Month: December 2018

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #5 – Handsome’s Clock is Ticking

This is the fifth and final post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first four posts here,  here, here, and here. If you’ve hung in there with me all week, thank you. Getting these things off my chest has been cathartic and I appreciate all of the comments.

I keep waiting for Handsome to do a number of things: express empathy appropriately and when needed, get his head out of his alternate reality, and demonstrate a feeling of urgency about his recovery (including addressing his integrity and intimacy issues). So far, I’m mostly still waiting.

I had intended this post to be broadly about the issue of staying versus going and how I continue to struggle with that decision. And then… well, then this past Monday happened. Two things occurred on Monday that have amped up my sadness and apathy about Handsome’s recovery. Note that I didn’t say “anger.” I find myself slowly shifting away from anger and disappointment and into apathy.

Over the weekend I was going through our bathroom closet looking for a particular product I needed and I came across not one, but two boxes of condoms. The first box, a 40 pack (must have been wishful thinking), I recall purchasing myself after our son was born in 2009. He was born in May and I had to wait until September of that year to get an IUD. Thus, the condoms. Handsome hates condoms with the fire of 1,000 suns, and I think we used no more than 3 or 4 of them. After I got the IUD, we had no need for condoms and the box sat in the back of the closet collecting dust. Imagine my surprise at finding a second box of condoms with a much later 2016 expiration date (which would mean they were purchased in roughly 2012 or 2013). It was a 12 pack. Six were left. Handsome and I have not used condoms together since September of 2009.

My truth = Handsome bought the condoms to act out and have sex with his APs.

His “truth” = “I’ve never seen those before, but they must have been for us.”

Mind you, the issue isn’t actually the condoms. I know he had sex with other women, of course. (And a part of me would be glad/ relieved if he actually did use condoms with them because even though he insists he did, he hates them so much that I tend to doubt that.) The issue is the distorted thinking and/ or the lie. He knows he bought them. Even if he doesn’t remember buying them he at least knows that I did not buy them and that we did not use them together. And yet he can’t bring himself to own that reality.

After that discussion on Monday, Handsome headed off to his weekly therapy appointment. He generally calls me afterwards and I wanted to ask him to stop and pick up milk at the grocery store. When 20+ minutes had passed, I checked “Find Friends” on my phone to see if he was still at the doc’s and saw that he was apparently parked at a beer distributor between his doc and home. I didn’t freak out. Find Friends is often less than precise. I called him and asked him where he was. He told me that he was several miles away in a different town. Find Friends is not that inaccurate. I said nothing further. I can’t make him get a grip on his integrity. I can’t force him to tell the truth.

And that brings us to today. He admitted in our session with the CSAT that he drove from his therapist’s office to the beer distributor and bought and drank a beer on Monday. Handsome will still lie to protect himself. He will still gaslight me even when it’s obvious that I know the truth and I’m not buying his BS. I’m not sure what happened in his therapy session, but it clearly stressed him and rather than using any of the tools in his toolbox to deal with it he resorted to drinking. Again.

And me?  I believe he is engaging in self-sabotage. It’s as if Handsome thinks he can’t recover so he is going to ensure that he won’t recover. It’s sad. He does so well on some things and on other things he is just floundering, but I’m the collateral damage. I’m going to enforce my boundaries. He needs to get himself to another multi-day intensive program of some kind within the next month. He needs to ramp up his meeting attendance and make daily calls to his sponsor and SA buddies. He can, as always, choose not to do these things, but then he needs to find an apartment to live in.

Boundaries and consequences are great, but my patience is wearing very thin. The goodwill I have for him is diminishing with each lie, with each incident of acting out (not sexually that I know of, but he’s clearly acting out in other ways). I’m not getting mad. I’m sliding into apathy. Our CSAT told him today that if I’m not mad he should be terribly afraid because it means that I’m finding my life jacket and putting it on and getting ready to jump ship. If he can right the ship, I’ll stay on board, but I’m not going to be dragged down with him. I love him more than he can imagine, but the clock is truly ticking. I cannot endure this for much longer. That’s the brutally honest truth here: I wanted deeply to move into 2019 with renewed hope and faith and energy, but I see that I’m still dealing with the same BS I was dealing with a year ago. I don’t think that I can do it for one more year, and that breaks my heart. 💔

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #4 – L is for Loser

Image result for loser meme

This is the fourth post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first three posts here,  here, and here.

