Reaching Out For Support

About fourteen years ago I was laying on the exam table at the OB's office when the tech looked at me with one of 'those' looks and excused herself.  I was just at the end of my first trimester.  Those words were the last words I ever expected to hear -- ever.  I hadn't been able to get pregnant for ten years.  Wouldn't God let me keep this one?  I can't even begin to explain how excited I was to finally be able to experience pregnancy again, to be able to nurse a baby, to hold a baby that was my very own.  I had been praying for another child for nearly a decade.  The moment that tech let those words out of her mouth the breath and life went out of me.  I knew.  

In that moment it was suddenly physically painfully evident that I was 2,300 miles away from the one person I needed most in my life, my mom.  In those first few moments the fear of having to deal with this experience alone frightened me more than the sadness of losing my child consumed me.  

Being alone in a traumatic situation is one of the worst pieces of life we ever experience. We are not here on this mortal journey to live in solitude.  We are here to experience and share life with the humanity around us.  We need people to connect to.  We especially need someone during the painful times.   

Even though I wanted to hide in a hole from that moment into forever, that day, I was blessed by a wonderful woman who had worked along side me in my church calling.  She came to me, sat next to me and cried with me.  She held my pain.  She held me. I didn't ask for her help.  For me, in that moment, her gift of time was priceless.

I have needed that kind of friend more and more as the effects of life with an addict have taken over my soul.  I never found one.  Worse, I have come to see my friend finding challenge complicated by a set of circumstances that are unique to addiction in the LDS culture.  

Here's my "Top Ten" list of connection complications in an LDS environment:

1.  My visiting teachers (two women who are assigned to "check" on me at least monthly) just showed up at the door.  I can't tell them that the reason I'm a mess this month and don't want to let them in to see the disaster that lies in my wake, is because I just discovered another dirty email between my husband and some other woman.  (And that was just this week's discovery.)

2.  I'm teaching a lesson on the LDS principle of Eternal Marriage.  Except that my marriage has sucked for 25 years.  But I'm going to stand at the front of the classroom and use my best-fake-authentic-self to teach that lesson.  The principle is true -- regardless of whether I have proof that it works.

3.  I've been lied to so much over the years that I look at everyone with suspicion, especially LDS men.

4.  Some weeks (days) it seems I need a blessing every other hour (and that is me being patient).  Since my husband can't do that, I wonder how much the sister down the street would mind me calling her husband over every other hour -- to keep me from loosing it.

5.  I can't offer to help you because the day you need my help I might be in a fetal position on the floor of my shower stall while I empty the water heater and my eyes of all liquid.  

6.  I can't stand up on fast Sunday to bear testimony and mention how much I love my husband and am so grateful to know we will be together forever. 

7.  I can't publicly announce that my husband has just been excommunicated and for the next 14-28 months I'm going to be a wreck and have the Adversary's constant companionship even more so.

8.  We're taught to 'bear one another's burdens' in the church except that I can't EVER tell you what burden of mine I need you to shoulder.  It might cause gossip, or rat out my husband or something equally embarrassing or shameful.

9.  I can't call up the Relief Society president and tell her I need to be added to the compassionate service list because my kids haven't had a hot meal for two weeks due to my husband's recent relapse.  The only thing to eat in the house anyway is Oreos and Dorritos, neither of which are good served hot.  

10.  No one sits next to you in meetings since your husband has been inactive these last three years.  I think because you can smell "spouse of sex addict" on the wife  -- which is really disgusting for all sorts of reasons I won't go into now.

Unlike the more familiar top-ten lists, mine is in no particular order.  Each of them is really #1.  I also have tried to share these scenarios with a bit of humor, in spite of, how very real and familiar they are to me.  I hope more than anything there are those who have lovely stories of friends who have really been there for them.  

I learned a long, long time ago, that I don't go to church to see my friends or to feel accepted.  I go to church to worship my Heavenly Father and to enrich that relationship with him and the Savior.  Had I not been granted the wisdom of this blessing, I don't know how I would have survived 'the Church' and an addict husband.

I'm sure none of the sisters in my ward (or in any ward where this may happen) would ever be unkind to me if they really knew what my life had been like.  How could anyone, trying to live a Christ-like life judge or gossip about a wife who has been through the hell I have been through?  The problem is, no one knows, which leaves them to 'draw' their own conclusions (judge).


 This 'mission' I accepted in the pre-existence is NOT like your mom's cancer, or your brother's kids' autism, or the car accident that Sister Soandso's daughter was just in.  I know those are difficult conditions to go through -- but those typically work themselves out. Besides, on top of addiction, I've had some of those other trials too.  The truth is, sexual addiction is disgusting.  Its shameful.  Its embarrassing to talk about.  Its something we'd all rather pretend isn't plaguing society or our ward families more and more each year.  We like our collective ward's head in the sand rather than face reality and be real with each other.  Can't I just have a trial where my husband has trouble getting a job?  Because at least the ward might fast for me (maybe).

Don't feel sorry for me.  Feel badly for a society or culture that has allowed this kind of condition to exist.  I've learned to survive it.  I've learned to live in my private world and not let bitter eat me alive (though you probably doubt that reading this post).  This is my truth and it can be difficult to hear truth at times.  The up side is,  I know I will have learned from living it.  

Reaching out for support does not always yield the expected results.  I keep trying.  Yesterday I plead my case to my Relief Society president. It was a brave move on my part.  She is a new president, but I felt impressed to be open.  She came straight over after reading my e-mail.  She sat on my front porch and listen to me tell my story of being fake in a culture where I yearn to be genuine.  Even though we cannot fix this -- she heard me.  She gave up her time to listen and to love me in all my broken, friendlessness.  

Empathy is an amazing balm to the wounded soul.