I have suspected over the last 14 months that terrible news is having more of an impact on me than I’d care to admit. I hear it and it mostly just washes over me, and yet I seem to live in a perpetual state of just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I sense that I have grown more fearful and apprehensive generally. I was not, I don’t believe, a fearful or apprehensive person prior to DDay #1. Quite the opposite, in fact. I spent months traveling alone in a third world country as a young single woman without much of a care. A few weeks ago I had to pop an Ativan just to board a plane to attend a work meeting an hour-long flight away. I believed this unfortunate development was just the residue of trauma, but based on an article I read, it seems there may be something more to the story.
“When you experience stressful events, whether personal (waiting for a medical diagnosis) or public (political turmoil), a physiological change is triggered that can cause you to take in any sort of warning and become fixated on what might go wrong.”
Yep, that’s me in a nutshell. And what triggers this reaction, you ask? Dopamine. After living with an addict and now reading this article I’m beginning to think of dopamine as the root of all evil. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that affects many things; most significantly, pleasure. When our brain is working normally, we receive a positive reward in the form of pleasure from dopamine induced by things like normal eating, drinking, and sex. Of course, humans like these dopamine bursts so if we find ways to increase our happiness and pleasure – like more eating, drinking, and sex – and some of us go to extremes to keep the hits coming. Just as dopamine feeds our pleasure response, apparently it also feeds fear and dread. So that very thing which fueled my husband’s addiction also makes me fearful. Awesome. Betrayal and infidelity are truly the gifts that keep on giving.
The article makes complete sense to me. Hyper-vigilance isn’t just obsessively checking up on your spouse or cyber-stalking. It can also be the plain act of sensing danger where you wouldn’t have considered it before.
After Handsome returned from his intensive I learned that he gave his phone number to many people he met there, including one woman. She was one of about 8 people he ate meals with each day. To say that was an error on his part is an understatement. It should never have happened. When she asked for his number he should have politely wished her well but declined. Nonetheless, I’m mindful that Handsome has long had female friends and colleagues who appear to have been legitimately “just friends.” That never troubled me before. In fact, I thought it was healthy. Now, where women and my husband are concerned I sense overwhelming danger.
You might say “well, yes, but that’s based on your betrayal experience” and that is completely true. It is also true, however, that for all I know this woman was 70 years old and covered with warts. He never said. I didn’t ask because it doesn’t matter. If she’s female, she goes into the “threat” category. I am, indeed, fixated on everything that might go wrong. I dread the other shoe dropping.
I’m glad this “neural engineering” as the article calls it, helped our ancestors to survive. Perhaps it is even helping me to survive the onslaught of other women and my husband’s addiction. I only know for sure that it is exhausting to anticipate danger everywhere. While I am glad that I am no longer living in ignorance, I have to admit that I do miss the bliss.
I felt sad when I read your last line. I know from my experience that eventually the levels of anxiety decreased. I understand your circumstances are different, can they ever drop again? I don’t know, but I offer you all the support I can with regard to the choices you’ve made. Perhaps you can find bliss in the strength you have that will continue to grow, and in the new friends you will make who will help you on your way, and the person you are and will become. Sending a hug Moisy ❤️
Thank you Moisy. Hugs gratefully accepted. 🙂 I think (hope) that eventually my levels will dissipate or drop again. I did not have anxiety before discovery – at all. I think I’m just most troubled that I sense it heightening a full year later. If I had to put a finger on why I’d blame Handsome’s staggered disclosures. It’s like water torture. When I was a kid there was a very early video game called “Frogger” where you tried to get your little green frog across a multiple lane highway with out getting it squashed. I got pretty good at it but inevitably I’d blink and my frog would get mowed down by a car or truck that seemingly came out of nowhere. I very often feel like the frog. I am hyper-vigilant (again, not in an active stalking way, but in a fearful way) and I can anticipate and dodge most of the dangers but it’s the ones that materialize out of thin air that knock me down the hardest. Handsome has seen that clearly in the last few weeks in a way he probably didn’t before, and I am hopeful that we can work through it.
