Month: October 2018

Inertia

In the example in the photo, I feel like my happiness is the human and my melancholy days are the elephant. My happiness can (and for the last 10 months has on multiple occasions) shift in an instant, whereas my feelings of sadness are much more difficult to change. They tend to linger.  It’s like trying to turn the Titanic.  It will happen, but slowly and not in enough time to avoid the iceberg.

Handsome and I have been… fine since we got back from our trip. Not great. Not bad. Just… fine. My problem then? It’s not good enough for me. I feel as though I’m working really, really hard and achieving mediocrity. That’s not my style. I’m not bouncing back to happiness in the wake of our trip.

A few things have happened since I last wrote.  First, I made it very clear to Handsome that while I support him and I’m always available to him I do not want to be his accountability partner. I tried to explain why. He said he understood and he walked me through his safety plan. It does not include me. I’m fine with that. Time will tell if he uses it and we’ll see if it works.

Handsome had his vasectomy last week. He was a miserable ass in the morning beforehand, but it went well and he’s off work for about two and a half weeks. Is it wrong that I slept really, really well that night?  We won’t know for a few months whether the surgery was entirely successful but, assuming that it is, the reassurance that our kids and I do not have to worry about any unexpected progeny lifted a huge weight off my sagging shoulders. I take no delight in seeing him in discomfort, but with his history and the two kids recently born to his AP’s, I was more overwhelmed by fear than I had expressed. There are plenty of things that I still worry about, but Handsome has taken a big step to ensure that one comes off the list.

We did our check in a few days ago and Handsome is back to dodging the question about lies and secrets he is keeping. He says there are no more. After years of acting out, I’m reasonably sure that’s BS. I understand that he doesn’t want to sit and ponder his bad acts because it makes him feel like a turd. Nonetheless, it’s something Dr. M told him he needs to do. Our CSAT told him he needs to do it. Thus, in my book, he needs to do it.

I think my failure to bounce back is likely due to what happened on our trip (Handsome went back to his vices) and also all of the triggers that surround me  this year based on what I now know was going on behind my back last Fall. When I was away at a work conference Handsome was texting and sexting like crazy and trying to have another hotel hook up with the Whore. I leave for that same conference today. The day last year that my in laws were to arrive to celebrate Halloween with us, Handsome spent the morning sexting and recording a masturbation video in our master bathroom and sending it to the Whore. A few weeks later when I went out of town for a work meeting for two days, Handsome was again sexting and texting and trying to hook up with the Whore before I had even pulled out of our driveway. Finally, just before Thanksgiving, Handsome sent the Whore a ton of text messages complaining about cooking for the holiday and devaluing and diminishing me. Their exchange which, frankly, probably pisses me off more than any blow job, went like this (crap grammar/ punctuation is all theirs):

Handsome: I get off at 7:30 in the morning and then I have to cook. 🙁

Whore: No you don’t REALLY?

Handsome: REALLY

Whore: WTF!!!

Handsome: Exactly

Whore: Why????

Handsome: Just the way it is.

Whore: That’s fucked up big time  that pisses me off

Handsome: You and me both.

Whore: You work all night you should be able to come home take a hot shower go lay down for a bit and eat

Handsome: Not if I want to eat.

Whore: Is that every holiday

Handsome: Yep

Whore: Does she cook at all?

Handsome: Lasagna @ 3 times a year. That’s it.

Whore: I have no words. What do your kids eat if your (sic) not home

Handsome: Babysitter cooks [note from BW – As to dinner during the work week when I get home from work between 7:30 and 8:00PM, he’s correct. All other meals, including holidays? Not hardly.]

Whore: So everyone cooks but not her  wtfh

Handsome: Lots of pizza lately because I have been saying F it    no wonder I’ve gotten fat 🙁

[note from BW – Riiiight Handsome… it couldn’t possibly be the case of beer you’re downing every 2-3 days, your failure to exercise (because masturbation isn’t exercise), or your disdain for healthy foods… it must be the failure of your lazy bride to play chef for you… .]

