Sounds like a good stick. I could use a good stick like that. I'd hammer big nails into it, plant it in my front yard and hang bright blue and dark red bottles from it so it could catch the light when the sun set. Yeah, sounded like a really good stick--like the cardboard boxes refrigerators come in. Those are good boxes. You could make forts out of those boxes. And if you had a really good stick, too? Well, shit.

Man, you are lucky.

Do you really want to forgive him?

"Should I believe him and move on and keep letting him re-prove himself..."

The part about him "re-proving" himself is not exactly you moving on--or you believing him, for that matter.

And then, there's this:

"Being the doormat I may be, I have decided to begin the process of forgiveness, and make our marriage stronger (for our two young kids, if nothing else)."

If you really intend to forgive and move on then work toward that. If you can't forgive and move on then work toward having a healthy relationship with your children's father outside of marriage. Your children's health and happiness depend on a good marriage, not just an intact one.

This obsession with the other woman, passive aggressive thinking and behaviors and using painkillers to "cope" sounds miserable and can't be good for your children.

Pain, anger, yelling, silence, drama--overlayed with a graphic sexual component--it's addictive. If you remain in this space, no amount of groveling, pleading, GPS tracking devices will get you to trust your husband again.

Stop it with the painkillers, take a break from the internet and see a counselor to work through it, however it turns out.

@ Brian

Preventative health care is *much* cheaper in regards to the management of chronic health conditions such as asthma, hypertension, diabetes--to name a few.

If you are being treated for your diabetes and have enough insulin and injection supplies, you are less likely to end up in the emergency room in a diabetic coma. Keeping a diabetic relatively healthy--roughly $8-10,000 a year. Emergency room admits for a diabetic crisis--$12-20,000 per incident.

I work with children and families dealing with chronic conditions. When families have to choose paying the rent vs proper doses of insulin, they tend to try to avoid homelessness and stretch the doses as thinly as possible. That results in poorly managed diabetes and a very sick person who will end up in the ER eventually--usually, multiple times a year.

If you have access to a yearly exam that maybe finds that you're hypertensive, you can get treated before you blow out your kidneys and end up in dialysis. Blood pressure meds--$300/yr. Dialysis--$1400 per treatment x 3 times a week = a lot more. (Medi-Cal rates)

Get that mole on your arm checked while it is a simple, inexpensive procedure to remove. Or eschew prevention and wait until it metastasizes to your liver and spine and you spend your life's savings on surgery and chemo.

Prompt medical management of no-chronic illness is also cheaper. A person walking into the ER for an earache costs $5000-6000. Making an appointment and seeing a MD for an exam and antibiotics-- $175-250.

So, no. Preventative health care is not more costly.

Right you are.

Key words: "I don't know Cary Tennis."

I don't know you so I wouldn't write something horribly judgmental about you, that actually reflects badly on me like, say, "You sound fat." See? Isn't that ugly?

But, whatever. You win the internet.

P.S.

Wouldn't be cool to have x-ray vision? I wonder, though, would you give yourself radiation poisoning? You'd be all like born with these badass x-ray eyes, only to die of bone cancer at aged nine or something. That would suck. What about MRI eyes? But then you'd always have to worry about to much iron in your diet. You'd be all anemic and couldn't get any prison tattoos.

I can't believe you guys didn't get the joke.

Cary's got a column and you don't. Don't hate.

I am always at the right place at the right time.

I witness crimes and adultery. I overhear terrible secrets and pluck old ladies from the paths of speeding buses. I get stuck in elevators with movie stars. I hear prissy women fart. I stood in Long's Drugs in Palos Verdes for 20 minutes with Whoopie Goldberg and debated whether to buy Robitussin, Robitussin D or Robitussin DM. I walk by and people stop me to tell me about their drug addict children.

Maybe I'm at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the wrong time. The wrong place at the right time.

Anyway, it's weird. My friends always ask me, "How do you know that?" and I say, "Because I was there."

Maybe I'm invisible. That would be cool.

But not as cool as being able to fly.