The story of how pornography has and does affect my life. I feel that all such stories are long and filled with sorrow. Mine is no different. I want to use this blog as a journal of my path to finding my healing. I hope that maybe someday someone who is just starting their journey, or maybe who has been on their journey a long time can find comfort from my ramblings, maybe even a glimmer of hope. I intend to have this blog be brutally honest as I learn and grow. Honesty is so important in the process of recovery for addicts and spouses alike.
For the purpose of this blog we'll call my husband "B".
How I got to this point:
Many moons ago (about five years of moons) I fell in love with a tall, dark and handsome man. He wasn't what I thought I was looking for but was absolutely what I wanted and loved. We spent a summer reading together in the park, swimming, dating, laughing, and falling in love. He got down on one knee on our three month anniversary. There were twinkling lights, flowers, music, a tinkling creek, trees, and stars. It was wonderful. At some point between that day and the brisk fall day filled with reds and golds and yellows on which we married he shared his deepest darkest secret with me. He struggled with viewing pornography. As far as I can recall that is how he put it. It was a struggle, he'd struggled a long time but was sober his entire mission, and he was working on it but couldn't guarantee complete sobriety immediately.
During my college career I had once been assigned to write a paper on how pornography is addictive so I knew in my head that was the case. I even thought, huh, I wonder if he is addicted. But for some reason (*read: rose-colored glasses*) I pretty much swept my misgivings aside and thought surely he'll be in control of this in no time at all and we'll live happily ever after.
The first year was lots of bliss but lots of tears as he would disclose his continued pornography use, masturbation, and tell me things like if I lost weight he would be able to do better. I didn't understand. I my already fragile body-image was shattered. I felt like I had to police, I had to know, he had to just stop. If he loved me enough he would stop. Does he not see that this hurts me? Why would he choose a computer screen over a real woman? These extra pounds, and acne, and unshaved legs are definitely the problem. I felt unlovable at times. More than anything I felt alone. I felt like a liar when people asked "How is your day?" or "How are you?" And I could only reply with "Good" or "Okay" when inside I was screaming that my world was falling apart, I was lonely, and sad, and scared, and everything was absolutely not okay.
Our first bishop was supportive but the addict has to be the one to commit and do the work. I scoured the internet for resources to help fix B. I thought, if I can just get him to read all the things I'm reading about how it is an addiction, how there are resources to help, how it hurts marriages and families and his brain, then he'll want to stop. I read some things that were helpful to me but none of it seemed to resonate with my soul because I had the gospel and it was about more than just brain chemicals and me not liking the stuff. It was about sin, and the spirit in our home, and our eternal salvation.
After a year or two of throwing myself into research and cycling through disclosure, tears, trying to find my balance, forgiving, happiness, grumpiness and back I couldn't do it anymore. We had seen a counselor together a couple times. I had seen on myself about my body-image. They were semi-helpful, if that. I really didn't like the couples counselor actually. She spent the entire time talking about how I need to understand how his brain, as an artist, works. On one particular trip I was mad at B for refusing to tell me what was wrong with him even though he acknowledged something was up. We got to therapy, talked a bit, and he asked to talk to her alone. I was beyond pissed. I could barely speak and I couldn't look at him. Afterward they brought me back in and all she said was "He loves you so much! You're so lucky!" The problem is lies and secrets! Thank you stupid woman for assuring him that lies and secrets are good and healthy and kept out of love! That was a low point. Maybe I'm not totally over that one. At some point I realized I'd had enough. All this effort wasn't changing anything and it was just keeping me down. So, I took the burden of his recovery off of myself and went on with my life.
We had happy times. I only asked every few months how he was doing and he would reply with a vague answer of "okay" or "not great lately" but I would basically ignore how it was eating away at my heart. We struggled with infertility for a while but finally got pregnant and now have an almost one year old who is the joy of my life. During the "ignoring" I was imperceptibly working on my body image. I knew that it was something that was in my ball-court. And even though he had told me it was part of the problem I knew deep down that it wasn't. It was an easy excuse. The way I felt about myself was up to me. Over time I started to believe that and I started to believe that I am beautiful. I think pregnancy helped a lot. For so long I felt like my body was betraying me but when I was 8 months pregnant, with purple stretch marks and swollen ankles I looked at myself and knew that I was beautiful. This body, although imperfect, was my vessel and was creating life and it was working. I am beautiful. That was kind of a game changer I think, in conjunction with having a son. The seeds of change were planted in my heart. If I am beautiful (inside and out) and am of value, then I deserve better than an unfaithful husband.
I dove back into research. I became slightly obsessed with it actually. I didn't know what to do or where to find things. One day I was so frustrated at my inability to find resources for LDS people who struggle with this in their life. I texted the one person who knew, another wife who I was friends with and who learned our secret and I theirs when we walked into the same spousal support group. She, bless her, put it very bluntly. I couldn't fix him. I had two options: 1) Leave 2)Stay, knowing it may or may not ever go away. That was so good for me. I then googled, "Choosing to stay with a pornography addict" and the doors were opened. I found rowboatandmarbles.org and through their connections dozens of other resources for LDS addicts and spouses. I found a forum. I found blogs. I found books for me and for B. There is a treasure-trove of resources out there. And it all started changing. I committed to my own recovery. I accepted that I needed my own recovery (which I had been fighting, after all it is his problem). I threw myself into reading all I could of these new (to me) gospel oriented resources. So beautiful.
This was about 4-5 months ago. After a couple months of me sharing all I was learning for myself in my own recovery B started thinking about his. Right now we are in the think of it. We are brutally honest, working on improving and maintaining our individual relationships with God and doing all we can to ensure our marriage survives. I've set a couple of boundaries, we've fought, we've cried, we've turned toward one another. And now I feel like having an outlet for my journey. A place to record what I'm learning and how I'm growing and the days that I don't do either.
More than anything I have hope. I know that my eternal salvation is in my hands. I would be just fine without B. My Savior was ensure that. I don't want to be without B though so we are trudging this path together. I love my Savior. I love the gospel. I love knowledge. I love B. I love me. I'm worth it. I'm worth the work I'm putting in to make myself happy and be the best mother and wife I can be.
