pics seem to set the tone of our next phone call.

He still makes me laugh as effortlessly as he always could. Provided of course I don't ask too many questions or 'act like a wife'. And provided I don't cry or go all emotional and yucky on him.

Doesn't always work of course. Still happens that one of us is in the mood to push it and then things can really degenerate.

There's still a lot of unacknowledged tension just below the surface which is why talking about anything heavy isn't really an option.