There really is no easy way to diplomatically address this, so I’m just going to dive right in. There are girls/ women who date broken and damaged men because they either like the drama involved in trying to get them to change, or they enjoy the project of trying to spiff them up, or they think it’s the best they can hope for in a relationship. That has never been me. With one particular exception (it was a brief, 6 month bad-boy phase right after college) I’ve dated guys who were squared away. I’ve never liked drama. I dated men who seemed to have confidence and were secure in who they were and what they wanted out of life. Some of them were selfish assholes, to be sure, but they were far from secretive or apologetic about their lives or their goals and dreams.

I had one long-term (10 year) relationship prior to Handsome and he was not a project in any way, shape, or form. Neither he, nor any of the men I dated, were into porn or escorts or massage parlors. They openly mocked the men who utilized such services. They referred to the women involved as dirty, skanky, trashy and a host of less printable names. Mind you, none of these guys were chaste. Every one of them was completely into sex, sometimes overwhelmingly so, with their own unique takes on kink. Every single one of them was reasonably adventurous, but they wanted that adventure with someone “clean.”  That matched well with my sexual background and experience.

I came into my relationship with Handsome fully believing that men who paid for sex or sat in their basements self-pleasuring to porn were losers. Who pays for sex when you just go out and find someone you like and get it on?

If guys who watch porn and pay for sex are losers, what is my husband?

🙄

I struggle with this. Handsome has been a sex addict for decades… long before he met me. His pattern is to start a new relationship sober, and then after several years fall back into a phase of acting out until he walks away from the relationship (he tries to leave first so he isn’t dumped). Our CSAT calls this the “rinse and repeat” cycle.  If I knew the truth about Handsome, I never would have dated him. I certainly never would have married him. And yet here we are. I find myself married to a man I deeply love, but now struggle to respect.

That’s a tough spot to be in. I used to look at him with admiration. Now, all too often I see him through glasses colored by sadness and pity, generally with a dose of resentment thrown in as well. When he would walk into a room pre-DDay, even when I was tired, or ticked, or hungry for that matter, I would smile and get a warm fuzzy feeling. Now, I often look away. There is still love there, but it has a lot of hurt and disgust piled on top of it.

And yet this result was very predictable. Nothing in my background would suggest to Handsome that I wouldn’t be violently disgusted by his behavior. His boss is (allegedly) a complete male whore and Handsome and I used to talk about his antics disparagingly all the time and discuss how sorry we felt for his wife. More than half of that time Handsome was doing the same or worse things. (Transference, perhaps?)

Handsome certainly knew that when I found out that he’d been going down on the town syphilitic whore, it would turn my stomach for him to do that to me. He had to realize that knowing that he came inside women who were basically smashed by a steady train of paying guys all day long, having him inside me would be a lot less meaningful or fun or intimate. He must have known that the knowledge that he trolled for anonymous pussy online – and that he’d essentially fuck anything – means that whatever he says to me about wanting me is kind of a moot point. Why wouldn’t he want me after what he’s been fucking?

Of all of the issues I’m covering this week, this may be the one that is most difficult to overcome. Handsome has to work – hard – to regain my esteem and respect. So far, a year in, his record is lackluster. Yes, he has made strides, but then he undoes everything with a giant helping of lies or trickle truth or gas lighting. That can’t continue forever.

I want desperately to rebuild trust and respect for him, but only Handsome controls whether or not that is possible. I want to look at him and be proud of all of the hard work that he is doing to heal himself and us. I have had that at fleeting times throughout the last year, and then it vanishes when he undermines and self-sabotages his own hard work. I’m willing to do everything I can to help him, but he also needs to help himself.

Tomorrow – A Week of Brutal Honesty – #5 – Handsome’s Clock is Ticking

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #3 – A Crime of Passion (a.k.a Why I’ll never get picked for a jury)

This is the third post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first two posts here and here.

