Still here... feeling tired of all of this

After three days of sleeping apart (on night three he volunteered to take the couch). I told him that I'd be okay sleeping in the same bed.

I said this because I felt like any longer and I would be doing it to punish him rather than to heal myself... I'm not okay, but it was just the next step I felt to take. He told me he'll sleep on the couch again because he wants to maintain feeling like he is in control of his life. Based on lots of past discussion this means, I think, that he is sleeping on the couch to maintain his feeling of control because if he came to bed when I said it was okay then I am controlling him and manipulating him.

In a strange turn of events this threw me just as much as his initial disclosure. Really?? I'm saying I'm ready to start repairing and you tell me, no, it has to be on my timetable - I am the one in charge here.

I'm just tired of this. I'm tired of his manipulation. I'm tired of him not caring at all for the damage he has done to me or us. He is trying to recover, up until a few months ago I would say he was in solid recovery. However, time and time again when I express what will help me trust him he refuses. He does check-ins each week, as asked, which was a compromise from every day. But he still throws a fit about them if given the opportunity, he feels coerced and like they are unfair. I want to know if he acts out, if he slips, and where he was and where the kids were when it happened. NO other information is asked. But that is TOO much. He won't do it, because it is none of my business, thank you very much.

He doesn't do anything extra to show he cares if I am in the slightest bit of pain or if I am not 100% connected. If we are connected he is sweet and caring and can be thoughtful. If anything has upset me all efforts on his part cease. And it just leaves me feeling more and more alone and more and more like he only does nice things when it suits him and only cares about me if I am on my best behavior.

I'm tired. I don't know how much longer I can do this. Today is a sad day. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Gratitude helps

My husband told me last night he is back to one day sober. Per my boundary we sleep apart after he acts out. He told me he wanted to sleep in the bed. I slept on the couch, which felt like an added betrayal - First you are going to hurt me and then you are going to put your night's rest above mine... Thanks.

I'm grateful that he told me, and he told me sooner than at our agreed upon once a week check in.

I'm grateful to have somewhere to go today.

I'm grateful for other things to focus on (a sister's wedding, my graduate school research)

I'm grateful for scriptures - I am in 3 Nephi right now while I listen on my commute every day. I'm grateful that I am in the middle of Christ speaking.

I'm grateful for my sons.

I'm grateful that my husband was calm this morning.

I'm grateful for Dr. Pepper.

I'm grateful for dark chocolate.

I'm grateful that I have recently been upping my recovery work so I am a bit more prepared for this.



I am trying to focus on things I am grateful for so that these thoughts might drown out the anger and sorrow and emptiness and apathy and frustration and betrayal and keep me from going down the rabbit hole. My husband refuses to answer any questions about his behavior and will only say that he acted out. I have two questions I ask - where were you and where were the kids? He will not answer anything and told me so before I even had a chance to ask. He puts pennies in the trust jar by telling me, ahead of schedule even, and then dumps out a whole handful by following it up with "But no questions and I won't sleep on the couch"... So, I'm a bit confused.

I know I will be okay at some point. That point is not today. I will focus on gratitude and will work to let myself feel all of the emotions and lean into them so I can go through them.

Shame vs. Guilt

I listened to the first two podcasts at the Connexions Classroom and loved them! Some of it was hard to hear because of how difficult things are at home right now but still good good stuff.

The second podcast is about Shame vs. Guilt and a few things stuck out to me:

Guilt is a motivator for me to change. Shame is a motivator for me to stay stuck.

I liked this because it helps give me another tool to identify shame in myself. I am familiar with some ways that shame manifests in my life (I think we all have some shame) by the "I am a bad person" thought process (for me the default shame mechanisms is tied to physical beauty standards - which are hog-wash). I hadn't really thought measuring shame by whether or not I feel stuck - but I have recently felt stuck and I thought this was good insight.

I felt stuck for over a week when I was trying to do something that didn't feel right but was upon the advice of my therapist. Thinking back I think I was trapped in shame because it wasn't working and I was thinking I must be a bad wife and a bad christian because this was his advice and it is failing miserably so I am doing it wrong. Now that I've let go of following that advice I feel free and unstuck and motivated and I think that is an indication of good!


