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. 💔
Your words are so powerful, and although I have beeb through infidelity and read others stories, and engage with many others your blog today has brought tears to my eyes.
We cannot tell people what to do, we all have to make up our own minds, because only we are living our lives; and only we live with the consequences of our choices. But I hope you will forgive me if I share some of my life stories with you:
I was married before Rich, in fact I have only recently come to realise what a narcissist he was/is. He would tell me how people were saying things about me, because he loved me. He would be so loving and yet say he was just popping to the shop and not come back all day. When I asked him where he had been he would tell me that I was being possessive, that people are allowed ro live their lives, that just because he was married to me I didn’t own him.
He would go to the cashpoint and draw out money without telling me (we had a joint account) and then he would watch me sort our finances knowing they would be wrong because I was not aware the money had been drawn out (this was before the availability of the internet in the 80s and early 90s) and when I would obtain proof that he had drawn it out he would just bareface lie and say it wasn’t him.
When I had my son he waited until the first scan to then insist i got rid of the baby. Clearly I refused, I was getting to the point that I had responsibilities for someone else and their life was going to be affected as well as mine now. Fast forward to when he started ro blame my son as well as me and I made my decision: I got out. In between all of this he was loving, good fun, seemed to care, but when I look back I can see that I should have asked myself a long while before I left ‘what did I love?’
To live with someone who bareface lies, mostly to themselves, is virtually impossible because it starts to feel as if your whole life is a lie. To live with someone who doesn’t accept any responsibility for their behaviour, or say they do but the behaviour doesn’t change is draining and I knew if I had not left him I would have died young, because he would have taken my soul away in the end. Even now, 23 years later he still behaves the same, and manages ro get under my son’s skin. He will never change.
Moving forward to Rich and I: i have said, and you will see, I thought about leaving every day for nearly two years. Perhaps it was because I had been through my first marriage I realised that I had to look after myself first, as I always say ‘if you don’t have yourself you have nothing. I truly believe that. I too put a deadline in place, to see if things had improved or to make the decision to walk away. Things improved, but I told Rich about the deadline, and he knew there would be no more chances.
I also told him that the day I stopped crying was the day he had to worry, because it meant I just didn’t care anymore. He was terrified when I finally did!
If you feel apathy don’t be afraid of it, let life show you the way. Through all of this sadness becomes our companion, not necessarily our friend; and all of us have to learn the blessed art of acceptance: accept the pain, accept what’s happened, accept the fact that life has turmpned upside down, never to be lived the same again, and on and on. But I truly believe it makes us stronger and that life has a plan for us all, it is not necessarily what we think we want, but is often infinitely better. We just don’t realise it at the time.
I offer you support in all this, keep going and accept the apathy and sadness and they won’t bite you as much, as you move on to the next stage.
I hope this helps.
Moisy
I appreciate every word of this Moisy. I actually find that I’m doing better by not fighting the apathy. Handsome needs to see it, feel it, know its real. I think he got a first-hand dose of that at our CSAT’s office the other day when I started talking about “weeks” instead of framing things in terms of months or years. He was completely broken up during the session and our CSAT was focused on him getting a grip and not fleeing, so when I started saying really bluntly that he’s worn me down to the point where I’m certainly not surprised and I’m too exhausted to care, it was brutal. He knows he has pressed me as far as he can. That’s not to say that he won’t do it again – he’s an addict after all – but he has to see that he has gone too far. He simply has to quit lying. I get that sex addicts are relentless liars, but he needs to get an immediate handle on that.
xo
I had hoped for two things over the last 12 months:
1. An opportunity to demonstrate to my xp my intentions with her were genuine
2. Patience while the panic and pain subsided
I have been allowed both things but neither included her. She was already on the way out the door when she discovered my betrayal et al. As I was fighting my shame and trying to fix the problem so I? could stay she apparently was looking for a way to get me out.
I admire you both so much. You and Moisy have been some of the best teachers for me. Thank you.
It goes both ways Sean. I have learned from you as well. 🙂
Oh my girl, I’m so proud of you for enforcing your boundaries, but I’m also sense your numbness, and I’m so sorry.
You have done incredible things and have proven to Handsome over and over how much you love him and your willingness to stand by him, despite what he’s done to you and your family for years and years (and the effects of such will last for many more).
If you have to enforce the boundaries, perhaps Handsome will finally hit rock bottom (this is necessary for addicts), and surrender to honesty and true recovery.
