Month: September 2018

In Search of Empathy (in all the wrong places)

I write here often of how well my husband is progressing with his recovery and how helpful he has been to our joint recovery. When he “gets it” things are good, bordering on great. Sadly, the opposite is also true. When I give him a chance to be there for me and he completely and utterly blows it, I’m devastated. Again.

Some back story: Handsome and I, like many couples, seem to have different internal thermostats. I like to be warm while he wears shorts to shovel snow. About 6 or 7 years ago Handsome started sleeping in our lower level guest room when he was working overnights (so, about 5 days a month) because it was isolated and quiet for him as he tried to sleep during the day. Starting about 5 years ago he started spending more time sleeping there and telling me it was because he was too hot upstairs in our bedroom which was generally about 70 -71 degrees. It was a slow progression, but by last Fall he was sleeping downstairs almost every night.

Did I think this was all okay?  Hell no! Once it started to shift from a few days a month to more often than not, I regularly tried to talk to him about it. We seemed to be roommates (with benefits) and not spouses, but whenever I would bring it up he would kiss my forehead and assure me that it was just that he was too hot upstairs. He made me feel silly for even raising the issue, but it still bothered me. I mostly wrote it off to what I perceived to be his mid-life crisis.

Last year at this time we went away without our kids. It was a weekend filled with fun and romance and I was very sad when we flew home because I wanted that closeness to continue. Handsome was in our room at bedtime and he was setting out his clothes for work the next day. I sensed he was going to leave so I asked him, “Aren’t you going to stay in here?” He stood at the foot of the bed, laughed heartily at me and said, “Not a chance. I’ll see you again in a couple of months.” (I believe that he was referring to our big trip to Europe a little over two months later.) I was absolutely crushed. Heartbroken. At the time, it was the most devastating pain my husband had inflicted on me. I cried the entire night and for a few nights thereafter.

Post DDays, his virtual move to the guest room makes all the more sense. He could watch porn and/ or masturbate without interruption. He could use his burner phone in our house while the rest of us were asleep upstairs. He could sext and text with impunity. He could drink excessively and come and go from our basement door to get rid of the empties without me seeing them. His intimacy disorder could flourish because he separated himself physically, and eventually emotionally, from his family.

Coming into late September this year, I thought I was in an okay place mentally. Handsome and I are going on a trip this week to the same place as last year. I was caught off guard by the waves of deep, unsettling emotions as I thought back on last September. I was feeling very overwhelmed for several days with vivid, painful memories of his treatment of me when we returned from the trip, not to mention the texts I now know he sent the Whore within hours of our return home (basically belittling the vacation and telling her he wished she was there with him). Over the weekend, I tried to explain to Handsome why what happened last year hurt me so deeply and how that was bringing up all kinds of feelings now.

At first, I thought it was going to be okay. He held me and held my face and apologized for the decisions he made that hurt me. He was sympathetic. He kissed me and held me some more… and then he opened his mouth again and said, “… but you know, sleeping in the basement was really  mostly about the temperature.”

Um, no. No it wasn’t. There was no sleeping elsewhere for 6+ years before we had a guest room. There was no sleeping elsewhere after we moved to the house with the guest room but before his compulsive behavior started to consume him. There was no sleeping elsewhere when we amicably negotiated the thermostat setting for years. The temperature became – and apparently still is – a convenient excuse for an act that hurt his family and which fed and facilitated his addiction and compulsive behavior. To suggest otherwise is to blame me for everything. “Gee, my wife likes the thermostat at 70 degrees, so I guess I have to move to the basement and masturbate.” “Oh, she’s got it set at 71 today? Guess I’ll go watch porn.” WTAF? It’s shorthand for, “Because of you, BW, [and your silly need to stay warm enough to keep your nose from running 24/7] I was compelled to physically distance myself from you, and I just happened to engage in all of this awful behavior as a result.” What was the excuse last summer when he and Angel Baby had the sleepovers at our house?  I wasn’t home and was hundreds of miles away. He could have set the thermostat at whatever temperature made him happy. Nope. They still slept in the other room. Why? BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE HE ENGAGED IN THE VAST MAJORITY OF HIS ACTING OUT IN OUR HOME. It had nothing to do with the thermostat.

