My world imploded at around 11:00PM on December 9, 2017. The next four months of my life were pretty much a complete sh*t show. It wasn’t until DDay #2 that I really grasped that my husband’s behavior crossed a line into compulsive sexual behavior. (CrazyKat had pegged it earlier, but I couldn’t grasp the truth of it until the facts were laid bare before me.) That was a turning point of sorts, but December 9th is the day that triggered everything that has flowed forth thereafter.
Last year, I was pretty much a mess in the week leading up to the anniversary. I was irritable, sad, quiet, angry… and just generally lacking balance. This year was better. Not great and not without issue, but better.
At worst, I was somewhat agitated on the 8th. On the 9th itself I felt like I had a heavy cloak on all day. It was as if there was this invisible weight I was carrying that I could feel but no one else could see. It didn’t distress me. It didn’t hurt. It was just… there.
It happened to be a particularly stressful work day as I had my compensation meeting for next year. (Each December we have to make a case to one of the firm muckety mucks about what we should be paid and why for the next year, back it up with data, and then we wait about 7 weeks to see if we were persuasive enough.) I was a little scattered, but I thought that overall the meeting went well. It just so happened that Handsome and I had tickets to one of a series of literary lectures we attend, so we went out for dinner together and then to the lecture. That was probably a good thing as I believe the change of scenery and routine was helpful.
Last year, Handsome tried to ignore the day and make believe it didn’t exist. That didn’t go well. It felt as though he was ignoring my pain and distress. To be fair, I hadn’t asked him to do anything, but I felt like he should have known. This year, after we got home and put the kids in bed, he approached me and said “I know these anniversary days are really awful. If there is anything I can do to make it better, I’ll do it. I’m so sorry I caused you all this pain.” It was sincere. It didn’t sound like he was regurgitating something from his sponsor or therapist. He remembered that just ignoring it hurt me. It was a meaningful gesture.
If you told me two years ago that a DDay anniversary would come where I wouldn’t be a wailing mess, I’d have thought you were nuts, but 24 months later that seems to be the case. I still bear the weight of the history of the day, but it doesn’t control me. I have changed and grown. I am certainly stronger than I suspected back then. Rebuilding myself is an ongoing process and Handsome still has a lot (A LOT) of work to do on himself, but I do recognize and take some comfort in how much progress he has we have made.
Congrats on making it this far, many don’t. It’s a testament to the fact that while there are bumps, and there will continue to be obstacles, you’re on the right path. Over time, where those obstacles were first full-on roadblocks, you notice that they are now just speed bumps most of the time. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in different online forums, chat rooms, etc. with women who are suffering from betrayal trauma and for many who are still raw, or many who just blew up their marriage without thinking twice, it’s a very negative space. I think your story is one of hope and one that shows if the hard work is done, you can move toward healing. It’s not overnight and it will never be exactly the same, but there is something other than complete destruction of the relationship.
In a weird way, it’s kind of how having a child turned out. I knew it would be hard work, but I had no idea exactly how hard it would be. Ditto with the betrayal trauma recovery. I couldn’t really have imagined just how hard it would be sometimes. When things are working and we’re chugging along in a good space, it’s downright magical. If the wheels come off the bus though, it’s still brutal. I completely understand why people bail. That’s a brave choice too. It just hasn’t been the right one for me so far.
I agree 100%. There is no wrong answer as long as you think it through. And if anybody told me what alcohol and porn addiction recovery work was going to be like six years ago, I don’t know if I would have jumped into it so hard. Being naive really helps me at times.
Oh, my friend. This is so familiar. Time doesn’t heal all wounds as they say, but it does lessen the pain. With time (and HARD work), each year that passes is a little less devastating. Prayers for a peaceful Christmas to you and yours. Much love. ❤️
Thank you Leigh! Merry Christmas to your family as well. ❤️🎄
I was watching for this post, and I’m so glad it’s not as it was last year. Time really does give some perspective and healing, I’m really happy for how you feel now ❤️ The road is still long and bendy (as it is with every life), but each curve gets a little easier to corner because you’ve proven to yourself that you can and will survive those sharp turns (and maybe a few cliffs).
Big hugs brave girl, you’re really doing it xo 😘
Hey SSA, good to hear from you. It’s fascinating to me, but the addiction and the related infidelity/ betrayal doesn’t weigh as much on me now as just dealing with the day to day emotional regulation issues. It’s not that I don’t care about what he did (I do, for sure) but life has moved on to focus on other things. And if I really dig deep, a bunch of Handsome’s behavior that I now find intolerable is probably behavior that I worked around and tolerated/ ignored before. It’s not that he’s “worse” (in fact, he’s much better in a lot of ways) it’s just that my standards have changed and I’m much more deliberate about my boundaries than I was in the past. What may have flown before isn’t flying now.
I hope things are going well for you and for Mr. Perfect and the kids. 🙂
I can relate to everything you’ve written here. I too tolerated so many behaviours in the past that I shake my head at now. I know for a fact if someone had a birds eye view of our daily lives in the 7 years pre-ddays, they would be shaking their heads daily, but all I was doing was subconsciously and cumulatively try to keep my head above water for 7 years – and that became the norm. But like you, not any more. I call him out on everything I find strange, unexplainable, and unacceptable now. EVERYTHING. EVERY TIME.