I’ve been pondering this post for a long time, but frankly it just seemed way too awkward – and revealing – to write. I was on a support group call a few days ago and someone had a very similar experience, so I’m thinking that perhaps I’m not as alone in this as I thought. So, if this makes sense to even one betrayed spouse out there, just know that you aren’t the only one.

I am not a physically aggressive person. I don’t think that I have ever actually struck another human in anger… ever, even as a kid. I did throw a bottle of water at Handsome’s head at some point in the last few months, and it seemed to shock the hell out of him – which is probably indicative of how out of character that kind of thing is for me.

Based on that, it might surprise you to know that I’m reasonably certain that I seriously considered killing him the night he first disclosed his infidelity to me. I feel really weird just writing that sentence out, but it happened. After dumping his initial disclosure of lies on me, Handsome headed downstairs to sleep in our basement. I wept initially, and then… well, then I got mad, (like really, really mad), that he had done such a thing, to me, to our family, and that he only came clean because the Whore’s husband was going to out him. I was seething hot with rage.

Rage is probably the most relatable word that I can use, but it was really far beyond that. I felt with absolute clarity the depths to which he had betrayed and harmed me. I did not want revenge. I wanted him to no longer exist. The maelstrom of fury inside of me was truly like nothing I had ever felt before.

We are not gun nuts, but he is in law enforcement and my dad was an accomplished skeet shooter, so we have guns in our home. For the record I’m all in favor of gun control and background checks and closing the gun show purchase loophole and… well, generally anything that the NRA opposes. Nonetheless, I know how to shoot.

And yes, I thought seriously about where the guns are in our house, where the ammo is, whether he might be expecting my rage or if he actually managed to fall asleep now that his guilty conscience was relieved (ha! if I only knew how far from the truth that was at the time)…. and then one thought popped into my mind. I pictured our kids and how that would be the loss of both parents for them, since I knew I wasn’t going to get away with anything. I recall being absolutely fully aware that I’d go to jail. We had just had an absolutely terrific day with the kids and I couldn’t imagine them without either parent, losing their home, moving to their godmother’s, having to give up their friends and their school and their pets because of me or their asshole cheater-father. I wasn’t going to cause that.

This was not, to be honest, as linear an argument in my head as this makes it seem. I sat with these thoughts running through my head for longer than I care to admit. I did not ever touch a weapon that night (nor since then), but I had run through about every scenario I could think of in my mind. In the end, it wasn’t my great love of my husband that saved him that night. In that white-hot fury I truly did not give a shit about him. He was saved by my great love of our kids and my own moral compass.

I used to think that crimes of passion were some BS concept that defense attorneys used to get their clients off. That’s likely true in some cases, but if I could be driven to seriously evaluate the pros and cons of homicide, then I’m reasonably certain that just about anyone can. I’m pretty even keeled (or, more precisely, I was before DDay). I don’t have anger management issues, and I’m very often more pushover than powerhouse at home. I’m also a pretty law and order kind of girl. Today though? If I were on a jury and a betrayed spouse had whacked their mate in an incident worthy of 48 Hours, I get it. I can empathize. I would sign on the “not guilty by reason of temporary insanity” line in a heartbeat. I’m not talking about someone who plots and schemes for weeks, but in that heat of the moment after discovery or disclosure? I know that crazy pain and the crazier thinking that goes along with it. I’ve been there. I’m not saying that it’s right or that it makes sense (and, in fact, that’s precisely why it’s so crazy… because it makes no sense). I’m just saying that I understand.

Tomorrow: A Week of Brutal Honesty – #4 – L is for Loser

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #2 – Regrets: I have a few (but maybe not what you think)

Image result for regret meme

This is the second post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first post here.

My best friend is one of the few people I have told about what is going on with Handsome. She is supportive of me, for sure, and also of the marriage (if Handsome does the work needed). She is also frank with me in a way that only a best friend can be. She asked me if I regret marrying Handsome in the first place. Hmmm…..

Do I regret marrying him? No. I don’t. I made the choice to marry him based on what I thought to be true. The lies only recently came to light. I can’t undo 14 years of marriage (and 2 awesome kids), but if he wants to continue in this relationship he needs to double down on his efforts to rebuild what he has carelessly and selfishly destroyed. He can’t just float through and be occasionally nicer to me and think it will fix everything. He needs to figure out how to show empathy without pouting. He needs to be able to articulate how he is going to work to make things better, and then he needs to follow through and do those things.

