Love While You Wait

Today in Sacrament meeting something one of the speakers said really touched me. She was speaking about patience and forgiveness as necessary for charity to grow.

"Patience is having love while you wait for others to grow."

My heart is so full today. I have had so many mixed feelings this week about the role of patience, love, charity, and the like in a marriage to an addict. I know about enabling, boundaries, safety, addiction, lies. I believe all those things I've learned. I also know about patience, and unconditional love, and charity, and I believe in those virtues as well. I feel it is a hard balance to strike to be patient, loving, kind, and have boundaries, and not enable, and keep yourself safe from an addict. At times the principles seem positively contradictory. I don't have all the answers. I don't even have the answers for myself.

But today I have my answer for this moment. Heavenly Father impressed upon me today that patience is having love while you wait for others to grow. For this moment, I need to work on my patience. I need to see the good. I need to focus on what IS going well rather than what isn't. I need to let God take care of B and be still. B might still destroy himself, and our family with it. But for today, for this moment, just staying and loving is what I need to work on doing.

It is hard to wait for others to grow. It is hard to be on the cutting edge of others mistakes. We have all been there, for lots of different reasons. Usually we can just minimize our exposure to those who are hurting us by not going out of our way to see them. In marriage it is more difficult because we LIVE together and are trying to have a marriage after all. Am I waiting patiently for B to grow? Am I relying on my Savior and trusting in His plan for me? Am I trusting in His plan for my son, that may or may not include married parents? Am I trusting in His plan for B? How am I showing that trust? Am I growing and learning? I am not except from the need for growth, so am I doing it? Am I evaluating myself, and asking the Lord to show me my weaknesses so that I get down to the hard work of improving myself?

I feel a bit like I am rambling. Here is my point - Christ lives. The Savior of the world lives, and loves each of us and is aware of each of us. He is aware of me and my heartache. He is aware of B and B's struggles. Today, he reminded me that He is aware of me by impressing upon my mind something that matters, something that I can apply, and something that is pertinent to my life. For me, for right now, I will work on loving B while I wait for him to grow.

Step Two - Part 1: Spiritual Healing

As I was reading through step two there was so much that pulled at my heart, and rang true, and touched my spirit.

Yesterday I felt unsure about whether B's assurance that he hadn't acted out recently was true. I'm still not sure if it is true. So, I went snooping. I'm not proud of it really, but I just wanted to see if there was something I should know. Recently I've been led to evidence of his lies and thought maybe I'd find more. I found something from 2 full years ago so that wasn't evidence of a lie, but it wasn't fun to find either. I also found videos that weren't porn but certainly weren't appropriate that had been viewed somewhat recently but I can't tell when. It kind of threw me a little. Basically, I think he has probably been qualifying what is porn and what isn't when I ask and has deemed this type of thing not necessary to disclose. So, more evidence of lies. Yikes. This could have led me down a dark path emotionally and spiritually but for some reason although there are still emotions to process I didn't feel the kind of despair I was expecting. I fully give credit to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I've stuck, so far, to my resolution to read some scripture ever day and so yesterday I had and was fortified with the gospel of Christ against feelings of hopelessness and despair. I was able to see more clearly the choices before me of reaction versus response and I was able to go to my Heavenly Father in prayer.

A quote that really struck me in this step under the "Spiritual Healing" subtitle was one by Elder Bednar: “There is no physical pain, no anguish of soul, no suffering of spirit, no infirmity or weakness that you or I ever experience during our mortal journey that the Savior did not experience first. You and I in a moment of weakness may cry out, ‘No one understands. No one knows.’ No human being, perhaps, knows. But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He felt and bore our burdens before we ever did. And because He paid the ultimate price and bore that burden, He has perfect empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy in so many phases of our life. He can reach out, touch and succor—literally run to us—and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do through relying only upon our own power.”

I pictured my Savior literally running to me as I fall to the floor in emotional and spiritual pain. I pictured Him hugging me and just understanding my pain and being concerned with just me in that moment. I know that He understands. I know that He can succor us and empathize and understand. I know that although I feel alone sometimes I am never alone unless I choose to be alone. Someday this trial will all make sense and I will see how I have been purified by the refiner's fire and been made better by my journey.

In recognition of the tender mercies of the Lord I would like to say that I went to bed unsure last night of how I would feel this morning and how I would interact with B. He chose to sleep separate because he'd stayed up late - meaning he CHOSE to adhere to a boundary that he has been disregarding about bed-time. Miracle. And this morning he gave me a big embrace and just held me, like he meant it, and he tenderly told me he loved me before I told him. That doesn't happen all that often. His tender moments aren't his forte and it just spoke to my soul that although there are things I can't trust I do know that he loves me and that Heavenly Father and my Savior love me and are aware of me. They knew I needed a little extra reassurance this morning and gave it to me without me having to bring anything up.

