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.

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.

Pregnant! Wowza - triggers!

Big new on the homefront. I'm pregnant! We are excited. I am not sick (yet). It is still pretty early, maybe 7 weeks. Last time I didn't get sick until around 8 weeks so we'll see. :) My last pregnancy was generally a good one. I was sick the entire time (except weeks 17-20) but I was so grateful to be pregnant after struggling with infertility that it really was GREAT!

There were some hurts I experienced during pregnancy and soon after baby boy was born that I thought I had worked through, but I am now thinking I had simply buried them. Since I found out a few weeks ago that I am pregnant I have really been on edge emotionally. All the emotions that I buried are flooding back.

See, I didn't start sticking up for myself and setting boundaries and demanding change until around 4 months after baby boy was born. So, the pregnancy was still in the full throws of dishonesty, vague answers, misleading, minimizing, and hiding behaviors by B. I knew he was looking at porn but I was ignoring it, and he was minimizing if I did bring it up, and I was ignoring my intuition. We were sexually active most of the pregnancy. A few times I was told that he didn't want to be physical because of how I looked. Ouch. And you know the six weeks after birth where sex is a no-no? Well, there were lots of favors asked of me to which I generally obliged. At the time I was just happy that he was finding me attractive again "because [my] waist was returning." Now, well, I feel like I was so incredibly used. I feel like I was blind and stupid for ignoring everything. I feel like I was just an object. I feel like I was only valued in accordance with my physical appearance.

When I started standing up for myself our marriage started getting worse. I'd heard that it gets better before it gets worse. Oh boy, does that ring true for us. We spent a year getting more distant, more volatile, and with me pulling more things out into the open. We started therapy a few months ago and stopped moving backwards and a month or so ago we even started moving forward.

I will say that for the last month B has been sober and very aggressively seeking recovery. Meetings, sponsors, contacts, phone calls, reading, studying, watching videos, the whole bit. He is doing pretty well and sticking to it so far and working on continuously being humble in response to my hurt. And maybe the added level of safety from him is allowing more emotions to come to the surface too.

Whatever the reason, the emotions are there and I am hurting and I am in pain and I am so so angry about all of it. It is so much easier to just keep him at arms length, keep my walls up, and not face the hurt. It is so deep. I don't know if I am ready to face it. I let one brick from my wall come down this morning and it was hard. We hugged for the first time all week.

Good Advice / Bad Advice

We have a vacation coming up. I'm anxious about it because it is somewhere warm and vacation-y during spring break. Mostly, I'm anxious because the last time we were on a vacation together it was not good. It is a pretty bad memory actually. You can read a bit about it here. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to do to prepare myself spiritually and emotionally for potential triggers and for the potential that B will get triggered and pull away from me, behave badly, show his resentment toward me.

I want to discuss a little bit of the advice I've received - good and bad.

Good Advice: Affirmations!

I am safe.

I am in control of myself.

I am strong.

I am beautiful and my body is a gift.

I have more to say about affirmations... but that is for another time. I think they will help me stay grounded and focused. 

Bad Advice (for me, for right now): Go to B with my vulnerability to give him the opportunity to be compassionate.

This came from our therapist this week. So, just to clarify, I think this is probably great advice for couples with an addict further in his recovery, and a couple further in their marital recovery. However, we are neither. When we left therapy I was pretty upset but we drove home separately so I had some time to collect my thoughts. So far the advice in therapy has been geared toward B, which is good. However, it has also caused me to give up most of my boundaries to follow the advice we are given. Some things have been good, but I'm still trying to figure out my methods of finding safety. This week, I was advised to not bring up anything to do with our weekly discussion about pornography in order to give B the opportunity to practice his courage and come to me. What about when I need to talk about something? I previously found safety by speaking my truth when I felt like it and needed to do so. But then was told to only speak about anything related to pornography (and therefore my healing) once a week. That was HARD to agree to but we've been doing it. Now, I'm not even supposed to bring it up? I'm just supposed to let him be courageous? When he has proven that he is mostly not courageous?