That said, I do have other regrets:

I regret the way that I handled Round 1 with the Flame back in 2012. Here was my husband, in daily inappropriate communication with another woman and, after I found out and pitched a hissy fit, I took him at his word that it was over and done with and that we were all good. I believed him when he said he was sorry. (He wasn’t sorry. He thought that I had over reacted. He had no intention of not communicating with her ever again.) I believed him when he assured me that he wouldn’t humiliate me that way again. (Ha! Little did I know…) I was upset enough to leave him over the incident. I told him that very bluntly, but I don’t think he ever believed it. Still, I didn’t insist on counseling or take any other protective steps.  That was stupid on my part.

I regret how I handled Handsome’s drinking. After this episode with the Flame, Handsome’s drinking escalated for a time. He had always had a few beers (2-3) but this is when it got really bad, seemingly out of nowhere. It was taking a toll on our family and on Handsome’s health. I grew so worried about him that I actually reached out to his dad and asked him to come stay with us and talk to Handsome about his drinking. Handsome’s dad has been sober for a few decades and still attends AA. I thought he might be helpful. He was useless. First, Handsome didn’t drink in front of his dad the entire time his dad was at our house (heaven forbid that daddy see him drink 8-10+ beers a night). His dad left thinking I was just a crazy wing nut. I also know now that Handsome’s dad is likely a key component in his family of origin issues. He is squarely in the man-box, and is seemingly incapable of empathy let alone much self-awareness. He probably couldn’t have helped if he had wanted to and my sense now is that he could never admit that his golden child is also an alcoholic (like him, and Handsome’s mom, and Handsome’s brother…). Again, I would have been better off to insist on marriage or family counseling and see if the drinking could have been addressed there.

I regret the way that I handled Porngate. When Handsome finally stopped gas lighting me and came clean, I should have insisted on counseling of some kind. I didn’t. Again, I believed him when he said he was sorry and that it was “just for fun” and that it was over. (Yep. I was such a freaking idiot!) If it was no big deal he would have owned it and brushed it off. He didn’t. Today, I kick myself for not seeing (1) that a pattern of acting out behavior was emerging, and (2) that Handsome was escalating, and (3) that he was lying through his teeth. Perhaps more importantly, I was crushed to find out about all the porn. Handsome never had to deal with that devastation. He never addressed how it impacted me. I just had to push it down inside, and he marched on and started engaging in increasingly outrageous behavior about a month later.  What followed was by no means my fault, but I do feel as though I missed an opportunity to possibly prevent things from blowing up in such epic fashion. If he had help earlier, maybe his addiction could have been identified and addressed before it got so terribly out of hand.

Finally, I regret not trusting my gut more and not speaking up for myself. I’ve written about that here on multiple occasions, and it continues to be true. I did not know about Handsome’s affair with the Whore (or all the others) prior to DDay #1, but there were things that gave me a great sense of unease and I just tamped that feeling down and ignored that gut warning. I’ll never do that again. I trust my gut now. If something seems wrong, it probably is, and Handsome no longer gets the benefit of any doubt. Quite the opposite, in fact. Moving forward I am highly likely to always side with my truth (or my sense of it) over his.  That’s his fault, of course, and perhaps it will change with proven integrity over time, but we aren’t anywhere near that yet when staggered disclosures continue to occur.

Tomorrow: A Week of Brutal Honesty – #3 – A Crime of Passion (a.k.a. Why I’ll never get picked for a jury)

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #1 – An Intro – Sex with My Sex Addict Husband

Let me assure you that nothing bad has happened (recently, that is), I haven’t lost my marbles, and I’m not out for pity or sympathy. I use this blog to share my experiences and feelings and there are some very specific ones that, to date, I’ve been too embarrassed/ hesitant/ insecure/shy/reluctant/ whatever to share.

I don’t want to carry this baggage into 2019, however, so I’m going to pound them out over the course of this week by posting one per day. I just need to get them off my chest and toss them out into the ether and move into the New Year without the burden of these thoughts. If something resonates, great, or maybe it will just be me cleansing my soul, but that’s fine too.