But you’re right – this is absolutely on him. You have the right to say enough is enough.
HUGS and more hugs, I’m thinking of you and sending healing vibes xo
Oh, I’m absolutely enforcing my boundaries. Handsome is going to a week long intensive program in late January. (It’s not for sex addicts specifically, but it’s intended to get at the root causes of addiction and trauma and teach healthy coping skills.) He’s aware that he needs to do the daily meetings/ calls/ outreach until the day he leaves. I think he’ll do that. Will any of this make a lasting difference? Who knows? But yes, this is all on him. And again, it’s not about the condoms or the beer. It’s all about the abject lack of integrity.
When we did our couples weekend back in June we got these “trust jars” that you put colored glass beads in to signify the degree of trust you have for your partner. I had some trust for Handsome at that point because I saw him doing recovery work and following up on Dr. M’s after-care, so his jar wasn’t as empty as you might think. Over the next several months I added to the jar as he did other things to rebuild trust. It was about half full on Monday. He dumped it out today and says he’s starting from scratch. He knows where things stand.
I gratefully accept your hugs and healing vibes!
xo
This is such a powerful post, blackacre. Achingly sad in many ways, but I’m also so quietly excited for YOU. You are so right about the apathy. I knew the numbness was a sign to end it. I tried. He cried and begged and pleaded. So I said I would try again. And did. I slogged away, and I got where he said he wanted me to be, to trust him.
In my case. Big mistake. Not saying this is your situation, but trust your feelings xxx.
It is achingly sad, isn’t it? I’m actually quite sad for Handsome too, completely separate from “us” or me. It’s tragic to have every resource available at your disposal and yet be unable (or unwilling) to harness those resources to save yourself. I am completely confident that he understands the potential consequences of his ongoing behavior. I believe that he does not want to lose me or the kids. I believe he actually wants to stop lying. And yet he continues to screw up. It’s maddening and baffling and sad, all at the same time.
xo
Absolutely! I feel for Handsome too. Deeply sad.
And utterly frustrating.
The interesting thing to me, with a non addict, is instead of feeling that sadness, Rog medicated with another woman. Love addiction seems a ‘warmer,’ less desperate addiction than sex, or drugs. When love addiction was suggested to Rog, he came home from the therapist’s and said to me, but isn’t that a GOOD thing? To crave love?
FFS. Clueless.
🤦 Yikes. Clueless is right on point.
There is a great quote I found this week from Alain de Botton:
“It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.”
As such, as I move through the grieving I recognize that it involves a different kind of infidelity and dishonesty. I have to lie to myself to convince myself it wasn’t what I believed it was. Instead of focusing on all the generous and beautiful experiences in my life with my xp, I have had to refocus my natural generosity to a more cold and calculating perspective. One that makes fewer and fewer allowances for the humanity behind her sulking sullenness and cruelty. One that warps what was wonderful into the moment into a pattern of heroism that undermines the very substance of the experience. I lie to myself so that I can remain angry enough to justify not caring any longer. It requires apathy towards my own truth.
That’s so very hard… to deny your truth. Mind you, I have (and occasionally continue) to question my truth, but I think I’ve concluded that my experiences were exactly what I think they were. And yet that doesn’t necessarily mean that things work out. I love Handsome mightily, and yet it still might fall apart. If it does though it doesn’t change the fact that I loved him. It just means that the outcome was out of my hands.
Whenever our fate depends in whole or in part on another human, the outcome is somewhat out of our hands but that doesn’t change our underlying truth.
It might fall apart but you know at the end of the day you have done what you could. And I know I am doing what needs done and that is one less possible regret I will face at the end of my life over this loss: I’ve done what I can.