I am mindful that seeking solace from my SA husband is akin to an assault victim looking for empathy from her attacker. Nonetheless, he’s all I’ve got. I had hoped that with 9 months of therapy and a couple of intensives under his belt that he might be in a position to display just enough empathy to help me work through this momentary struggle. No such luck. I’ll spare myself the disappointment and keep my mouth shut next time. I’ve had about all the deflection I can handle. Thanks for nothing, Handsome.

Never Have I Ever…

Over time, I’ve come to realize that a good number of my conversations with my husband regarding his years of acting out have seemed an awful lot like a sadistic round of the “Never have I ever…” game.

Absent a betrayer who vomits forth disclosures, we partners are left to ask question after question, trying to get answers. We have a million questions, and we also ask the same questions multiple times. Nonetheless, we only know to ask certain questions based on the limited sphere of information we have at hand. I, for one, cannot ask what I cannot even fathom I should ask. I’m left with seemingly random guesses or barely educated stabs in the dark. “Have you ever…?” or “Did you ever…?”

As an example, Handsome did not volunteer that he was pic collecting from the “massage services” section of Craigslist (which should really more appropriately be called the “prostitution services” section) from places clear across the country. In talking about Craigslist he happened to mention the word “massage” by accident, I think, and that led to me asking if he pic collected from massage services postings. Until that point he had always insisted that he only perused the Woman Seeking Men section of our local Craigslist ads because he was “looking for criminal activity” where he worked. (He had admitted that he would save some of the pictures).  When I asked, he admitted utilizing the massage services ads as well. Then I remarked “Really? It seems unusual to me that you would limit yourself to those postings in _________ [where we live], because there aren’t that many of them and I understand that many pic collectors search postings from all over the country.” He then answered casually, “Oh well, yes, I did that too… from basically everywhere Craigslist has a presence.” This statement was an admission that his pic collecting was a much more pervasive part of his acting out than I had previously imagined in that it included both the massage services and the dating/ hook -up sections of Craigslist (and probably Backpage), and he was in touch with women all over the country. It totally undermined his whole “I was mostly on Craigslist for work” BS – not that I ever bought that for a second.

Does he get a thumbs up for finally being honest? Sure. He could have lied and claimed he never did any of that. I’m mindful though that had I not done any reading or research on pic collecting, I never would have known to ask the question that I did. It might squeeze its way into the definition of an admission, but it sure doesn’t seem like rigorous honesty to me. I shouldn’t have to guess at what he’s done.  Otherwise, maybe I’ve got the wrong game in mind. Perhaps this disclosure process is more like Battleship, where I just randomly toss out the most hideous things I can think of that he might have done and see if any hit their mark.

Updates & Tying Up Loose Ends 1.0

I enjoy shows like 20/20 or Dateline that cover true crime cases, but I’m always a bit sad if there is no conclusion or a “since this story was filmed” postscript. Thus, please accept these updates (in no particular order) to some issues raised in my previous posts:

Fire Dude & the Whore:  Having the Whore’s burner phone in my possession was like keeping a flaming coal in my pocket. It’s mere existence hurt me, and as long as I had it, I had an unsettling link to Fire Dude. He would text me at all hours of the day and night and send me pictures of people he thought looked like Handsome driving by their house. I finally managed to have the burner phone copied and I returned it to him in June. I haven’t heard from him since. He and the Whore welcomed a baby girl to the world on August 4th. That child would have been conceived during the Whore’s affair with Handsome, although he swears that he hasn’t had sex with her since 2015.

Vasectomy: Handsome had his initial consultation with the urologist and scheduled the surgery for mid-October. Given the amount of time he will need to be off – about 2 weeks since he doesn’t have a desk job – it may be delayed due to his work schedule, but he did follow through and make the appointment.

Post-nuptial agreement: This is a work in progress. Handsome tells me that he’s open to it and willing to discuss it, and then it never happens. He avoids it like the plague.  When we do manage to talk about it he says that he feels as if I’m discounting his contributions to our family and that he fears that I’m asking for the agreement only to hurt him. Those are fairly big accusations. I can understand why he might perceive those things to be true. Neither is true. This is solely about sharing the risk of staying in the marriage and protecting me and our kids in the event he is unfaithful again and the marriage ends in divorce. This is a major item on my “I need this to stay” list, so I’m not giving up and I’ll raise it in front of our CSAT if he continues to dodge the issue.