Today’s topic: sex with my sex addict husband.

My experience, like many on this journey, is likely really different from what others experienced. I can only speak to us. You might think that sex with a guy who had numerous sex partners, including pros, and who watched more than his fair share of porn, would be awesome. He must have learned something, right?? In our relationship, throughout the entirety of our relationship, it was rarely so. Were we having sex? Yes, but not usually a lot. Was it fulfilling? Not usually for me.

Pre-DDay, Handsome was quite selfish in bed. I see this very clearly now. I didn’t then. I was always just so happy for the attention when it came my way. In bed, I fell into that trap where I was so focused on trying to please him that I became irrelevant to the process. Foreplay was minimal, intercourse was usually brief, and when he was done, it was over for both of us. By DDay #1, I couldn’t even remember the last time he brought me to orgasm, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that it had probably been a few years. I always told myself that our relationship was about more than sex and that I could deal with barely adequate sex since I had an otherwise great husband [insert laugh track here…]. It makes sense, and it’s foolish, all at the same time.

Two other factors certainly didn’t help: his ED and his compulsive masturbation. It’s hard to have anything left in the tank if you’re engaging in daily solo play and you have ED. I can honestly say that I never, ever did anything other than try to be supportive about the ED. I told him often that it wasn’t a big deal and not to worry. I am, however, really f-ing resentful that he could somehow manage to get it up for the harem of whores while he couldn’t manage that most times with me. That simply sucks. He claims that he very often couldn’t perform with them either and that that’s why he preferred oral to straight sex, but I doubt that’s the case. He wasn’t spending $200-300 a pop for blow jobs. If he was, he’s a bigger fool than I think.

There was a third factor too: his drinking. On a daily basis I’m sure it didn’t help his ED, but it otherwise didn’t come into play. Date nights or special occasions where he drank a lot were a different story. I detest sloppy drunks. I’ve felt that way ever since college. I find that slobbery, stupid drunk stage just intolerable. Handsome seemed to think it was cute (not!). On nights when most couples would have carried the fun of the evening into bed, I’d spend an extra 3-4 minutes in the bathroom until he fell asleep/ passed out. I’m incredibly happy that I haven’t had to deal with that dynamic for a year.

Finally, even when we were having sex he often seemed disconnected. He was there physically, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. Was he fantasizing about someone else? Maybe. Probably. I’ll never know for sure. I just know that he wasn’t connecting in any real way with me most of the time.

Why do I struggle mightily with this? None of his APs or paid pros are anything like me. He deliberately chose them and lusted after them and somehow managed to perform with them. I’m sad, and yes resentful/ bitter/ angry/ hurt, that he could perform with them and not me. I feel like I played the chump for years, trying to be a good wife, putting up with a crappy vanilla sex life, all the while he’s getting his rocks off unbeknownst to me. (As an illustration of how clueless I was, about a month before DDay #1 I started to research doctors that might be able to help him with what I guessed was low-T or general mid-life funk, because that’s the level our sex life was at. He had four (4!!) active affair partners at the time.)

With some caveats that I’ll address in another post this week, the good news is that things are generally better post-DDay. It took a few months, but the selfishness is mostly gone. He is more connected and attentive. He has remembered that I have a clitoris and that it can be fun to pay attention to it. He’s not drinking, so that eliminates the sloppy drunk issue. Sex is no longer just about him. I occasionally wonder if he’s really present with me or if he’s elsewhere in his mind, but I’m guessing that’s normal and just another gift of the betrayal trauma (the gift that keeps on giving).

Tomorrow: A Week of Brutal Honesty – #2 – Regrets – I have a few (but maybe not what you think)

Why I think Miss Kentucky and my husband have a few things in common

I would like to share a few pictures with you:

Miss Kentucky 2014

…with our kiddo at the Kentucky Derby in 2015

…and her current status…

When we met this beautiful, bright young woman at the Kentucky Derby, she was absolutely delightful. She was kind and gracious and went out of her way to make our daughter’s day special. (My daughter told her that she looked like a magical princess and that she loved her crown.) I was dismayed to see last week’s news and the sad developments in her life.