Anyway, I was upset. When we got home B asked me what I thought of the session. I decided to test the waters - B and I were in a better place together than we have been in a couple months so I thought I'd see if he can be a safe place for my vulnerability. I shared that I was upset, that I felt like my tools are being taken away and I'm being dismissed. I shared that I am SO scared of what will happen on vacation. B clammed up, stopped looking at me, put his hands in his pockets and backed away from me physically, and got upset. It became about him, and how this made him feel, and how it is so hard for him. He then said we should just have our once a week meeting and disclosed two-days-in-a-row acting out this week. Then teh conversation was pretty much over.

So, my answer - B is NOT a safe place for my vulnerability. I want him to be, but he is not. So, that advice is not good for me for now. I will have to find another place to share myself and continue to try and be detached and superficial with my husband.

I'm disappointed. However, I am finding courage for myself in owning my reality and making the effort to try new advice and then making an informed decision about my safety. 

Could this be progress? Grateful for one day at a time.

I'm not committed to calling it progress, but it is the opposite of a red flag. Maybe a white flag? A white flag to signify a tiny piece of surrendering his addiction?

As I wrote a few days ago we are trying something new - only once a week check-ins which means only talking about anything related to pornography, his addiction, my recovery, his recovery once a week. It has only been two weeks. The first week was crappy. I was mad. I was hurt. I was SO SCARED. It requires me letting go of several of my boundaries. I know this is something we aren't supposed to do - we are supposed to set boundaries and STICK TO THEM! We are supposed to not put our recovery at risk for the addict. I thought that is what I was doing (not convinced otherwise yet actually).

However, I decided to go with it because my bishop and our therapist encouraged this step. They both agreed that right now B is not in a place where he can be totally open, honest, transparent and he is not handling my transparency very well. Not my fault, but this the circumstance. I decided a while ago I am willing to do anything except forsake God to save my marriage. I believe that means I will do anything that I am prompted to do, or not prompted against by the spirit. When the whole "once a week" thing came up and the emotions came up that promise kept playing in my head. Also, I had a moment where I felt very close to the spirit and felt prompted to just go with it despite my fears, and see what happens. This need not be a permanent situation.

The first meeting was not great, but not awful, just very uninformative and short.

The second week has been a little better. I'm trying to trust God, His plan, and if this is His plan for me right now, so be it. B and I grew a little closer, and less contentious during the week because he wasn't so furious with me constantly. I relied on talking to friends, and the Healing Through Christ workbook to get the safety and transparency I want.

Then Wednesday day, the day we are supposed to have "the talk." I was nervous. We actually had a really great day, like best one in a while. I didn't want to have the talk. I didn't want it to be ruined. I had convinced myself to just not bring it up. History has shown that if I don't bring it up, he CERTAINLY won't bring it up.

Then B asked me if we could have our meeting. Okay. He said a prayer. He has to go pee or something so I squeeze in a desperate prayer. Heavenly Father, please help me handle whatever is coming. I don't think I can keep it together, please help me. inthenameofJesusChristamen.

He starts, with a disclosure. He is more specific than usual. Not in a gory details way, in an open and honest way. hmm, this is new, I like it. He answers my few questions. I ask him more about his emotional state before he acted out. He shares with me. He won't look me in the eyes, which is pretty typical behavior for him. Where is my anger? Where is my hurt? Hmm... must be one of those times where it comes later. Why do I feel so peaceful? Why do I feel so close to him? I invite him to come sit by me on the couch as we continue talking. We do. I share with him that I love him, and I give him a hug. I can tell he soaks it in like he desperately needed it. I'm grateful for a post I read the other day about how to support your addict spouse. I'm telling him about things I've learned. He's telling me about things he's learned. He just wants to sit together, and we do. I find the honesty so refreshing and it makes me feel so much closer to B. A small piece of trust has been rebuilt, not all of it, but a small piece.

I tell him he is a good man, and I believe it. He doesn't. His shame is so deeply ingrained. I am mad at his mother, but that doesn't do much good. I talk about the difference between guilt and shame. He nods and wants to believe that this applies to him, that he isn't a bad person. He doesn't believe it, but he wants to believe it.