Whore: Does she work

Handsome: Yes

Whore: As much as you

Handsome: No

[note from BW – That one word response still makes me want to throat punch him, almost a full year and a shit ton of counseling later, as I contemplate my 50-60 hour+ work weeks and what I bring to the table economically and otherwise for our family. What an absolutely delusional bunch of bullshit.]

Whore: I’m sorry handsome  That’s just messed up in a lot of ways Wish I could cook for you so you wouldn’t have to

Handsome: Me too

***

Three days later the Whore’s husband found her burner phone. Had I known of this exchange prior to Thanksgiving last year, I would have kicked Handsome out so he could celebrate with her. She likely got a free turkey from the food pantry and her fraudulently obtained food stamps covered the rest. I’m sure it would have been delightful for him to eat with the drunk, pill-popping, child abuser in her filthy house with 22 cats running around. Yum.

This year?  We’re going to Williamsburg for Thanksgiving. If he thinks I didn’t cook before, try me now.

Fighting for One Another

It’s been a long couple of days since we returned from our trip. Handsome and I have been civil. We pulled off a nice date night a few days ago. And yet I still had the feeling that we were both suffering, separately, and in silence lest we rock the proverbial boat.

For my part, I know that to be true. Immediately after the weekend I was simply sad about the happenings of the day and night we spent apart. It just seemed like such a wasted opportunity for us. Then, the more days that passed, I started to get ticked off. No… really pissed off… at how things turned out.

Handsome has a circle plan which, if you aren’t familiar with concept, is supposed to identify inner circle behaviors (those that are de facto relationship damaging), the middle circle behaviors (those that may lead to the inner circle and are serious enough to be addressed but which may or may not damage the relationship), and the outer circle (good behaviors used to cope in healthy ways and to help the addict avoid the inner and middle circle).  By way of example, a circle chart for a gambling addict might look like this:

As a sex addict, Handsome’s inner circle includes things like sexual contact with anyone other than me, using or viewing dating/ hook up/ massage sites, voyeurism, possessing a burner phone, etc.  His middle circle includes things like drinking alcohol, objectifying women, working excessive overtime, and unavoidable contact with any of his affair partners.  His outer circle is filled with great ideas for self-care.

When he responded to our fight by going to the hotel bar and having a few beers (thus tossing 7 months of sobriety from alcohol out the window), I was hurt. Then, I got mad. I was (am?) mad that he ran back to one of his old tricks the minute things got tough. I was mad he didn’t use a single tool at his disposal. I was mad he utterly disregarded his outer circle items. I was mad he didn’t reach out to anyone, including me, to talk him off that ledge. I was mad he felt no need to apologize for it at the time.

He talked with his therapist last week about what happened and the therapist directed him to develop a safety plan to keep in his wallet. It’s supposed to be a list of people he can call and things he can do to avoid his inner and middle circles. Sounds great, but since he threw the circle plan out the window in his time of need I’m not sure what one more piece of paper will accomplish. I know that sounds really cynical, but I can’t  articulate how stunned I was that he so readily dove back into his old behavior. The plan is worthless if he refuses to consult it and follow it when needed.

His explanation?  He says he thought it was all hopeless and that we were over. Thus, fuck it all, he’d have a beer. Why did he think it was over? Because I left our hotel. Because I told him I wouldn’t put up with the verbal nastiness. (For his part, he said the same thing to me during the fight.) To be clear, I never mentioned the word “divorce” or threatened divorce. In fact, I really don’t think that I’ve ever brought up divorce since telling him after DDay #2 that if he still loved the Flame that he should go and be with her, and explaining around that same time that I would leave and seek a divorce if his sexual acting out did not come to an immediate end. So, his rushed conclusion all these months later that we were over pisses me off. If anyone has justification to get a divorce, I certainly think I fit that category. Four affairs, years of lies, porn, bringing skanks to our home and…, and…, and…? It would surprise no one if I left, but I haven’t. I’m still here. I swore for better or for worse and this has got to be the “for worse” part, right? I’m still fighting for him and for us, and it rocked my world that he just threw in the towel at the drop of a hat.