❤️
I remember that game, what a brilliant analogy. I hope so too, and it probably has been a good thing for H to see the outcome of actions. Moisy
I loved Frogger.
Here’s the thing about Frogger: there is a pattern. The game progressively got harder right?
It wasn’t designed to let you win. It was designed to get me to pump in more quarters. I could get better but I could never win.
You didn’t get squished because you blinked, you got squished because that was the game.
People aren’t games.
Your life isn’t a game.
No, it isn’t. Especially when there are the lives of two small children involved as well.
So true. I need the game to stop.
Handsome is aware that the staggered disclosures and other behavior (like breaking his sobriety from alcohol) are not unlike acts of physical abuse in the trauma created. I liken each one to a punch in the head.
You can’t tell me that you’re trying really hard to stop punching me in the head. You just need to stop. Same here. The disclosures and the f’ed up behavior need to stop. He needs to know better. He needs to DO better. (On some points he is and I’ll get to that in a different post, but this giving out his phone number thing really frosted, saddened, and disappointed me.)
Unskillfulness.
I find Gottmans research on couples fascinating. 69% of problems couples face are perpetual regardless of the amount of resources spent – the reset are solvable. Successful long term couples have a 5:1 positive to negative interactions ratio. It needs to be significantly higher in the case of significant relationship trauma (for some reason I think it’s 30:1 but I’m not positive).
An incredible number of actions and reactions are a result of unskillfulness. Skills can be learned but unskillfulness has to be met with generosity, compassion, and humor. No one learns from being beat with a stick.
RC you are right.
My addict is utterly unskilled. Our relationship is basically a torturous roller-coaster. I am either confronting each unskillfully handled situation,
(sometimes calmly and sometimes not so calmly – hardly makes a difference though) asking for what he cannot or will not give; or I’m standing back, sadly or resentfully, in turn, resigned to being with an emotionally and socially backward child.
I could have written this comment. It is exactly my experience too.
Yep. IMO we are all unskillful about something.
Unskillfulness is hardly the exclusive bailiwick of the man or women that betrayed there loves, lives, and selves.
“I need the game to stop.”
In all fairness, you are the one that keeps pumping quarters into the game. He is simply living his pattern.
This goes back to Gottman: how much of the conflict is simply perpetual problems becoming gridlocked? I know for my ex-wife and I, the perpetual problems became gridlocked because our individual and couple issues were “mishandled and calcified into something quite uncomfortable to discuss.”
So we didn’t. As I dig into the unskillfulness, patterns, and secrets I realize this was true with C too.
I realize now, with both C and K, the gridlocked perpetual problems were a result of our “hidden agendas (or the deeper meaning and needs that aren’t being talked about) underlying the issue.” Frankly, if I had understood this I would either still be married to K or I would have left earlier. If I understood this I would have never have betrayed C the way I did. At the time, I really believed both these women walked on water. I thought that had to be saints to love and care for me. I thought all the problems were mine, and therefore mine to fix.
As such, I spent too much energy trying to prove to C I was loveable instead of just letting myself be loved. I was trying to prove myself equal to her.
It never occurred to me that C would be hiding so much of what she needed and wanted. I only learned of her long resentment list 90 days after we ended. Things she could have chosen to discuss just became a scale for her. It’s interesting to me that only after the relationship ended, and I spent months declawing my shame, did her pattern become obvious to me.
One of the many things I admire about you BA is that you openly talk about the perpetual problems but seem to stay focused on the 31% that are solvable ones.
I keep putting my quarters in because the alternative is to unplug the game and walk away. While I’m not staying solely for my kids, I am very mindful that there is more than just me at stake here.
I try really hard to focus on the solvable stuff. Certain things have gotten better in the last year. There is progress, even though there have also been setbacks. I’m trying to carry my weight, heal myself, and be supportive of his recovery while protecting my own.
No judging in my comment.
One of the best things my couselor reinforces for me is that if it wasn’t this it would be something else. I forget that sometimes.