What do I see when I look at these photos? I see a woman not entirely unlike my husband. For the record, Handsome did not act out with minors. Otherwise, I see this as a “there but for the grace of God” kind of thing. I see a physically beautiful human being who is apparently afflicted with some gaping hole in her soul. I see a wife (married just under 3 years, to a wealthy coal family scion) and mother who apparently couldn’t self-soothe or find sufficient peace or joy in her life and who made really, unbelievably bad decisions. She violated a position of trust. She acted out through her place of employment. It all caught up to her.

I am sure that it would be distasteful to my husband to be compared to her. It would probably piss him off. Handsome draws that bright line (minors vs non minors) in the sand. Yes, there is a legal bright line there for VERY good reason, but I’d suggest that bedding down with your “mentee” 32 years your junior is creepy and immoral too. So is being a cog in the sex trade/ human trafficking wheel, and sexting/ meeting up with anonymous folks online (who we hope and believe were over 18, but…?). So is engaging in some of your acting out during your work day, in your work uniform. Handsome would say that there are big differences. I don’t think so.

A year ago, I’m not sure that I would have felt much sympathy for this young woman. Now, I do. And I certainly empathize with her husband and kids. Every single day I am thankful that my family didn’t end up with news crews parked on our front lawn or my husband’s pictures all over the local news. Having them on Facebook was bad enough.

I hope that she gets whatever help she needs to address her issues. I hope that for her husband and kids as well. I also take this as a reminder that you never know what struggles someone has in their life just from looking at outward appearances.  A few years ago, she seemed to be on top of the world. Now, it’s all gone.

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

André Malraux

One Year After DDay #1

Yesterday was precisely 365 days after my husband blew our lives apart last December. It was the day everything that seemed reliable and good in my life felt like it was instantaneously sucked into a black hole, never to be seen again.

The intervening year has, I think, largely been devoted to triage. Yes, there have been signs of progress, but there have also been set backs, even recently. The wounds are still potentially fatal, and they are still bleeding.

In the “good” or positive column I would list that Handsome goes to SA, he goes to his individual therapy, he joins me and participates with our CSAT, he is not drinking, he has been sexually sober for a year, he has made additional disclosures when he didn’t have to, he journals daily, and he says he wants to get better.

I have made progress too. I’m more willing than ever to speak up for myself, I’ve developed a reasonably good sense of objectivity about this mess that is my life. I call Handsome out when the need arises. I’ve taken steps to protect my health and financial well-being apart from Handsome. I no longer cry every day (although I did have a good cry today so I feel like a fraud writing that, but it’s been a few days since the last one so it’s not a lie). I could become a private eye if my regular day job doesn’t work out since I’ve had so much training this past year.

There is a flip side though, and it isn’t as small as I’d like. Handsome still struggles to tell the truth. He remains terrible at availing himself of the resources available to him. He acts out in non-sexual ways (anger). He broke his vow to not drink for a year. After 9 months in SA he has yet to complete Step 1. He continues to struggle with self-awareness and empathy. I believe there are likely additional disclosures to come.

I haven’t been a picnic either. I yell more than I used to or I get exasperated and sigh (which is just a crappy, sad response to anything from an adult). I have said unkind things to Handsome… and often meant every word of them. Some days I still resent him for breathing. I hate that his recovery is a drain on our time and money. I struggle with knowing how broken and damaged he really is. I am devastated that he cared more about self-soothing and filling the void within himself than he did about the consequences to his family. I still ask myself more often than I think I should be at this point whether I should stay or go.

I figured that Handsome would forget the significance of the day. He didn’t. Most likely he remembered because it coincides with his sobriety date, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’d have remembered anyway.

If I take a moment to reflect, his life is likely better than it was a year ago. He’s sober and is getting help for his various issues. Is my life better? If I’m really honest, I don’t think so. That’s hard to admit, but I think it’s true. The lies and secrets were still going strong as recently as two weeks ago. The only obvious improvement is that my husband isn’t actively cheating on me. No small thing, for sure, but that seems like a really low threshold. Yes, Handsome often tells me that he loves me and I believe he means it. But he did that before DDay too. Yes, he surprises me with the occasional sweet, loving gesture, but he did that before DDay as well. He is endeavoring to be more kind and patient with me and with the kids. What I think I still lack are the basic building blocks for a marriage: trust, respect, loyalty, honesty, integrity, empathy. Those are fundamentals that are still works in progress.

