Yesterday was our 14th wedding anniversary. Last year, I forbade any mention/ reference to/ acknowledgement of the day from Handsome. It was simply too much to bear. It was too soon.
This year, I thought I was doing okay with the concept of acknowledging the day in some way. Over the weekend my mom wanted to go to this fancy schmantzy jewelry store in the city to have work done on a ring. Handsome and I drove her and while she was handling her business I was checking out the Mikimoto pearls and Handsome was off looking at watches when the sales lady came up behind me and said, “Hey, I hear it’s your wedding anniversary this week. Congratulations! How many years is it?” (thanks mom!) I did the math and answered her and then the walls closed in around my brain. I have zero recollection of how, exactly, I extricated myself from the store. I seem to have “lost” about 15 minutes of time as the next thing I knew I was across the street in a shoe store. I don’t think I fled. I went on autopilot of some sort. My brain just shut down.
Our CSAT helped me drill down on the problem. We’ve been married for 14 years. For at least 5 of those years my husband was actively engaged in acting out behavior related to his sex addiction (initially emotional affairs, masturbation and porn, and escalating after two years of that to physical affairs, massage parlors, escorts, etc.). I am terrible at math, but 5/14 means that more than a third of my marriage was not much of a marriage. I was all-in and thought he was too. He wasn’t.
Her advice? Stop counting years for a while. Ignore the number and simply take a moment to appreciate each other here and now. That 5 year window is just too overwhelming for me at present. It may be for several more years. In the future, hopefully the “dark years” will get swallowed up by good years book-ending them on both sides. It’s good advice.
I don’t want to just erase those years from my memory bank because there are so many awesome memories from that time (our son ages 3-8, our daughter ages 6-11, my last months with my dad…), but it is still painful to know that my reality was being manipulated. I was real though, and so were my kids and friends and other family members. I rely on that to move forward.
I took the CSAT’s advice to heart. It did help. Stepping back and focusing more broadly on the big picture and where we are at right now was absolutely the perfect suggestion. Handsome seems to be in a good place at the moment. I am too (most days). Our kids are happy and healthy. Rather than focusing on the anniversary as a marker of the duration of our relationship, I’m choosing to look at it as honoring the first step in the creation of our family. That is something that I can be proud of and happy about. It’s something I can celebrate.