The 10 Month Wait

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Last night, about ten minutes to eleven, H came into the family room with an envelope in hand. The envelope contained the long awaited for disclosure letter.  I asked for it before he came home last April. I asked for it several times over the past ten months -- nothing.

Just a blank stare.

I don't know what finally prompted H to deliver on the overdue request or worse, why he chose that time of night to hand deliver his written train wreck.


The letter began with a pretty demanding request to do everything in my power not to show the letter to anyone -- especially our children.

pfffft...I still believe I own my own story



H's letters always begin with a bit of justification, this one was no different.  After getting through the preamble, the brief letter contained a generic version of names and approximate dates.






The sucker punch came in the mix of lies I was told and what was written in the disclosure.



Let me re-wind several years.   


We were at home, my kids and I -- hanging out. H was at work, I thought.  I was supposed to be setting up his new iPhone.  As my son and I were going through the process, we came across all the things H had been already doing on his new phone.  

Pictures.  Email.  Texts.

I'll never forget how the bile rose up in my mouth, and my body started to shake.  Betrayal has a very physical reaction for me.


I had H's bag packed and on the porch.

We were watching for him.

When he came up the walk, I went outside, locking my kids in the house and us out.  

I remember asking him how work went.  The lie that spewed out was so smooth. So I asked him how was Brenda, or Carol, or Stacy?  


He knew I knew.


There was anger and yelling on my front porch that afternoon.  And then for some reason, the words "I know that God will forgive all of this -- and I will too."  I didn't mean or expect that H would walk back inside.  At the time, I just wanted to get all the hate out of me that was brewing in that moment.

H's reply to that was something neither of us expected either.

He suggested we go inside to talk and work all this mess out.


What got worked out that day, I thought, was that H was going to call off all these involvements of his. He was going to focus on me and him and nothing else, no one else would come between us again. 

I honored my side.  I put off everything I wanted or needed. I ignored all my friends.  I doted on him, making him the king of the castle.

My kids were furious all this was going on.




Fast forward to the present, and the letter, and the truth.... 


I couldn't sleep at all last night.  I tossed and turned.  Each time I started to drop into slumber, the trauma shook itself free again.  All night long,  between the tears and the nausea, I kept asking myself 'why?'

Why did you believe him?  Nothing he said was true.  Nothing he agreed to did he honor.  



What a fool I am!

What an idiot!




How do men live double lives?  

How can they tell more than one woman they love them, then go home and say the same thing to their wife?  

The duplicity. The lies. The betrayal.  I'm sick of it. Sick of wondering, do I finally know all of it now, only to realize the disclosures will continue to trickle in and the pain and trauma will be relived over and over.

How can I make an informed decision for my future with the uncertainty of my marriage?



Now what?  

This 'trial period' has not gone well for me  All the stories he told me where incomplete.  H lead me to believe there was much less than there actually was. 



I'm all in knots again. 

My whole body shook through the conducting of all four hymns during Sacrament meeting. It was all I could do to make my way through the chapel and out to my car at the end of the first hour without throwing up.

There are days, like today, that I don't want these 'hand-picked trials' like the speaker talked about today in Sacrament meeting.  I don't want the pain.  The loneliness, the husband that hurts too much from his own actions to hold my pain.  

I don't want to put on the face every Sunday, pretending to every church member that we are all one happy family.


I'm weary from loss being my constant companion.

An Extended Fast

*****Possible Trigger Warning*****



Several months ago I moved H into the guest room. At the time, I had no idea how long this change would last. I needed peace and time to sort through the trauma of him being in my bed at night, and the chaos of my mind chatter.  I wish I had insisted on it last April. In my confusion and my attempt to always do the right thing, I neglected to create a safe healing place for me. I turned my emotional knob to "numb."  I put on the happy face at  home and at church and pretended all was well. The Prodigal returned.

As the days and weeks went by, it didn't feel happy to me.  It didn't feel like a blessing, or that the return of "the Prodigal," the cause of years of hurt and pain and betrayal, should be celebrated.  

They were delighted at church to see him after all those years.  

I wore a mask.  

For weeks, no, months really.  

I still wear this mask, almost a year later. And I am still not happy.




I remember telling H on the phone the day he called, crying, pleading, begging for a second (or 18th) chance, that this was a trial. I could not tell him that I loved him, or if I ever would. I could not tell him that I would ever want him to sleep in my bed or have any kind of intimate relationship again. I could not promise that a month, or even a year later, I would not still want a divorce.

