Things I Do Not Like

Now that recovery is my way of life H and I spend a lot of time frustrated with each other. Even though H has been working the ARP recovery program, we are still on vastly different pages.  

I used to grin and bear, stuff, pretend, hide, ignore, forget, and even go without so much of my own emotions that finding them, feeling them, sitting with them long enough to even recognize them has taken tremendous effort for me this past year.  Years of blocking my truth and my story because H couldn't cope with it has trained me to not feel.  At All.

I don't want to blame it all on H though.  I have a huge span of my childhood I have no memory of.  Why I blocked it I do not know. I just did. I don't think I was hurt, physically, or abused.  The only thing I can figure is that it must have been traumatic -- to me-- at some level in my childhood home. I didn't have the coping skills to process whatever it was.  Blocking became my go to safety technique.

As I look back now, maybe it was good that I had that skill down pat. I'm not sure how I would have coped with the past few years without it.  

Now, though, I'm trying to not stuff, pretend, hide.  H doesn't like it. It isn't the way I used to be and he's having to change.  We spend a lot of time not liking each other.  

I decided this morning as I was working my recovery that I wanted to make a list of things I don't like. Maybe there are some here that are out of line. If you feel brave enough, and love me, you might gently point me in the right direction.

Here's my list. In no particular order. I'm hoping writing this will help me get to the emotion and to the resolution.

1.  I do not like H to tell me that he's "babysitting" when he stays home with D. 

What's with that anyway?  He is her father for crying out loud.  Babysitting, really?

2.  I do not like H to correct little D.  

The two of them have anger management issues badly.  They are fire and gasoline.  It's horrible.  I often find myself in the middle of a combative situation that I struggle to resolve.  When H corrects he often says hurtful things, derogatory things.  I've asked him to back off from correction for a time while he works his recovery and we give D time to heal from her hurt a bit.  Maybe then she and he will be able to work issues out in a more reasonable and Christlike way.  

3.  I do not like H to have unaccounted for money in his wallet. (Are you calling me controlling?)

This is a hard one for a lot of people to get their mind around. You'd have to know my story to understand where this comes from and what is underneath all of it.  You'd have to know how H hid money from me.  How he lived double lives, more than once, for long periods of time.  You'd have to know what deception and fear of not being able to provide for your children does to you that would make this a real issue.  And yes, H and I argue about this one.  And no, its not that he doesn't spend money.  It is more that right now, while I am trying to feel safe with him, I've asked him to not ask to have money he doesn't have to account for.  (One other point for this issue; we are the poor owners of two homes.  Every dime has to be accounted for to keep both those mortgages paid. Neither of us has the luxury of having go to heck money right now.)

4.  I do not like H to be on his phone. Period.

That's bad huh?  If I had my way he wouldn't have one.  Except that we don't have a landline and it would be difficult to communicate with one another these days without one.  I just hate it.  During the past three years, when H was acting out so badly, and had another double life he carried on behind my back he was on his phone all the time.  We couldn't eat dinner together without his face in his phone.  He had it when we sat to watch a movie.  He took it to the bathroom (and he was in there a ridiculous amount of time).  He'd go upstairs to the bedroom and be gone for hours in the evening with that $(^&$@#$ phone.  What I naively thought was mostly a game addiction, I later learned was a instant message ap he had hidden in another ap where he talked to other women.  Right  in  front  of  my  face.

He was like that with his work laptop too that I never had access to because of all his work securities.  He would sit at the kitchen table (because we had that family rule -- no electronics in bedrooms or behind closed doors) and he would get on Craigslist or dating sites and talk to other women while I was sitting across the room from him in plain view, and set up hook-up dates or look at porn, or do whatever he did right under my nose.  If I got up from the couch and walked across the room to get a drink he had plenty of time to just close out that window and open up one that looked like he was doing school.  

I hate H having electronics. Period!

5.  I do not like H being in my home when I am not there.  (yup, I'm that messed up, huh?)

This is just another of my triggers.  When H went back to school to finish his degree he was working a full time and a part time job. The only option for him was distance learning through an online program.  It was during this time that he began wandering off of his class website and school assignments and onto some of the most despicable websites on the internet.  It was during this time that scenario above was a nightly condition.  He would also lie to me and tell me he was at his night job.  Well, the lie part was that he wasn't working, he was physically there, but he'd go into the break room and get online there where he wouldn't get interrupted and have to close windows and end conversations because the kids and I were home and passing by his laptop or sitting at the table when he was trying to get on his dating sites.

But why don't I like him home alone you ask?  Because each Sunday when little D and I were attending our church meetings H was in my home with his, I don't know, you pick an appropriate name for them...either online, or in person, or by text or whatever he could get...and I would sit in church knowing exactly what was going on behind my back, but pretending that H was doing school and not cheating on me or looking at porn. All I could do was sit there, trying not to squirm and pleading that the Lord would help me out of it or find a way to show H a way to stop.  This went on for 3 years.  It was three years of hell.  Three years of torture.  My home was violated.  It was almost impossible to worship or even stay half way present at church.  Leaving H alone in my house is like giving him an open invitation to act out.  Especially on a Sunday.  He knew exactly how long he had before he had to clean things up and pretend he'd been doing his school work the whole time.

6.  I do not like H to touch me.  

Do you think I'll ever get past this issue?  H feels rejected more than empathy for why I am like this right now.  It is so maddening.  I hate addiction.  I hate what it has done to him and to me.  I don't want to be married sometimes.  I stay, but it is a battle I fight every day.

7.  I do not like that H can't seem to figure out how to communicate. 

Even with little things like, 'can you please text me if you plan to stay after group to talk so that I don't have to heat your dinner up 3 or 4 times trying to keep it warm for some unexpected and uncommunicated arrival?'


8.  I do not like how hard this is for me or for H.

The truth is, trying to recover from trauma is very difficult.  I can spend hours in my step work and still run smack dab into all these issues I listed above.  They still trap me.  As hard as I try to apply the principles of the Healing Through Christ.  I struggle.   

Today I started step 6 "Become entirely ready to have God remove all our character weaknesses.  Maybe it will help me with some of these issue I have listed above.

In a couple weeks I'll be leaving on a trip. Just me and little D.  H will stay behind to run our business.  I'm scared to death to leave him here.  I want to lock the door behind me and send him somewhere else for two weeks so that when I come home I will still have my  home, my world, the way I left it.  Unviolated.  So I won't have to wonder if I've been lied to while I was away.  I won't have to go look through cupboards to see if things are as I left them.  I won't have to worry if H honored the agreements we will make about money or food or the business expenses.

It stinks when you can't trust the person who has the greatest ability to damage you.  If I don't do this H won't ever have an opportunity to prove to me and to himself that he's changing.  

The question I'm afraid of -- what if he's is still the same?  What will I do then?  What will I do if I return home and find out he did not keep his word?  So much of my future, our future depends on this turning out right.

I don't like that.