I see Handsome’s recovery work as his way of fighting for himself. I also believe it is valuable to our entire family for him to be healthy and sober and for him to have self-esteem and confidence. When the shit hits the fan though, if he just gives up… ? After a bad but not exactly exceptional argument? I agree that the fact that we were away from home likely contributed to his excessive reaction, as did the fact that I did something different by standing up for myself and distancing myself from the situation, but c’mon… after all we’ve been through?  Is his skin really so thin?  I didn’t tap out after finding out that he was juggling all those other women and his other forms of acting out. It admittedly sounds righteously indignant, but is this the thanks I get for hanging in there? I’m angry that he didn’t care enough in that moment to fight back against his own demons for me. For us. Even for himself, for that matter.

Will we get through this?  Sure. It’s just going to take time. It’s a set back, but not an insurmountable one. We need to get back on the same page where we both feel supported and where we are fighting for each other instead of with each other.

Girl Code vs. Awkward Work Event

I saw this in the New York Times yesterday and, frankly, I’m just not sure what to make of it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/style/baby-shower-do-i-have-to-go.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

How would I handle the situation?  I’d get a nice gift for the baby and find any reasonable excuse to be out of/ away from the office that day.

I absolutely understand why the woman who wrote the letter is uncomfortable participating in the shower. You don’t have to be a betrayed spouse to feel awkward about celebrating someone who apparently had no qualms about ripping apart a family (or at least felt no need to hide it).

Thoughts?

Maybe it’s time for separate vacations?

This picture is the view from my hotel room on Sunday night. Unfortunately, it was not the room that I had booked months ago with Handsome. It was a room that I had booked less than an hour earlier after Handsome left me sitting on a bench, by myself, at our resort.  One Uber ride and a couple hundred bucks later, I at least had a safe place to lay my head.

I should stop being amazed at how quickly things in my life can go from “great” to “hell in a hand basket” territory. You would think I would have learned by now, but no. As I sat in my unexpected home for the night I could not grasp that my husband was sleeping somewhere else. I could not fathom that he hadn’t called to see whether I was safe or to ask where I was. I couldn’t believe that our vacation devolved into disaster.

About 96 hours earlier we had been sitting in our CSAT’s office talking about how I was struggling with the triggers surrounding the trip and what I perceived as Handsome’s lack of empathy and deflection relating to those triggers. When we left there, I thought we had worked through a lot of the issues and I was (cautiously) optimistic about the weekend.

A day later we had happily packed for our trip, driven to the airport, and found ourselves at the first of two hotels we planned to stay at over the weekend.  Twenty minutes after arriving we were at an outside bar/ restaurant waiting for our room to be available and Handsome started to get highly agitated and to complain about everything (the heat, the bugs, why isn’t the room ready, etc.). I said something like, “we just got here. Are you going to be upset about the heat the whole time, because we knew it was going to be hot, right?” He looked me square in the eyes and responded flatly, “It’s not like I wanted to come in the first place.”

He should have just slapped me. It would have hurt less. Knowing how completely insecure I was about the trip after last year, it was a brutal thing to say. Either it’s true and we shouldn’t have bothered to take the trip, or it was a lie but targeted to inflict pain. So, twenty minutes into the vacation and I’m already having a good cry. In public.

We managed to salvage the rest of that day, but the following day he went through a bout of acting like a turd because he forgot to bring a backpack to carry all of his stuff. Evidently that was my fault or at least enough of my fault to elicit swearing and fit-pitching like a toddler. Cue more waterworks from me (who pre-DDays normally didn’t cry).  I kept thinking that what was happening was exactly why I was worried about traveling with him. He apologized, but “I’m sorry” doesn’t just wipe away a bunch of hurtful words. I sucked it up though, pushed the feelings down deep inside, and we ended up having a fine day.