Just chiming in… regarding the ‘if not this, then something else’ comment by your counselor, RC. This is absolutely true for my husband as well, as he lives in a place of shame and doubt and fear and secrets driven by childhood wounds both psychological and physical, and a lack of basic coping skills, but I don’t.
For me, if not THIS (dealing with the reveal of my husband’s secret life and everything that goes with him being an addict, a recovering addict, ADD, anxiety driven, all hidden behind the coping mechanism that is sex addiction) I would be back where I was before reveal, or better even as other things in our life are more stable. I would be happy, content and secure. If not this, then something a whole lot easier, calmer, and something that makes sense, for me. I was not unhappy before. We weren’t struggling. I never had a hidden agenda and still don’t.
For those of us who are wives of sex addicts, there are so many similarities. Our comments are so similar, our feelings are nearly universal. There is a distinct pattern to our pain and suffering. It is pretty completely and wholly attached to the betrayal trauma of finding out our husband had a secret life, and then dealing with the fallout, and the recovery.
Obviously we are all imperfect human beings, but I actually didn’t rein down any pain on my husband or our relationship or our family. I don’t need constant therapy. Not being defensive, just real. I stay with my husband because I love him and I have a LOT of time and energy invested in our relationship. It ain’t all rainbows and unicorns, obviously, but life is hard work. I know this. I was always willing to put in the work. The issue is, is my husband willing to put in the work, and not just constantly tread water. I want a better less tumultuous life for both of us. I can’t do it all. I realize it is more difficult for him to do the right thing, it doesn’t come naturally, but….
I feel at the root of her message isn’t minimizing the experience. When she says to me “if not this, something else” she is reminding me that I should not be judging myself against the situation or choices of others. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. We don’t always get to pick what this will be.
I’m not minimizing your experience either. That message was between you and your therapist. You then stated it here in a comment to a betrayed wife of a sex addict. For me, it does sound like minimizing the level of understanding, compassion and forgiveness that is at the root of what wives of sex addicts go through. If not this, then… something a lot easier and less devastating. We’re coming from two vastly different perspectives. Not combative, just real.
Well stated, as always.
xo
I experience life exactly like this, too. And never did before. I also was kind of proud of how well Rog got on with women. So many female ‘friends.’ I now know there were elements of emotional affairs, as well as some sexual components to many of these ‘friendships.’ My trauma response grew over the years, because his behaviours around women and me did not really change. I just wasn’t aware of the secrets he continued to have as he tried to woo me, while online dating. When their behaviours are still not helping you feel safer, it’s hardly surprising that the fight or flight dopamine hits keep surging.
I hope for more, longer moments of peace as you walk this journey x
I think that’s exactly right Paula. If shortly after every time I start to feel safe I get a bomb dropped on me, eventually those feelings of safety just vanish and the trauma increases. I was just so very disappointed – sad, really – to find out that he gave his number to a woman. After a year of therapy, 10 months of SA, and he was at a friggin’ intensive for heavens sake… and yet it didn’t even occur to him that was a bad idea? It’s beyond frustrating.
I am also hoping for more and longer moments of peace. They have been in short supply as of late.
xo
I’m so sorry, blackacre. The backwards steps are so much more painful after such trauma xxx
Indeed they are.
xo
I love the frogger analogy. I agree though he shouldn’t have given his number out…regardless of the situation without cluing you in first at least. Then discuss if it safe or not to do so.
I do hope the anxiety goes way down for you!
Thanks Stu. I’m mindful that he couldn’t reach out to run it by me (no cell phones or other technology allowed at the intensive), but I just can’t believe he didn’t know any better. He could have just very politely said to her, “It was nice to get to know you here and I really wish you all the best in life” and left it at that. I feel as though he should be at least that aware of his risk factors (not to mention boundaries and my feelings) at this point.
I’m hoping the anxiety starts to diminish too. 🙂
I agree with your last statement whole heartedly. He should be.
I’m really surprised in a group of 9 people and a counselor, this wasn’t discussed, and no one saw this as a red flag.