Another thing that was shared:

When I do something that is in violation to what I believe or what I know to be right for me. I automatically, instinctively, feel bad so if I’m not willing to take responsibility and I want to blame or accuse or hide from it or make it less than it really was, it will move right into shame. If I choose to account for it and move into a proactive response around it and clean it up and make things right then it will stay in a place of remorse and guilt and regret and will motivate me to do something different.

What a great action item to help me stay out of shame!! TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!! There is so much I could say about how I wish my husband would do this - living with someone stuck in shame is a unique kind of hell. However, when I first heard it I thought of myself. In my patriarchal blessing I am instructed to repent daily. I've always pondered on that and I've never been very good at it. We are taught in church to repent often, even daily. Maybe THIS is what God intends when he tells us to repent all the time. Maybe it isn't about us being wicked but it is his guideline to help us stay out of shame and in a healthy pattern of taking responsibility when we feel guilt. Repenting every day is a loving commandment of a God who doesn't want us to stew or let things fester or have us sink down into shame but he wants us to acknowledge our faults, own our mistakes, and move onward and upward. He exhorts us to repents every day so we can feel the joy of a clean slate, of a pure heart, and be free of the chains of shame!

Therapy today did not go super well

This post will probably be some word vomit as I don't have a particular thought to share but lots of feelings.

Today was couples therapy. It was rough. I had put a pin in something until we could discuss it at therapy so we did today. It was about boundaries and safety and 90% of the time was my husband talking very passionately about how he doesn't need to tell me anything, I judge him, he doesn't trust me, he won't tell me things until I have earned his trust (by not being hurt by his disclosures), and I don't respect him, and much more. It is very very hard to not interrupt and prove him wrong on all of his exaggerated accusations but I believe the therapist knows that my husband is viewing it all through an addict lense and the lense of very very very low self-esteem and very high co-dependency so I mostly just let them talk.

Thankfully on the way home we were driving separately. As I drove I sobbed and I screamed at him. It is not my job to fix him, it is not my job to be his soft place to land when he betrays me - he has a sponsor and a wide net of SA friends for this very purpose. I get to have expectations, they are very low, but I still get to have them. I have a right to share my story when I deem fit. This has happened 4 times, total, ever, by me, and he resents every single one of them still apparently because it came up today. It is his story and I stole it, don'tcha know? It is not my job to shield him from the consequences of his actions. It IS my job to work on my own healing. It is my job to set healthy boundaries for myself to protect myself from the addict that he won't protect me from. It IS my job to take care of myself. It IS my job to seek forgiveness even if it doesn't come with trusting him and even if we don't stay together. Forgiveness is for me, not for him.

I find it so ironic, all the things he said about me, when I could give it back to him 100 fold. He referenced how sharing my story was showing a lack of respect for him but it certainly seems like verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and infidelity in the form of pornography are not showing much respect for me. He claimed I told the whole world, it was four people.  In his eyes he is certainly the victim. Pretty sure I'm the one who has never sought out pornography. I'm the one who hasn't lied. I'm the one who hasn't used him as a sex toy.

Mostly I'm sad. He was doing really well for so long but he has, for a couple months, been pulling back and wanting to withhold more information and wanting me to "be over it" and "accept him". I'm just sad that I currently don't see a way out of the mess. So much trust has been broken. It really did damage when he told me that he has not been reporting on his seeking out of "soft core" videos and images - because I didn't need to know. We agreed over a year ago that he would disclose this information when I found a bunch a watched "dance" videos on his youtube account while he was purportedly sober. Apparently he changed his mind about what to disclose without telling me.

I am not interested in going backwards. I will not go back to a place of not knowing and ignoring and letting myself get trampled. I have no interest in a married without transparency.

In therapy the therapist asked if we could change the wording from "I expect transparency" to "We are working toward transparency" I said no. I expressed that "we are working toward" is too vague and he agreed that it gives room for justification and no accountability.

We are at an impasse where I don't trust him to tell me what I expect to be told in order to continue working on our marriage and he thinks that I am "stuck" and I need to change and he doesn't need to tell me, the work on our marriage is separate from his disclosures. Neither of us have budged in two months of this discussion.