The "talk" was so filled with vulnerability on both our parts, and honesty, that rather than being drained I am filled with love, peace, and hope. Sometimes I'm reminded that I still love B and there is hope and we have the potential to be great.

Implementing Boundaries and The Principle of Reaping What You Sow

My last post was pretty down. I was pretty down. It was therapeutic to get it all out. I want to feel safe. I realized during the day that partly what I had done was not stick to my boundaries when the most recent lie came out. I immediately started trying to make him feel better at the expense of my own sanity. I held on for a couple days but the trauma magnified and I became lost. I lost my footing, my path, and my sanity.

There was some pretty intense praying yesterday and lots of digging deep. If I had neglected my boundaries I really needed to put some in place now to reestablish my safety zone (emotionally speaking). All the way home on my commute I was contemplating what to say to B. I decided on 2 important things - there needed to be a physical separation of sleeping apart for a time in order for me to heal more fully from my most recent betrayal and there needed to be a halt on all sex until I could trust him again.

This second one was big for me folks. It is SO OBVIOUS and everyone knows that trust must be earned back once it has been broken. We all know this. When someone shows you who they are, believe them right?  B had showed me over the past couple months he was not capable of being completely truthful where his addiction is concerned. So, why, OH WHY did I keep trusting him? After each find I would take a couple days and then just trust him again. I would believe that I finally had the whole truth, and now I must really know everything. Two weeks go by and BAM, something else, on now I must really know EVERYTHING. Trust. Time. BAM - MORE HIDDEN THINGS UNCOVERED.

Well, I've lost count but maybe this time is the charm. I actually gave myself permission on the way home to NOT trust him when it comes to the addiction. I long ago stopped believing he was not going to look at porn again but for some reason I kept believing he was telling me the full extent of his addiction. I don't know why, rose colored glasses? I never gave myself permission to not trust him because I was scared that not trusting meant something dreadful. It might mean the marriage is over, or trust could never be regained, or that it is worse than I can even know. I was scared that not trusting him made me a bad wife. I wasn't giving him the benefit of the doubt or being charitable. I give myself permission to NOT trust him. I give him permission to EARN my trust back rather than have it handed to him. I told him that he must earn my trust back if he wants it. I told him sex was off the table until that point. I told him we are sleeping apart for a week for me to continue to heal from the betrayal of the lies. It didn't go well, but it could have gone worse. He reacted like an addict, who has been caught, and who doesn't want to face his own reality. This is fine, because that is the place he is in and I can't really expect more than that.

Then something wonderful happened - I felt the burden I'd been carrying around for the past while lift off my shoulders and I could almost see it land on him. The burden of trust is on the person with whom it belongs. If he behaves in a trustworthy manner I will give him my trust back, but not before he has shown efforts in behaving that way.

I know this addiction is SO MUCH for the addict. It is also SO MUCH for the spouse. I feel like he is constantly piling crap on me that I have to sort through and dig out of and clean up from (I LOVE Harriet's post about this imagery). Well, yesterday I got out of the pile and shoved ALL THAT SHIT right back on him. It is his mess to deal with, he has to deal with it. I'm doing neither of us any favors by trying to take some of his crap on myself and get buried by it. It just seemed like I was finally getting out of the way of the principle of reaping what you sow. It felt good.

The other miracle? When I got out of the way and put all that crap back on him it freed me from the chains of despair, bitterness, blame, anger, confusion, and frustration that were tying me down with much more force than I realized. (*mote and beam people*) I was so consumed I couldn't see which way was up and I didn't even know it. I was finally able to see B, and know that I had just piled a bunch of crap on him, and love him and want him to find his way out, but NOT want to rescue him from it. I was able to love him more fully and clearly because I wasn't trying to sort through stuff that wasn't mine. My negative feelings toward him dissipated completely because I finally had done what I had been directed to do for myself by the Savior and was filled with His peace and love.

I'm not saying I'm perfect and I know I won't be able to stay here forever, but I just wanted to write about it. In this moment I an content. My marriage is on the brink of disaster, my husband is in full fledged addict mode and I'm not sure if he can dig himself out any time soon, I still have that daggum rash, but I have peace. I have the companionship of the spirit of the Lord and it is sweet, and kind, and I am not alone.