I know I sound like a broken record… I’m not going to stop there obviously, just acknowledging my own truths 😬. This is a horrendous journey, and to where we don’t really know. Hopefully to a place where our husbands, fathers of our children, best friends, truly understand that learning to tell the truth is the only way. They can agree to our boundaries on a good day, but what they must do is keep their own boundaries. Define them for themselves (not for us—realizing if they haven’t left already, taken that lame road more often traveled, they know some of their boundaries must include our requirements), who and what they want to be, and then really believe these boundaries are for themselves. I know how you are feeling. I felt the same. AND, I am absolutely baffled by people who think their sex addict spouse is “recovered.” They are never recovered. Their brains are altered, they can retrain their behaviors, but they will always be recovering. BE’s sponsor is a 67 year old attorney who is 14 years “sober” from sexual acting out behaviors and he still has bad days. He still pisses his wife off when he chooses on the spur of the moment, to lie because it’s “easier.” Not often, but every once in a while, head in hands, he’s frustrated with himself, acknowledges it, and moves on. Of course he knows in the long run it is never easier to lie, BUT most of these guys lied for decades about a lot of benign things as well as the big things. We are part of that ingrained behavior. Here’s the broken record part, does Handsome have a good 12 step group and REAL friends there? It takes time, but this has been maybe “the” biggest factor for BE, in my opinion. A group of male friends who really truly get Handsome. They know because they live it. That is 12 step, for the addict, to me. I had to give in and realize BE needed these guys in his life. I’m grateful he found them. They had no preconceived notions of who he was or is. They get him. They understand his instinct to lie, his ungroundness, his anxiety. He has a safe place to go. Maybe that is why Handsome was willing to tell the truth in therapy, he feels safer there? And I KNOW, this sucks!!!! Why can’t they just immediately feel safe with us. It takes time. Addicts do not change their behavior over night. I would so arrogantly say I could do those effing 12 steps in an hour. I was angry and frustrated. It was easier for me to get angry at the 12 step than at my husband. I’m simply not an addict. I will never fully understand, but at this point I feel like I understand A LOT. I know your pain and I know you will make the decisions you must make for yourself. Our journey is terribly painful, but I don’t for a second believe it is more difficult than the addicts. It is tiring when BE still has bad days, lots of them, but day by day he’s learned to go to his healthier resources, and his 12 step guys are part of that. Just the other day he lied about something as benign as breakfast. We were in the kitchen. We needed to head out to the beach house to meet the refrigerator repair person. I was trying to decide whether to grab a quick bite for breakfast, or if BE hadn’t eaten, then we would grab something together on the way. I asked him the simple question, did you eat breakfast. He immediately said no. He had had a coffee. I could just tell by the way he said it that he was lying. He then said, yeah I had breakfast. WTAF? What did he think my sinister motive was that he would need to lie about something so stupid??? He said he didn’t know why he lied. It just came out. So so stupid, but I’m used to it. He’s learning, ever.so.slowly. I focus on Handsome because I don’t believe the “statistics.” The one year mark is still baby stages and because it’s difficult for us, the betrayed, to be that rock of understanding and unconditional love, especially in the first few years, they need to get outside their own heads sometimes. They need a safe place to go. For BE, that has been his 12 step guys. Big big hugs. ❤️
You never have to apologize for telling me something multiple times. It’s the only way it sinks into my thick head. 😉
Handsome has a good 12 step group. He has a handful of guys he can call. Are they “friends”…? Not yet, as far as I can tell. Mind you, the first time he really started reaching out to people was just prior to Thanksgiving when he had to call someone each day as a consequence for a boundary violation.
If it’s possible to separate the intimacy disorder from the addict’s sexual acting out (I’m not sure that it is, but bear with me for a moment), I believe that Handsome struggles more with the intimacy disorder and that the intimacy disorder feeds his integrity and sexual acting out issues. I feel like he prefers isolation over connection, so he lies to create distance, to isolate himself, and to have a sense of control, but then he seeks out the comfort/ soothing/ connection that he would have if he wasn’t destroying it. That’s a gross oversimplification, to be sure, but it seems to me that Handsome’s struggle to connect – to attach, as they say – is his root issue.
He doesn’t have a ton of friends, even aside from SA, and the friendships he has are not what I would consider to be “deep” friendships. They strike me more as really good acquaintances or colleagues. He can be charming and friendly without revealing too much. He does not have guy friends that he hangs out with. That might partly be due to where we are in life and the ages of our kids, but it is also no doubt due to his preference for isolation.I agree that forming meaningful relationships with these guys will be key. I hope he can do it. For one thing, it would show him that he is worthy of real friendships. I’m not sure that he feels worthy of much of anything at the moment.
You have the patience of a saint (tell BE I said that). If Handsome lied to me about breakfast 5 years out I’d probably revisit my DDay thoughts of taking him out. (lol kidding/ not kidding) I get that they’ve chosen deceit as a lifestyle for years and that lying is a habit, but it does so much harm. Even if you’re used to it, I would imagine that it still hurts and that’s unfair.