The sadness in H's voice that day ran straight to the empathic heart of mine.  It hurt to hear his pain.  I felt so bad for him.  

I forgot all about me in that hour long phone call.




Now that this year of H's excommunication comes round, I'm starting to notice the mistakes I made in last year's reconciliation. Laying myself aside for another is a good thing -- in the gospel sense. For purposes of healing, it was a huge mistake.  

As I peel away the years of betrayal, I begin to notice a survival techniques I employed to get through the pain I live with daily.  From the very beginning of my marriage I had reason to divorce H. As the years went by I found myself stuck in a sort of black hole. Time went by as evidence mounted. I was too numb, and to scared to put an end to the betrayal.  

In a way, I gave H permission to betray me.  I gave him permission by not standing up for me.



In fear of having this black hole over take me.  I made a 180 degree turn in the opposite and moved H into the other room.

I found my peace in this decision.

For once in my married life I didn't have to lay awake to protect myself from being taken advantage of while I slept.  For once, I was free to sleep without being awakened by groping hands.  






I continue to justify for this decision with advice like this:

Having sex with their partner may be a bad idea for a sex addict in early recovery because it impedes their recovery:

• It does not allow for the neural “reset” that lets the addict brain to begin to “re-wire” itself.  In other words, it keeps the addiction going by giving the addict a small amount of the “drug.”
• The addict in early recovery will likely revert to his or her addictive fantasies during sex with a spouse or partner.  This means that the addict is not really having sex with the partner but is using the partner to re-live addict behaviors in their mind.  This is sometimes referred to as “euphoric recall.”
• Part of the addict’s recovery is learning how to integrate sex into a normal relationship vs. keeping up a separate and secret sexual life.  Early in recovery the addict will be lacking in the intimacy skills necessary for a healthy relationship.  Only in the context of a healthy relationship can there be a healthy sexual relationship.

Having sex early recovery may be a bad idea for the partner because it is for the wrong reasons:

• They feel the need to have sex with their spouse or partner to “compete” with the object of the addiction or to prove their attractiveness.  Partners of addicts should never take this on themselves.  It’s the addict’s problem and it isn’t ever about the partner!
• They feel they are responsible for “fixing” the addict and think that having sex with them will help.  The addict needs help but not in the form of sex, even with someone they love.
• Sometimes partners feel they should not withdraw sexually because they will be seen as “punishing” the addict.  But even if they are angry, withdrawing sexually can be a normal response to the betrayal.
• They are trying to use sex as a way to repair the relationship.  Partners of sex addicts may be very hurt and traumatized. They need to recover from that trauma first and worry about the relationship later.
• They have a desire for sex themselves and it makes them feel better.  This is often a misguided attempt to make things “the way they were” before the crisis.  It is understandable to feel this way but relationships in recovery need to be very different from what went before.

Bottom line, sex addiction is serious.  It requires not only a recovery from the addictive behavior but the learning of a new way of living in integrity and honesty.  The couple must lay a foundation first before deciding whether to resume a relationship on a new footing or not.  This takes a lot of time and work. Abstaining from sex in the beginning months of recovery is an important part of the process for both addict and partner. (Link)

My favorite addiction therapist, Maurice Hawker, has this to say on the issue:  "Simply, whenever the offending spouse has a lost battle, the offender must sleep outside the marital bed; on first offense, this is one night. On second offense, this is two nights. On third, three and so forth. Offender sleeps on the floor of the bedroom, on the couch in the other room or wherever the offended decides. This decision about where to sleep should be made in advance so that it is not based on emotion.

So, what should a wife be allowed to expect from her husband in the area of sexuality? She should be able to expect him to gain complete mastery over his sexual urges. She should be able to expect him to not use her to get his "fix". She should be allowed to expect to not be emotionally abused no matter how much discomfort he feels when he must "go without", especially if he is in recovery. "Helping a guy out" by providing him with a sexual experience right after he is emotionally unpleasant with his wife is like buying a candy bar for a child after he throws a tantrum in the grocery store check out line. She should be allowed to experience sexuality as an edifying experience, an activity that brings a sense of peace, joy and closeness to both her and her spouse. For more detail on this read, "And the Man Knew His Wife".