As I told Handsome yesterday, “The next 12 months cannot be like the last 12 months or I will not be here 365 days from now.   To be clear, I can’t endure 1 more month of it let alone 12, and I shouldn’t have to. … My “reward” for staying – for continuing to be a part of the shit show – is supposed to be a better marriage and all of the honesty, respect, loyalty, and other good things that go along with it.  When is that going to start, because I’m tired of waiting?”

Did our CSAT just pull one over on me?

Looking back at my session last week with our CSAT, it was pretty hard-core. We talked about Handsome’s lack of real progress in his recovery, how a physical separation might be necessary, how long I was willing to be patient for that recovery that may never come, how a separation might trigger a relapse, etc. etc. It was fairly doom and gloom. She met with Handsome yesterday, individually, for what I surmised would be something of a “Come to Jesus” meeting. She flat-out told me that if Handsome couldn’t find that turning point/ change of heart that he needs to move into real recovery, there would be little she could truly do for us as a couple other than helping to moderate the temperature of the relationship.

Imagine my surprise when Handsome returned from the session yesterday and reported that it went “great.” Did they talk about his lack of progress? Not in so many words. She recommended an intensive program in January for him. Did she raise the possibility of a physical separation? Nope. She told him that I’m at the end of my rope, but that’s no surprise to him. I’ve told him that point-blank at home and in our sessions. She had asked me in some detail about how long my patience would last and when a separation might make sense. She also told me she would need to share that with him. Did she? Nope. WTAF???? I lose sleep for a week and virtually none of what we discussed is actually raised with him?

I like and respect our CSAT, but I was ticked. I felt let down that she soft-sold her points, to the extent she made them at all. I felt like that played into his “you blow things out of proportion” victim mode (he did not say that, but he did question why I was so highly agitated after last week since there was “nothing really wrong”). I felt more than a bit misled. One of three things seemed to have happened:

  1. Handsome was minimizing and downplaying the session; or
  2. She had her own change of heart on how to deal with him in the last week; or
  3. For some reason she felt the need to scare the crap out of me last week.

I’m no shrinking violet, so I went to our couples session today fully prepared to ask what, exactly, happened either over the course of the previous seven days or what I was completely missing. I warned Handsome in advance that I was ticked because I wanted him to understand that I wasn’t mad at him. He knows me well enough to know that I would be frank in conveying my surprise at what I perceived as a turn of events.

So, today, I put my fancy suit for an after work cocktail party and as I’m driving to the CSAT’s office I’m rehearsing what I’m going to say (both because I’m a dork and I get unusually rattled in there). I decided to go with “I was kind of surprised yesterday when Handsome came home from your session and said that it went great. It doesn’t sound like many of the issues you and I discussed last week were covered…” and leave it open-ended. I couldn’t tell if she was surprised that Handsome shared his session with me or that I shared our doom and gloom session with him yesterday (See, we do communicate!! lol), but I think she was a bit unprepared for that. Handsome sat there during the start of the session like:

I jumped right in. I was calm, but collected. It turns out that what transpired was a mix of #1 and #2 and general soft peddling on her part. Handsome did, to some extent, minimize parts of their conversation. That said, she reconsidered some of her statements to me in the intervening days, so he didn’t exactly get the full impression of her concern. And she admittedly walked back her comments about essentially firing us if Handsome doesn’t make progress. I walked her through those again, in front of Handsome, so he could hear her concern – as it was told to me – from her. I think that was helpful because it showed him that I had not blown the comments out of proportion and that yes, she is looking for him to have a sincere and meaningful change of heart, and that we cannot heal without it.

Building off of that, I added that even though I love Handsome with all my heart, this faux recovery (love that term, Maggie) or dry drunk state, just isn’t good enough for me and that I believe the next step may very well be a separation so that Handsome can focus on his recovery. I needed Handsome to hear that from me, and I wanted the CSAT to hear me say it too, in no uncertain terms. Interestingly, after that, today was the first time that I saw what I think was real, honest vulnerability from Handsome in months.

It seems that there is something to this detachment thing after all.