❤️
I can honestly say it doesn’t hurt anymore, the weird little lies that he always told and seemed confusing but mostly harmless, don’t cause pain. I believe before they were a smoke screen for the fact that he is a consummate liar when he is “in his addiction.” Made me feel crazy sometimes. Now, these strange little lies, just frustrating. Old habits die hard, as they say. I understand what you are saying about intimacy disorder, and fear, and control… I think BE felt bad about himself and what he did to cope with that big gaping hole inside caused by years of neglect and abuse. He truly believed he was a horrible person that he was unlovable, so he pretended to be “normal.” To feed that loneliness and emptiness, he created a secret life, mostly in his head. No one knew this part of him other than the women, and of course they thought they were saving him from a bad marriage, so they were also clueless. BE is actually quite social and extroverted. He’s probably naturally like that, but also trained by his crazy narcissistic mother that the more friends you have, doesn’t matter how shallow the relationship, the better person you are. She’s effing nuts. Anyway, all his friendships were shallow. He never talked about his secret life. It was his own private security blanket. I don’t think he knew what a “real” friend was until he met a couple 12 step guys (at 50+ years old) that he clicked with. It was an amazing relief not to have to hide anymore, from anything. Isolation is an addict’s safety zone, especially if their addiction is secret. I remember the days when BE had to “call 5 guys.” He was really frustrated with it because a lot of times he was unable to get ahold of anyone and no one called him back. How dare they not respond when he was stepping so far out of his comfort zone. But that wasn’t the point of the drill anyway. The point was to get them out of their comfort zone. Eventually he found a couple guys who called him back, and he is now really really good friends with two of the guys. The important thing is he can be open. He loves fellowship. But this did all take months and the good friendships, a couple years maybe. I hope Handsome is able to find that comfort. He still feels horrible about himself. He obviously needs to work his recovery for himself, but isolation is a lonely place to be. I always wished that I had been enough, but I wasn’t, it was a hard pill to swallow. During that time, however, I also realized I was fully able to live without BE. It’s a better place for both of us, and for our marriage. We don’t need each other, we want each other. I know it’s way outside his comfort, but BE would be happy to chat with Handsome (texting, emailing, whatever). A safe SA who understands. xo
“I always wished that I had been enough, but I wasn’t…” Yep. And that is tough to deal with. Our CSAT reminds Handsome fairly frequently that I’m only still in the picture because I choose to be there. He knows that, but I feel like he takes it for granted. (He insists that he is incredibly grateful and fully recognizes that, but his actions don’t really match that yet.) I’ll offer up BE again. Perhaps he’ll take him up on it this time.
❤️
I felt the same about BE, that his behavior reflected that he took me for granted, but the truth is (and I can see it now) is that he was afraid. If I was afraid of losing something I would work twice as hard for it. But for BE, it was too much too soon. He still felt unworthy and he kept rationalizing that in his head was the only safe place. Somehow anything he said or did would be that final straw for me. He also felt like perfection was the only acceptable way to salvage our relationship. All I wanted him to do was climb out of his sick head. With time, he is doing it, but nowhere near done yet.
I have been reading all week but hesitate to comment.
I have way too much to say. The words don’t flow for me unfortunately.
I’ll try a few bullets.
I think you need to stop calling him Handsome. It’s not about his physical looks, but the man you write about is far from Handsome.
I’m glad to hear that you have protected your finances etc. Very smart.
I believe you know what you need to do but just can’t. Yet. Ok.
I don’t believe that he thinks you would ever leave him or kick him out. He has it made.
When the trust is gone & broken it’s done.
I don’t know you but I feel so bad for you. Your account is heartbreaking.
I pray you will find the strength to do what is right for you & your family.
Life is too short and it can be such a beautiful experience. You deserve a life without the lies & hurt. You deserve to breathe freely & stop anticipating for the next shoe to drop.
I hope you & your other commentors do not think I’m out of line. I think everyone should be free.
Peace ~
Monica
I completely and totally agree with you that life is short and that it can be beautiful, and I absolutely deserve a life without lies and hurt. I’m 100% with you there. I think the question is simply whether or not I believe that I can ever have that with my husband again. If I look to some of my fellow bloggers, it seems that it is indeed possible. Crazy Kat and Maggie and others have been through very similar experiences with their SA husbands and yet they’ve managed to come out on the other side. Of course, it wasn’t easy and their husbands have done a ton of work. At the moment, mine cherry picks the work he’ll do. I understand that’s not unusual. He needs to do ALL of the work though for us to come out on the other side.