I blew it last year, and now I'm trying to correct that mistake.  Whether I've over-corrected or not might need another blog post to sort through. For now, the longer this continues the less interest I have to return to shared room or shared bed. I've returned to my well known survival lifestyle of hiding from hurt and pain. Pretending it didn't happen.  Not talking about it, and steering clear of H the best I can.

Where this takes my marriage is yet to be determined.

Working Through the Muck

I recently polled some of my WoPA friends about their husband's willingness to talk about his addiction with them.  I wanted to specifically know how their husbands treated them when they needed to talk.  I was surprised by their answers.

Surprised, because in my home, H does NOT like to talk.  He says he will 'listen to me."  It just rarely happens where I feel heard and he doesn't feed his shame while trying to hear my hurt.

I don't know what to do with all the hurt and pain if I can't talk about it.


I was trolling around a couple of my favorite blogs this week trying to sort though some of this when a couple of words from a post I was reading stood out so strongly I felt it physically.  The author referred to his wife as being a "connoisseur of hurt."

Seriously, that small phrase hit me like a ton of bricks.  I knew it was true.  Not just for this recovering addict's wife, but for all of the women (and all that I don't) who have been tried to their breaking point with this addiction.


Here's the definition of this word so as to fully grasp this reference

con-nois-seur - n.  : a person who knows a lot about something (such as art, wine, food, etc
                              : an expert in a particular subject


Bam!

A pretty accurate definition for us WoPAs.

It sucks.


I'm not sure I want to be an expert in hurt or pain.


As I was thinking through all of this is brought me to another comment I hear a lot:

 "I didn't sign up for this......."


I've said that before, and a lot of other things like it.  "I don't deserve this" is another one I have had to work through.  In fact I wrote a post on this topic a little over a year ago (slow processing  - maybe??).

Did we choose the path of this life?  The trials and tests?  The hurts and pains?  

I lean towards the yes side of this debate.  I lean that way because I understand how important agency is to Father's plan.


I often wander around Ask Gramps dot org for opinions of different topics.  He weighs in on this issue here as he discusses the choosing of family.


Then these words hit me as I was reading a article on Meridian Magazine:  'As she was agonizing about her situation, she had a powerful spiritual experience. She unexpectedly heard her dead husband’s voice. He was speaking as if from the pre-existence, and she heard him say, “I will go down. I will marry Jane and we will have ten children. I will then die, so that Jane can learn to understand the Atonement!”    


Did we do that?

Did I say, "I will go down.  I will marry H, a sex-addict.  I will sludge through 26 years of hell so that he can learn about the atonement?  (so that i can learn about the atonement)



Last week in group we discussed the first part of Step 2 (Come to believe that the power of God can restore us to spiritual and emotional health.). This sentence; 'For every affliction..the Savior has a remedy of superior healing power.'  

I believe this to be true.

I also understand the importance of working through, and processing all of the emotions -- especially the negative ones.  

...and I have years and years of this negative muck that needs worked through


This is where I am stuck --

In my personal step work I came across this question:
  "How is constantly remembering the sins of our addicted loved ones keeping me from fully forgiving them?"

Reading that, and processing through the question, I felt like I ran head first into a fine line between processing and 'constantly remembering' ....and now this issue 'fully forgiving'.

....it is like a constant battle in my head these days

H feels the same way.  He vocally wonders if it is going to take me 26 years to get past all the pain he's caused.


Is there such a thing as too much processing?

Is is possible that I've not let go and let God enough?

Maybe the lack of fully forgiving is the reason I'm struggling with the relationship?

Have I been tricky myself into believing that for the past 10 months I have been attempting to show mercy and forgiveness?

Has staying in this marriage while H works out his issues any indication of forgiveness?  



Too many questions.  Not enough answers.



In my attempt to work out this confusion I'm studying a keynote address given by Sheri Dew at a women's conference.  Here' the link



And pondering this quote: (also from that same address linked above) 
"The Savior has “all power” in heaven and on earth.11 He has power to cleanse, forgive, and redeem us; power to heal us of weakness, illness, and heartache; power to inspire us; power to conquer Satan and overcome the flesh; power to work miracles; power to deliver us from circumstances we can’t escape ourselves; power over death; and power to strengthen us. When the Apostle Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,”12 he was describing grace."

I don't know when I'll feel settled with all of this, but I do believe that I can find 'the power to deliver me from circumstances I can't escape myself"  through the grace of the atonement.

And so...I continue to plow through the muck, the hurt, the pain, the confusion in search of the deliverance and His grace.