Saturday, it was my turn to get snappy. It was incredibly hot and humid and we went into a building to sit down and, although there was plenty of room, Handsome sat so close to me that his shorts literally lapped over on top of my thighs. He could not have gotten any closer to me without actually sitting on my lap. I was sticky and sweaty and grumpy and I think I gave him an eye roll and said something about him not leaving me any room. Apparently, although he can get ticked off whenever/ wherever, I am not permitted to display any negative emotion without it becoming a national calamity. He sulked, he pouted, he didn’t speak to me for over an hour. It was utterly absurd.  (Right now I am sure you are thinking “my goodness BW, what an entitled asshat he is” and on this trip you would be completely correct. This is acting out era Handsome, not Handsome 2.0. Post DDay I would see flashes of this behavior, but it has been relatively infrequent. He must have stored it up just for this trip.) We pretty much recovered and ended up having a good later afternoon/ evening, but I was exhausted feeling like I was on an emotional roller coaster.

The next day, the wheels just fell off our bus. They say that timing is everything and, in this case it surely was. We had a lazy morning in bed and Handsome was talking about how he wanted to go visit his hometown sometime soon. We talked about when that might happen and what we might do there. All good. Then Handsome told me how he really wants to visit the place where he went on summer vacations as a kid. Sounds fine, except that place had been the subject of a blow-out argument we had about two or three months ago wherein I flat out told him that I would never ever go there. I did not tell him that he couldn’t go or that he couldn’t take our kids, but I was abundantly clear that I would not go. (To make a long story somewhat short, my refusal to go stems from his repeated acting out in our summer home and how he tainted my “happy place” with impunity. As of right now I won’t go and celebrate his happy place when he shat all over mine.) I might have been less reactive to him bringing it up if the circumstances were different (like we weren’t in bed together) or if he appeared to give a crap at all if bringing it up might be triggering for me, but that didn’t happen. And the day fell apart from there. After completely ghosting on me for about 5 hours, by around dinner time he was so mouthy and defensive and blaming everything on me that I just couldn’t take another moment of it. I packed my bag, dropped it with the bellman, and went off to find dinner. I didn’t hear from him.

I reached out to our CSAT and basically asked what I should do. Leaving my SA husband alone seemed like a bad idea, but I also didn’t think I needed to stay and have the weight of the world dumped on me. She suggested that I try to talk to him, so I texted him and asked him to meet me. He came but was just angry and hostile. He admitted that he spent the previous few hours sitting in the hotel bar, drinking (there goes 6 months of sobriety from alcohol). I tried a dozen ways to get him talking and to try to reach past that impervious armor of callousness, but I was getting nowhere. I finally realized it was almost 10PM and I didn’t think he had eaten, so I mentioned it to him because I was concerned that the restaurants would close and he’d be starving. He just got up off the bench we had been sitting on and walked away from me off into the night.

I managed to collect myself enough to get the bellman to find my bag and to get into an Uber. Unbeknownst to me, Handsome apparently watched me leave. I didn’t see him off in the shadows. He said nothing. He never asked where I was going. I simply got a text from him at 1 in the morning telling me that he was sorry that he squandered the opportunity to talk to me. The next day – the last of our vacation – he asked me to please come back to the hotel to meet him. When I got there he hugged me and started crying and apologized profusely for the night before. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until about 5PM that he even asked where I had spent the previous night.

We made it through the remainder of the day (we actually had some fun) and flew home together. He apologized again this morning for “ruining the vacation.” For my part, I’m just very sad. I’m sad he threw 6 months of sobriety from alcohol out the window at the drop of a hat. I’m sad he didn’t/ wouldn’t call his SA sponsor. I’m sad he didn’t/ wouldn’t try to participate in a phone meeting or an online meeting. I’m sad that he didn’t try to call me, even though he was mad at me, to try to talk through things. I’m sad that he did not use a single tool at his disposal to help him deal with whatever was going on inside his head. I’m sad that the high I normally get from travel is just stunningly absent this time around. I can’t shake the feeling that I wasted three vacation days and that if this is what vacationing with my recovering SA husband means, I’d rather go alone.