Honesty

As I've mentioned in the previous post my husband is an artist so the quote above really struck me.

Throughout our marriage I've always maintained that honesty is the most important thing. I've done all I can to convince him that lack of honesty on his part is worse than the masturbation, worse than the porn, worse than the vocalization of his view of my body in comparison to the "ideal." And I thought for a long time that he was being honest with me. He always answered my questions. His answers seemed reasonable, and I thought they were the full truth. I want to give credit where credit is due - B does give me part of the truth. He does say hard things when I ask. For several months he was even disclosing to me voluntarily when he acted out. However, I've come to realize that I've never had the full truth and he has convinced himself that he is still being honest, and withholding pieces is okay because they aren't important or they would hurt me.

Last night I was contemplating why, after all this time, I'm suddenly catching him in lies right and left (okay, not right and left but at least 3 BIG ones in the past two weeks). How is it that for so long I rarely, if ever caught him in a half truth? Why now and so much? I don't think it is because he is getting more careless. I'm not getting more snoopy either. The thought occurred to me that maybe it is because I'm ready for more. Maybe Heavenly Father is seeing fit to allow me to see more of the truth because I'm ready for it.

Don't get me wrong, it has HURT. I'm not sure what to do with my new found knowledge. I'm kind of falling apart every other day. However, I think overall I'm dealing pretty well. I keep coming around to the gospel, to my testimony of the Savior and His atonement. I haven't kicked B in the family jewels like I day-dream about. I even got a 4.0 in the semester that just ended (for the first time in my collegiate career!) I'm still completing my work and my son is still growing, and learning, and developing. I'd say I'm doing pretty damn well actually!

Anyway, all this has me thinking a lot about honesty. I feel it is absolutely necessary as the foundation of a healthy, loving, complete, and fulfilling relationship. Without honesty how can there be real love? Without honesty there can't be real vulnerability. Without honesty how can a relationship progress toward a celestial marriage? I believe that in the end the truth will come out, whether that be in this life or the next so if this entire life is built on lies then how does a relationship heal when it comes out after this life? That seems like it would be pretty darn difficult. Lies are a tool of the adversary to cause trouble, trouble in the liar's spiritual life, and in the relationship in which the lies exist. He is, after all, the father of all lies.  Lies are so destructive. I know B tells lies to "save" me from being hurt but I think in reality it is just putting off the hurt and pain and closeness we can gain through the vulnerability that comes with honesty.

Satan's tricks don't end when you have an epiphany

I posted yesterday morning about how Satan is so tricky and knows just what buttons to push for me personally. Now, I know I make my own choices so I'm not casting blame, I'm just saying he knows the ways in which I am particularly vulnerable. I had this epiphany that gave me clarity on some things B had said when in "addict mode." I thought, "Whew, made it past that difficulty, now things will be good for a while." Yeah, NO. See, there are more buttons for Satan to push.

Yesterday the whole Kim Kardashian naked pictures in the magazine news was everywhere I turned. I did not see the actual photos but blurred pictures were all over the internet and I saw them without trying. It made me frustrated at the state of society and the whole-hearted acceptance of sexual objectification in main-stream media and society and life. I vented, I processed, I got past it.

This morning I logged onto facebook. The first item on my newsfeed wass a large picture from an artist that I follow of an ass. It is a colored drawing in which the butt takes up about 60% of the space. The artist was celebrating 170k likes on his "Desktop" drawing. I'm sorry dear artist but the likes weren't for the merit of your artistic ability, they were from people who like to see asses on their desktop. Not the same thing. See, here's the thing. In the spirit of honesty I will share way too much information. B is an butt guy. There are many experiences I could share that would explain why seeing a huge butt on my facebook feed sent me into a tizzy but we'll leave it at that. Butts are super triggery for me.

I started a post that was a commentary on the state of society's acceptance of sexually explicit material. But for now my heart wasn't in that. Maybe my heart is too busy being hurt right now to think about society as a whole. I'm selfishly just thinking of myself and my pain. That is selfish. There are women who have is worse than me. There are other trials in this world that are worse than the one I'm experiencing. There are lots of things in my life to be grateful for. For the rest of the day I'll focus on those.

For the rest of the day I will try to do as we were instructed by President Gordon B. Hinckley -

“Don’t be gloomy. Do not dwell on unkind things. Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. Even if you are not happy, put a smile on your face. ‘Accentuate the positive.’ Look a little deeper for the good. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life.”

Do the best you can until you know better...

This one just spoke to me today. I'm grateful for a patient God who accepts my best even when he knows it is not the best. Then, challenges me to learn and to do better with what I learn.