There are plenty of blogs by women who decide to opt out. I read them and I respect where they’re coming from and why they made the choices they made. I’ll note though, that on the whole (a few exceptions aside) that life after leaving isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns either. In some instances you just swap one set of problems for another.
I actually think that one of the reasons that I stay is because I’m very comfortable that I could leave without a problem if I need to. It’s a rare luxury that I know a lot of spouses do not have. And certainly there are boundaries that Handsome could cross that would lead me to make that decision immediately and without hesitation. We just aren’t there yet and so my road is still reconciliation.
I want peace in my life too. We’ll see if the new year has that in store.
❤️
Everything that CrazyKat said.
I remember being so frustrated. At one point, I was sure I would leave. I had the means to leave, my kids are grown, I have friends, a career I love, professional contacts, family nearby, but I hated the idea of being alone in my senior years. Still, I came to a point where I began to believe I would have no choice. At that point, I quit focusing on what my husband was doing or not doing, and put what energy I had left into myself. I started mentally planning a solo life. I didn’t share this with anyone at the time. It was my secret project. I started a journal about this and made it a goal to do one thing per week, no matter how small, to focus on how my life would be as a single senior woman. I started to feel hopeful about me. I realized I have plenty of work to do on me and that I have things I have not done in this life that I still want to do. Around that time I read in a blog, maybe Betrayed Wives Club, that someone said, “I let God have his ‘project’ husband back.” I liked that. Even writing it now, makes me smile. I decided God (or the universe) could work on my husband. I was pleasant with my husband and our home life became calmer. Another phrase this woman wrote stuck with me, “I had to find myself under the rubble of my husband literally acting like a lunatic.” At that point I worked on myself. I watched what he did and took note of it, but I seldom commented. As one friend said to me, “He is giving you information with his actions.” Perhaps one life lesson I have learned with this experience is that you really cannot go by what people say. You have to watch what they do. As CrazyKat said, this really is an inside job for SAs. They have to do the work. I do believe the brain can change if they do the work. And it’s a lifetime work, but so worth it.
I’m working on finding myself again. Like a lot of moms, I have been putting everyone in front of me for a long time. I’m working daily at getting better about that.
I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, but I made one for 2019. I spend more time than you might imagine during my workday dealing with Handsome’s needs or things that he could be handling. I often skip or work through lunch to do so. No more. I’m going to repurpose that time to focus on me. Whether it’s just taking time to eat something that doesn’t come out of a vending machine or going for a walk, or whatever. It’s just my own little project.
I’ll eventually find myself under the ruble. It’s just going to take some effort and improved detachment skills. I hope that Handsome chooses to do the work, but I’ll be prepared if he does not.
Xo
It’s evident how much time and energy you put into your husband. If you’re doing the heavy lifting, he doesn’t have to, or at least that seems to be how they think. I’ve said before that I don’t think most of us partners were codependent. We were truly blindsided. But once we know, we are in danger of becoming codependent. I’m glad you are taking back parts of your life. ❤️🎈For me, this experience has become a journey of learning to love myself. I read CrazyKat’s second reply above and once again, what she said. 😀I realized I will be fine on my own, if it comes to that. Not just survival mode, but truly happy with a very full life. I will not allow my self esteem to be beaten down by my husband acting like a lunatic. If he chooses to live that way, then it will be without me. I personally know three women who, after trying very hard, left their sex addict husbands. All of them are thriving and happy. Not one has said, “Boy, I should have stayed with that unrecovered sex addict.”😄 xoxo
You and CrazyKat are both brilliant, of course. 😊 I’m not sure whether I’ve ever mentioned it here, but I’m reasonably sure Handsome has adult ADD. I’ve thought that since I met him. Compare and contrast that with my Type A stick-to-it-iveness. Opposites do attract. 🤣 He starts projects and if something HAS to be done I very often jump in to get it done. So I end up doing my own life-administration tasks, and his as well. I’ve cut WAY back on that. His schedule changes and the nanny needs to be rescheduled? He can text her as easily as I can. He ends up mucking up the family schedule with a meeting or appointment or something? He can figure out how to fix it. I’m no longer always the one to skip work on a snow day or to stay home with a sick kid. Yes, some of this is regular mom and wife stuff, but our balance was just off… really off, and post DDay adding his recovery related efforts to the mix made it worse. No more. I’m willing to do my fair share and help where appropriate, but that isn’t all the time.