We are doing well in our relationship, there are less hard days but I realize that those betrayed feeling, guarded-ness and sadness will most likely always be there (even if its 0.000001%, it’s still there). He still has debilitating anxiety but he still gets up every morning and goes to work, and he is also very motivated to trying new things to feel better. I’m recovering from a hysterectomy I had almost 2 weeks ago and let me tell you – it’s a slow recovery. I have plenty of time to ruminate and go over all of these horrible things and I get really angry, until he sends me a sweet text asking how I am and don’t forget to take my meds. It’s sweet, and I can finally say that I have a man who thinks about me first. It’s still hard, and I whisper under my breath many times a day that I hate him, but I know it’s that I hate how he could have done what he did.
How are things with your kids? Teenager being a bit easier on you?
I’m glad he’s helping you and “showing up” for you while you recover. That’s awesome.
Our kids are good. My daughter is embracing being 13. She drives me nuts, but she’s a straight A student so I try to pick and choose my battles. We probably get along well comparatively, but she can be so flippant (and occasionally mean) these days that it drives me nuts. Her brother catches the worst of it and then I’m probably second on the list.I asked her the other day when I might expect this challenging phase to be over (“… a year? Two? By graduation?”) and she laughed. She knows when she flips out. Often she apologizes which seems to show some level of self-awareness. Hopefully this too shall pass. 🙂
Awh ☹️ Yes it will definitely pass and you’ll be closer than ever ❤️
Chazak v’amatz: be strong and resolute.
Thank you! I try. Some days it is easier than others. 🙂
I totally understand. I have been unemployed for 18 months (I have had jobs since I was 10 years old!) and just this week, Monday was so tough I thought I can’t go on like this, I have no hope left. But then Tuesday 3 very promising things surfaced, which is honestly still kind of shocking. Yesterday I went to a really fantastic and substantive event about job and career changing and had conversations about how I am working really hard to see this experience as part of a story that I will hopefully understand some day.
I think with age (I am 57) comes some wisdom that we live a story that for most of us has so many unpredictable twists and turns…a long and winding road…that a lot of the time make no sense but even totally suck ass stuff serves the purpose of moving that story forward.
Lol, yes, sometimes suck ass stuff does serve a purpose. In 2013 my dad died and I attended grief counseling for a year (he and I were close and I knew I needed some help working through the grief). Undoubtedly, the skills I learned in grief counseling helped me survive the implosion of my marriage. Very directly, one suck ass thing (my dad’s death) helped me cope with another (betrayal trauma). Life works in mysterious ways.
xo
Congratulations! I am just a few months ahead of you. Time heals, but we are forever changed.
Living and recovering from betrayal trauma with a sex addict is hard on the best of days, devastating on the worst. You are such a mature person handling your situation with grace and intelligence, I think you had spotted the potential signs yourself (of course of something almost no one has experience with going in), and I merely, through your words, stood in that place with you and agreed.
But what is more important to me is that you understood that you didn’t have to, and shouldn’t, do this alone. You know my mantra… a diagnosis of sex addiction opens a potential path to healing, and that’s a good thing.
Healing and recovery is a long, arduous, frustrating, heart aching and yet rewarding process. In my mind if it was easy, it wouldn’t be real or true. Add to that, we each have our own path. Your path is unique to you and your husband.
I do, not so secretly, however, hope Handsome is able to find a way to connect with other men that have walked a similar path. Not being or feeling alone in recovery, I believe, is very important. BE’s 12 step support brothers/friends have been critical to his healing. They have also been there for him with the recent happenings in our life. They are truly safe. Although I have been frustrated in the past with him needing them when I felt out of the loop, I now realize they are vital to his process. Because of his own demons, BE lumps me into the “shame/burden” category sometimes. We’re still working on this, but now I really do understand.
Much love to you at this juncture in your healing journey.
Merry Christmas to you and your family! ❤️
Thank you so much Kat! Finding you and all of the other support here has been my lifeline. For me, 12-step for partners was just wasn’t the answer, and I knew intuitively that I needed to be very careful about who I shared with, but that I needed peer support. I found that here. Like you, I keep hoping that Handsome finds a few people in his groups to connect with in a deeper way. I think it can be hard for adults to make friends generally, and I imagine that it can be even harder for guys with emotional intimacy issues. I think it’s just going to take him longer than average to develop those bonds.
For us, the sex addiction diagnosis was absolutely the first step in the path to healing. It was not, in any way, an excuse. It didn’t even really make anything for me any better necessarily. It just opened a door on what was going on with Handsome, in secret, and it started to reveal some of the backstory. The time since then has indeed been hard on the best days and awful on others, but we’re working on it. I see him trying and making effort and doing things I never thought he could stick with (like daily journaling). We aren’t in the clear, not by any means, but things are getting better bit by bit.
Happy Hanukkah to you and your family! I hope it is filled with peace and joy for you all.
xo
I am sorry I missed this post. I used to think that Dday anniversaries would always be there, but as each year passed they got less and less. I do believe (I am reading Mark Nepo) that allowing myself to relive every moment of the 3 weeks he was gone, going through the pain and processing it enabled me to let the significance of the date fade into the ether. By the time the 3rd year came round I stopped myself if any thoughts crept up. As you know I realised this year that we don’t even know the date has arrived. Hugs to you. ❤️
I know it will take time, but I look forward to when December 9 is just another day. ☀️