I met with Handsome’s new doc for the first time last week. It was not, to be honest, quite the calamity I expected. Handsome was mostly controlled and, for him, almost unusually reserved. I didn’t see any resentment till we were in the car on the way home, and only a very small dose.
I’m a person who never turned down a good visual aid, so I showed up with one. I prepared a “trauma timeline” covering the bigger traumas caused by my husband in the last two years. Think DDays, discoveries (lies uncovered), vacations ruined, waitress-gate, and the like. To each of the 16 traumas on the timeline, I attached a small image: a plain dot for a smaller trauma (but one still big enough to make the list), a small explosion for a slightly bigger trauma, and a red bomb for the biggies. Of note, there were three red bombs on the timeline since June. I asked Doc 2 how I could be expected to heal or stay in the marriage when the traumas are unrelenting. My simple comment was that Handsome needs to stop hurting me.
We talked about Handsome’s struggles with integrity. We talked about his anger. Doc 2 did, at one point, start talking about how wonderful it is that Handsome is throwing himself into this recovery process and how committed he is to his sobriety and… I just kind of sat there. It’s not that I disagree necessarily, but I’m ambivalent at best. Doc 2 seemed befuddled that I didn’t jump for joy so he went on about how Handsome is so forthcoming about what he did and how he is so willing to share all of that with me. Again, he looked to me seemingly for some kind of validation and I said “Well, Handsome has always been willing to tell me things about what he did, it’s just that 90% of the time those things were untrue or grossly minimized. As far as his sobriety, I’m sure that being sober from one’s addictions is very hard. I’m sure it’s a challenge every day. That said, while I appreciate the point you are making about my husband’s sobriety I’m not going to get excited over him not sleeping with other women and having emotional affairs for two years. I never agreed to anything less from him. If all I get out of this is a sexually sober husband, but I still have to put up with all this other BS, that’s not enough for me.”
I realized after I left that the last part is really the essence of my current state of mind. I’m glad he’s sober (beats the alternative) and I’m sure it’s not easy (really, while I can’t say that I understand it I do believe that it must be hard for him), but there simply has to be more for me. More empathy, more kindness, more thoughtfulness, more patience, more honesty, more connection, and more love. That is where I think Handsome has struggled most. It’s as if it takes all he has to stay sober and do his recovery work and so there’s no “more” left for me. (To be fair, he often has little left in the tank for his own needs, which may also be part of the problem.)
Doc 2 intends to increase his sessions with Handsome to twice a week while Handsome is off on medical leave. I think that’s a great idea. He says he has a plan for what he wants to focus on. Fabulous. I’m supposed to go back in 5 weeks to assess any progress from my perspective. Fine. I just hope it all helps.
We did have a lovely road trip. Handsome and my kids had never been to Niagara Falls, so we jumped in the car and did an overnight stay. It was the birthday present I asked for. Grand gestures are not in my husband’s wheelhouse so, although we celebrated his 50th on the Rhine somewhere around Amsterdam, I was unlikely to get anything like that or a theater weekend in New York or a stay in some lovely spa somewhere. I asked for what I thought he could possibly pull off. He had booked a beautiful room overlooking the Falls and bought tickets for different activities and he even helped pack. Aside from some brooding and snark from my soon to be 13-year old daughter (where did my sweet girl go????), it was two great days of fun. We had adventures and some misadventures but I’m glad we did it and I’m glad it was wonderful.