Well, she wasn’t in his little sub-group. She was the sole woman at the table of 8-10 people he ate almost all of his meals with each day. (In fairness, it was a veterans program so I would guess that statistically the men far outnumbered the women, but leave it to my SA husband to make friends with one of them.) I don’t know if anyone else saw it as a red flag. My bigger issue is that Handsome should have seen it as a red flag but didn’t.
Inspired by a friend who is also on this “journey,” I decided I will no longer let the past bad choices of my husband steal my joy and peace of mind. I do believe we have the power to shut that shit down. We may need help, support from others, and it may take time, but we have the power. I think awareness, as with everything, is the first step. When you start to say to yourself, “This isn’t me. I was never anxious or fearful like this before.” you are getting that awareness.
As for the phone number, I can’t tell you how many times my husband in early recovery made questionable (stupid?) choices like that. He would tell himself it was “okay” and that he could control it. Ha! Famous last words of any addict. My friend who has a serious food addiction used to bake a gorgeous chocolate cake, decorate it lavishly and display it in her dining room where she would walk past it numerous times a day. You can imagine how that ended. Now her favorite analogy in addiction is saying something is like putting the chocolate cake on the table and telling yourself you won’t eat it. With my husband, I used to call it playing around the edges. Eventually, if they stay in recovery, addicts realize they are powerless over the addiction. (First step) My husband came to realize that from other addicts who are in recovery. I would be so exasperated with my husband. I finally started saying.”See what your sponsor says about that,” because, tbh, I really don’t necessarily know what is okay and what isn’t. When my husband got the courage to start running some of his questionable choices past his sponsor, he began to accept that he couldn’t do that shit. I guess having another addict call him out was more powerful than anything I could say. I just looked like the insecure, paranoid spouse. Another addict, can say, “Dude, you’re crazy if you think you can do that.” or whatever addicts say to each other. haha
Yes, I think Handsome tells himself that a lot of things are “okay” or “no big deal.” I don’t think that he really, truly gets that he is powerless over his addiction quite yet. This incident is probably the best example of that. More precisely, I think he realizes that he can’t watch sexually provocative things, go get a massage, or spend time watching bikinis at the pool… he understands that those things could be triggering and “pre-lapse” behaviors. Yet it’s the “lesser” behaviors (turning on the charm for a waitress, cracking jokes with a woman in line at the supermarket, and yes, connecting with a woman at an intensive) that he doesn’t see as having any tie to his addiction. He still just thinks he’s a nice guy.
I do frequently punt him to his sponsor, or our CSAT (who he respects) will call him out. I realize that he needs to hear some of these things from someone other than me because I’m just the harping wife. I chuckle when he comes home and tells me something he finds to be deeply profound or insightful that he heard from someone else, and it’s the same thing I’ve been saying to him. When I say it, it’s noise. When someone else says it, it is given Buddha-like importance.
xo
When you say it, it’s a seed. Someone else just watered it. 😉
I think it was insightful of you to recognize that the dopamine fuels your husband as well. It doesn’t excuse any of his behavior or lessen his ownership. But perhaps provide some understanding and place logic in a very emotional situation.
My husband is not an addict so I don’t understand completely what your experience is. But I get what you are feeling. Its hard to trust them but also hard to trust ourselves again. Betrayal changes us. But with some time to grieve and some hard work, that change can be good. We get to choose our path, our reactions, our choices. It all takes time. Healing is not linear. There are many steps back. I’ve found that the steps back usually catapult me forward and there is new growth for me after these setbacks.
I try very hard to lean into logic. So many things make no sense with my husband’s addiction, but for something like the importance of dopamine to his addictive hits and my own hyper vigilance, I appreciate the science based explanation. I also completely agree with you that setbacks can move us forward with our own growth. I’m not the same person I was before our first DDay. Not every change is good (my fearfulness) but in many other ways I’ve grown exponentially. I think that’s probably true of most betrayed spouses. And while my husband is an addict, I feel pretty much like any other betrayed spouse. Our healing has some unique complications, and there are more affair partners in our story than most, but otherwise the betrayal trauma experience is remarkably similar.
❤️