Beyond Affairs:  We just wrapped up the last of the post-intensive calls following our participation in their Healing From Affairs weekend. In retrospect, altogether it was a very worthwhile experience for us. We are (generally) communicating much better than we did before and I think we have a better understanding of how we have each viewed certain things that occurred in our marriage. We have identified our vulnerabilities in tremendous detail and talked through them in a way that most couples never do. While Handsome’s SA puts a slightly different spin on certain things, he still cheated and I’m still a betrayed spouse. There was enough relevant material in the weekend and in the after-care that we both agree it was worth the time and expense. I note for anyone considering their intensive that there are six big follow-up group calls after the intensive. Those are spaced out and are just for the participants of the particular recently concluded intensive. They also have calls every other Wednesday night throughout the year that are essentially open in perpetuity to the people who participate in any of their programs (there is a call for women and a separate call for men). The men’s calls seem to always be pretty secular (as was the intensive itself), but the women’s calls shift through both secular phases and bible-study related phases.

The Flame: Perhaps the gum is wearing off my shoe. Handsome realizes (now, finally, duh!) that The Flame isn’t all sunshine and light. He recognizes that just as he was having an emotional affair with her, she was also equally cheating on her husband. He seems to have gained some insight into why she was such a willing participant with him and what that says about her.  The Flame has gone underground on social media. I had heard that her husband was filing for divorce, but I’m not checking. She seems to have lost one of her two jobs in the last few months. One way or the other she will get what she has coming.  (Karma!)

The Unicorn: Believe it or not, but things appear to be working out for Handsome with his unicorn of an SA sponsor. I’d even go so far as to say that perhaps The Unicorn is an ideal match for Handsome. They resolved their initial communication issues and now talk fairly regularly. He has given Handsome space and time to do recovery work outside of SA, like our affair recovery work from the intensive, and because his schedule is crazy he is forgiving of Handsome’s crazy schedule as well. In short, things seem to be just fine with the two of them.

Today Handsome hits 9 months of sexual sobriety. On Sunday we will be 9 months out from our first DDay. I would say that it seems like a lifetime ago, except the pain is still so very fresh and close to the surface. We are hanging in there together though. I am trying to stay strong, one breath at a time and one hour at a time and one day at a time. Some days I do a better job than others, but writing here helps me through good and bad patches. I didn’t start blogging because I thought anyone would ever see it. I just needed to shout on paper (or a screen, to be more precise). The fact that I have received so much terrific advice, commentary, and support here from men and women that I’ve never met – even when we agree to disagree – has been both a wonderful surprise and a tremendous blessing.  I don’t really have the words to express how much you have all helped me in my healing, but I want to say that I appreciate each of you. Thank you all. ❤️

Financial Infidelity – Show Me the Money

This is a tough post for me to write, and I apologize in advance for the length. My reasonably blue-collared upbringing impressed upon me the decidedly blue-blooded notion that you don’t discuss money with people outside your household. Ever. Nonetheless, it plays a big role in my story with Handsome and I’m guessing that I’m not the only betrayed spouse who feels this way.

Before the Spring of 2012 (when Handsome’s acting out really commenced) Handsome and I would bicker, but rarely fight over anything other than politics. Maybe we’d feud over a scheduling/ child care issue, but these were fleeting matters, and quickly smoothed over. Starting in 2012, however, Handsome suddenly started to pick fights about our finances.

A touch of background: Handsome and I work full time (plus) and our jobs permit us a comfortable, culturally rich life. We have a lovely home and a summer home and retirement savings and we take nice vacations. We carefully pick and choose what we spend our money on and we are generally in agreement. We aren’t buying the $14 organic peanut butter at the grocery store, but we have taken our kids to Europe and South America. Our kids are a big source of spending (activities, camps, babysitter, etc.). Collectively, I don’t think that we live beyond our means, but we don’t live below them either. There is no great big pot of money left at month end, and a major unexpected expense (like a big home or car repair, for example) can still sting.

I’ve written here before about how Handsome and I divide our finances. I bear the vast majority of our expenses, but my income is significantly higher. The idea has always been that we each bear our proportionate share of expenses and neither of us should be penniless throughout the month. Imagine my surprise when I would be having a discussion with Handsome about paying for something relatively minor and he would suddenly start SCREAMING at me about how he has “no money” and “can’t live like this anymore.” When these outbursts started in 2012, I just started bearing a greater portion of the financial obligations, both to try to help him out (was the division unfair or overly burdensome to him? I didn’t know…) and to avoid the conflict. The outbursts continued, and they got more frequent.

