The Big Step Back happened on a Thursday evening/Friday morning. This is a post about the first baby step forward.
Friday evening we tried to talk again. Saturday was full of family events and a double date that we had planned so we wanted to at least attempt to be able to have cordial conversation since we wouldn't be able to ignore each other.
It went semi-okay. Toward the end it got more tense as B tried to explain that he just wants the "issue" to be separate from our relationship and that he felt like I kept trying to mush them together. I told him that there isn't a separation because the "issue" directly affects our relationship and our relationship will not be fixed the "issue" is still there. He argued some more and eventually said something along the lines of "I just want to get past this and have a good marriage" and I said, VERY FIRMLY "Then STOP looking at porn" to which he shut down the conversation and said it was over.
I left.
I felt completely empty and alone and like there was nothing left. I went to my room, alone, and cried in the dark. I prayed and begged Heavenly Father for help with the hurt. The weight of all the times he's masturbated and viewed pornography and lusted after women real and pixelated was too much.
B heard me crying and came in. I wanted him there, to see the hurt, to make it better, but I wanted him gone, to leave me be, to not hurt me anymore. He stood in the doorway as I was crouching against the opposite wall.
He had a breakthrough. Thursday in therapy our therapist introduced the topic of co-dependency to us. I have a pretty solid understanding of what this is and have been working on my own codependency for a while but B had never heard of it. (I gave up trying to teach him stuff like this a while ago). B, in the doorway, told me that he feels like he needs to stop looking to me for his happiness and start finding another source. He said it was similar to an incident a couple years ago where he really did have an epiphany and change a big part of his behavior with his family. He felt the same about whatever was going on inside him in that moment. He saw the flawed system of being wholly dependent on me for his happiness - it wasn't working. I was proud of him in that moment. I was still totally injured and broken, but I saw a glimmer of hope in him that I have not seen before. Something stuck, in his heart, that could mean big things for him and for us.
For an addict to see and acknowledge such a flaw in himself was a step in the right direction. We still are sleeping apart, but there is hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment