The Battle of Recovery

I'm going through a rough patch again.  I can't figure out if it is me expecting too much of H, or if the past 25 years are just weighing too heavy on me.  H tells me, "I'll never get past this."  Man, I hope that isn't true.

Yet, I keep wondering...

I think I'm getting past some of it, slowly maybe.

Doesn't having him back after all the women he has been with earn me a few pats on the back?

Not from H.

Lately, it feels like H thinks its no big deal and I should just put it all behind me and move on.

I was laying in bed the other night, unable to sleep when it dawned on me that I was never given that blessing I asked for after this all happened.  There was so much going on right then when H came back home.  Phone calls and meetings with both the bishop and stake president that I feel like I was sloughed to handle the more weightier matter of welcoming the prodigal son.

 -- Maybe all this is stirring up because we have missed two counseling sessions.
 -- Maybe its all the anger I see in H again.
 -- Maybe we need more recovery work, but counseling, recovery manuals and 12-step groups cost a lot of money that we don't have right now while we are trying to get our other home painted and on the market.

It just doesn't feel right lately.

We don't have family, prayer or scripture study, and if it wasn't for D, who loves to teach Family Home Evening, that wouldn't happen either.  D and I continue with our dailies during the day when H is away.  My pleas for H to join with us in this continue to fall on deaf ears (or is it a deaf heart?).

The afternoon we returned from H's disciplinary counsel,  we sat down to talk about what needed to change in our family, home and marriage to make it through this year of him being excommunicated. We talked about making sure the basics of prayer and scriptures were done.  We talked about changes that would help us have a more spiritual and peaceful Sabbath.   We talked about him ramping up to become that spiritual leader that he was supposed to have been all along.    A year isn't a long time to get right all the things that have been wrong these past many years.  He agreed that afternoon.
But since that conversation --


Nothing!

Some where during the years of all this addiction, probably even before that as a young boy in a dysfunctional home, H learned to emotionally disconnect.  The worry of never being right, or good enough weighed on his little boy self until it has exacerbated into this huge adult issue.  Our conversations crash into this issue constantly.

There is a really good article on the broken brain of an addict that I really like.  His breakdown of the difference of the brain verses the mind I especially like.  It explains a lot of why H and I are struggling with how we process the issues between us.


You can find that here - (http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=49850&cn=1408).

When I'm down and struggling with the weight of all of this I like to read this post:

  http://rowboatandmarbles.org/cannot-fathom-pain-sex-addiction-caused-wife.html

It reminds me that this addiction brings 'unfathomable pain' to the wife.  For me, pulling babies out of toilets when miscarrying was no where near as hard as this.  I was sure then, that my heart was broken beyond repair as I sat there holding the life-less body of the baby I desperately wanted a chance to love and raise.

Back then, I didn't know about the carnage of the soul that happens to a wife of a sex addict.  I know it well now.  Miscarriage does not hold a candle to this pain.

I don't know how long I will fight this battle of recovery.  I don't know, nor could I possibly be expected to tell what bumps and bruises might occur along this path.  What I do know is that one day I expect to be whole, but that won't be in this life.  While I walk the path of mortality, I can hope for a solid grasp on recovery,  regardless of what H does.  No, I won't be 'cured'.   I will still have the scars of this trial.  I will still work a recovery program of sorts all my days.

"Accessing the Atonement does not mean we rid ourselves of the consequences of our actions"  (Or the actions of others)


I continue to work on forgiving my husband for his actions, but that does not mean that I continue to accept mistreatment.  I continue to strive to keep our marriage together, as long as H works to do the same.  At the same time, I continue to work on me.  I continue to strive to allow the atonement to heal the broken and abused pieces of my heart.  I continue to trust my Heavenly Father that all will be made right one day.  

Recovery is not an event.  I'm trying to remind myself of that today.