By our first DDay, I had been subjected to these screaming tirades about money every few months for the better part of five years. Tirades from a man who, when he needed to replace a Ford Escape that was aging into a money pit in 2015, called me one day out of the blue because he found a new Land Rover he wanted to buy that very day. He wanted to get me to agree – sight unseen – to the purchase of a car that didn’t meet our needs (we had discussed getting something with a third row) and which I sincerely doubted he could afford to maintain. That proved to be true. He couldn’t afford the dealer maintenance. (I now know he bought the car when his physical affair with the Whore was at its pinnacle, in an apparent pathetic attempt to impress a woman who has neither a car nor a driver’s license and spends the vast majority of every single day on her cat pee- stained couch.)

In the back of my mind I always kind of wondered – why is he always broke? If anything his monthly expenses decreased while his income increased, so what’s the issue? He was so very highly agitated about it though, that I figured it wasn’t worth the battle to get into it with him. For the past few years I mostly bought my own Mother’s Day and birthday gifts for our kids to give me so that they could feel like they were actually participating in the celebration. I almost solely and exclusively bought our kids’ birthday and Christmas gifts because he plead poverty.

In the wake of both of my DDays I’ve come to learn where his money was going. Several hundred dollars a month went to buy beer. Then there was the porn he purchased, the expense of his burner phone, the fancy meals he squired the skanks to, the hotel room for the Whore, and all of the cash he showered on them. Hundreds of dollars out the door each month. By my general estimation, he blew at least $16,000 on his acting out from 2012 through 2017. All the while he would stand in our house and scream at me till he was red in the face about not having money.

For Christmas in 2016, Handsome told me that he was “short on cash” so he couldn’t buy any of our kids’ gifts. He seemed sincerely remorseful about it and I just did what I always do and handled everything. Our kids had an awesome holiday. He has since admitted that he found Angel Baby “outside on the street at work, crying in the rain” (note: that bitch needs to get an umbrella because in his tales of woe she’s always outside in a downpour) and that he gave her “a couple hundred dollars” to buy Christmas gifts for her kids. There are no words that I can think of to adequately articulate my white-hot rage at that scenario… her brood and her opening gifts purchased through my husband’s largesse when he didn’t spend a dime on his own kids.

I know that Handsome’s screaming fits are what Dr. M considers “intimate partner abuse.” They were uncalled for, offensive, and yes, abusive. I am still terribly scarred by them. Handsome complaining about money is an extreme trigger for me. To put it into perspective, as of today I have as great a physiological response to his financial infidelity as I do to his physical infidelity. Any hint of a complaint from him about money is enough to send me spiraling into nausea and misery.

This past weekend – over the holiday – our hot water tank decided to die a quick and untimely death. You say “no big deal BW, they’re cheap.” Well, not ours. We apparently have the Ferrari of hot water heaters and replacing it is a several thousand dollar expense. We replaced the condenser for our AC just a few weeks ago for another few grand. This, of course, led to a dreaded discussion about where all of this cash was to come from and Handsome said “well, I’ve been saying for years that we really need a slush fund for these kinds of things.” Yes, Handsome, you asshole, you have been saying that and we certainly do. All or any fraction of the $16,000 you spent on your acting out would have made a lovely pot of cash to rely on for these things. Or the tens of thousands of dollars we’ve spent just this year on your SA recovery or our betrayal recovery.  Yes indeed. That would be quite helpful now, wouldn’t it?

I went there. The place I normally bite my tongue and avoid like the plague. I pointed these facts out to him. His initial response?  Deflect with anger. Blame me for bringing it up. Act as though the problem isn’t that these things occurred, but that I dare mention them. Shortly thereafter, the shame appeared, but I fear that this too is an addict’s manipulative tool. Pout and sulk enough that I feel badly for raising the issue. Make me never want to raise it again. Here’s the new thing though… it doesn’t work on me any more. If he apologizes to me sincerely for creating this predicament and stops acting like he had nothing to do with the situation, I’ll show empathy. We’ll figure it out together. Otherwise? I love a hot shower as much as the next girl, but I’ll freeze my tushie off on principle. The burden to fix what he broke cannot fall on me alone. I didn’t put us in this position and I’m tired of coming to the rescue.