I’m sure that I too would have a full and rich life. I have interests and hobbies of my own and I’m not afraid to travel or do other things on my own, if it ultimately comes to that. It would be the end of an era, but not the end of my world.
❤️
FYI. BE has been diagnosed with ADD and severe anxiety. He’s working madly to pull it all together as the meds made things worse. All this stuff goes hand in hand and makes it all so much more complicated. This is why I take breaks for myself. I think you, me, and Maggie have similar personalities. Do SAs pick us because we fill in the gaps? The trauma therapist told me it is quite common for SAs to marry women who are educated and highly organized. Then they put us up on some weird pedestal and seek out women the opposite of us to fill their addictive voids. OY!!! I need to go wrap some presents to get in a better mood. Merry Christmas ladies! xoxo
It would be super if it wasn’t my reality, but I’m nonetheless fascinated by these commonalities. You, me, Maggie, likely others all with ADD/ADHD husbands? Hmmmm. I’d be fascinated to know if they reflected those traits as kids or if it blossomed as the disarray of their addicted life grew.
Go wrap presents! Merry Christmas!! 🎄❤️
It’s interesting to me how many SAs are diagnosed ADHD. I suspect my husband is ADHD, the inattentive type, but he has never been diagnosed. Mental health issues seem to accompany SA which is itself a mental illness. My husband was recently diagnosed with depression and takes medication for it. It’s made a big difference for him. He realizes he probably needed help for it his whole life. I remember last Christmas thinking that it would likely be the last Christmas I would spend with my husband. We were not in a good place. This year is very different, for many reasons, but mostly because he has worked on his recovery. He said this morning that his recovery is precious to him. I’m actually starting to feel respect for him again because of the work he is doing. I feel strongly that you will know what to do and when you need to do it. There may be sadness, but you won’t be second-guessing yourself. OTO hand, you may see the progress you need to see in your husband and he will work the program. In the meantime, take care of yourself. You are worth it. ❤️ 🎄
Handsome just started antidepressants and anti anxiety meds about two weeks ago. Aside from restless leg syndrome, I’m not noticing any differences, but I know it can take a good bit longer for the rewiring of the brain to happen.
I am very glad that this Christmas is a different experience for you and your husband this year. It gives me a bit of hope for 2019. Merry Christmas to you!
❤️🎄
I’m just going to send you love and hugs. I know you will be okay whatever you do, whatever happens in 2019. xo
That’s what I keep telling myself, Cynthia. I’ll be okay no matter what.
❤️
Wow! Just discovered your blog. Deja vu all over again! I was the cheater. My fellow bloggers flayed away (in their own sweet way surprisingly). We had a support group not unlike yours that brought a lot of different perspectives to the infidelity issue. I felt things for my wife, my affair partner (who left me!), my family, friends and myself. Some commentators have said it. Life is too short. Lot of factors, probably quite different from your situation, but I left. That was 5 years ago.
Thanks for commenting. I do find it fascinating that even though we all come from different experiences and have different viewpoints, everyone has something valuable to offer. I see that clearly with this blogging community.
My husband could certainly leave. It would diminish his standard of living drastically, but he could make that choice. Actually, bailing when the going gets tough is his pattern from previous relationships. He can keep doing the “rinse and repeat” cycle or he can do the hard work on himself to stay in this relationship. It is very much up to him what happens to us. He says he’s recommitting to his recovery. Time will tell.
As the cheating spouse, I brought a different perspective to the conversation. I don’t think I had all the baggage Handsome seems to be carrying. I have not read all your story but from what I gather, he DOES have a lot to lose. Seems that may be the reason he won’t leave. From my different perspective and in my own way, I enabled my wife to try to stay together. I think she looked the other way to stay together. That cost both of us years of unhappiness. Our therapist (yes, we tried) told me, “You’ll leave when the pain of staying outweighs the pain of leaving.” I think he realized it was not a matter of if but when we would split. Point is, there is pain either way. My gut tells me he will never really change. Just don’t enable him and postpone real healing and a chance for happiness.
There is no doubt pain either way. I feel fortunate that I am able to choose to stay or to go, and since I have that luxury (one that I fully recognize that many people, especially women, lack) I want to choose wisely and after I’m comfortable that I did everything reasonable to preserve our family. I don’t feel that I owe that to him (I’m not sure that I think I owe him anything after what he has done) but I do owe it to myself and to our kids.
I should have gotten the lawyer connection. Black Acre!!! OMG!!!!