Someone who regularly reads this blog recently commented to me “it’s great to see that you’re doing so well.” Hmmm. I really appreciate the kind words, but perhaps I need to point out some of my ongoing struggles.
I am doing well. Most days. I am often great or nearly so for extended periods of time. That is true and real, but I don’t want to “image manage” away from reality. I don’t want to give the impression everything is peachy. A few fun facts:
– I haven’t spent more than 10 minutes in our basement in the last 3 years… since finding out that’s where Handsome and Angel Baby shacked up. It’s large, finished, and beautiful and yet I avoid it like the plague. It would be the ideal place for my home office, except I can’t bear the sight of it. A paint job and new furniture would just be putting lipstick on the pig. I just act like it doesn’t exist.
– I haven’t visited Handsome at work since before DDay. I used to occasionally swing by with lunch or take the kids to give him hugs if we were nearby. I’m still too embarrassed to see his coworkers, particularly since I now weigh about 30 lbs more than I did the last time I was there. I can imagine the “Look at her, no wonder he cheated…” comments. (They’re mostly un-evolved dicks.)
– I don’t stalk the social media of the other women (I never really did) but I do run their criminal background checks every few months just to be sure wherever they are spending their time now and getting arrested is nowhere near where we live or where Handsome works. Every single one of them that I know of found time during COVID to get themselves arrested. Every. Single. One.
– I still occasionally rely on anxiety meds. I had no anxiety pre DDay. Give a speech in front of a few hundred people? No problem. Ask for a raise? No sweat. Work the room at a cocktail party? Happily! And yet these days I sometimes feel like there’s a truck parked on my chest over truly stupid stuff. A simple trip to IKEA today was nearly my undoing. And that’s BEFORE I try to build what I bought.
– I have always been sentimental, but I find myself clinging to “stuff” – particularly my kids’ things – from before the betrayal. For example, since they could walk both kids have had really cute rain boots (Wellies) with whales or sharks or frogs or rocket ships or pirates on them with new ones picked out as they changed sizes. Over time, these boots took up residence in a bin in our laundry room. With both kids long grown out of them, Handsome wanted to toss the entire bin. I can’t. I just can’t. Even if the thought of doing so wasn’t causing me to break out into a sweat, it brings on a deep and profound sadness. It’s as if I feel that in tossing the boots I’m tossing my kids’ lives pre-addiction. That probably sounds stupid, but that’s just one example. I know the boots and other items are symbols of the life -and the innocence- I lost. Somewhere in my mind I don’t want to experience that loss again.
So, yes, I am doing great. It just doesn’t mean that I’m back to normal. That still seems a long way off.
You’re actually not doing too bad for where you’re at in his recovery. But let me take the lipstick off the pig for you I’m 16 years out and I’m still triggered damn your daily depending on his behaviors. That is after all of the therapy and all of the books and all of the other crap. Just keep writing. We really appreciate the fact that you just keep writing as hard as that is. So thank you.
Thanks Athena. That means a lot. We just had our 16th anniversary, so I can definitely quantify in my head how long you’ve been dealing with the betrayal. I don’t expect that my triggers will ever disappear, but I have seen many of them lose their sharpest edges. They still hurt, but it’s often more of a dull ache than the breathtakingly searing pain I used to experience. I guess that counts for progress, right? ❤️
Yes, you’re doing great but it’s also a new normal ….
I really liked my old normal, DLH. 💔 I still mourn that loss. I had a very full and complete (and happy) life that didn’t include trauma therapy, couples therapy, or any kind of recovery work. It was a much easier, lighter existence. I know it’s gone, but I sure do miss it.
Hi, I have no idea how I missed these blogs, but now I am back. There are so many things I could comment on but this one….over the summer I was working in a charity that had a library, and a book called ‘The Grief Club’ by Melodie Beattie called to me. Literally,I randomly picked it up, put it back, sat down, and had this over powering urge to go back and rent it out. I have read it, but now I am going to buy it, to use in my blogs. I bring it up because I truly believe you would read it as I did, avidly. You are grieving my cyber friend, that is normal, you lost the life you had, and life will never be what it was. Grief is the normal thing to feel. Reading the experience of other people’s losses, re-enforced what I had already come to realise: life is a huge lesson in understanding that we have no choice but to let go of what we have. ❤️❤️
I am absolutely grieving. I’m in the later stages, for sure, but the loss of my old life is still profound. I know it’s gone. I have no illusions that it’s coming back. I work every day to cobble together a new life. It’s a slow process. ❤️
I feel you sista, totally and completely. I used to be quite social and now, not so much. I just don’t trust people like I used to and for the most part, still need time to think and process.
We started watching Curb Your Enthusiasm the other night and Mr. Perfect pointed out a scene of a Second Cup used as a segue into a new scene. He was excited because it is a Canadian company.
I simply said “uh-huh” because HELLO every time we drive by the Second Cup close to our home I refuse to look at it as that is where he met with one of his whores. He was clearly clueless because he pointed it out again the following night. I lost it but of course he would never say anything purposely to trigger me because 1) he doesn’t want to hurt me and 2) he doesn’t want to have to deal with me and my triggers. He will obviously be more mindful, but even driving by it makes me enrages to the point where I just want to be alone to process it.
The most normal of things for society (like being in your basement, or driving past a coffee shop I’ve driven past my entire life), just isn’t ok for many of us betrayed anymore, or for a long time anyway. You’re still processing things and we may need our entire life to process what has been done. I will say that processing triggers is not as laborious as it was even a year ago for me, I hope someday a trigger will just roll off me like water off a ducks back.
Thank you for letting us know how you are, and that we are all still ok xo
Ughhh… I hate the You-Should-Really-Know-This-Is-A-Trigger-But-You’re-Clueless triggers. I think it’s a lingering remnant of the extreme compartmentalizations. I want to scream when something like that comes up because I feel it so intensely, but Handsome seems to have stuck it in a box and moved on /forgotten about it.
I can totally relate about trusting people too. I just don’t have it in me to give people the benefit of the doubt anymore. I am trying to avoid drifting into cynicism, but I’m just way more skeptical and untrusting than before. And if someone I don’t know well does something nice for me? I’m hella suspicious.
Fun Fact: My mom and I had dinner next to Larry David at Disney World one night. It was my mom’s 85th bday and she had no idea who he was or why such a fuss was being made about him when it was her birthday. 🤣🤷🏼♀️
GET OUT!! He is so funny!
💯 agree with all you wrote, and all the comments. It’s a forever gift and we are changed. New normal. Less trusting. Less social. Over analyzing everything, always. Anxiety is also a new everyday companion for me.
We are doing great. But at an enormous daily cost.
I’m so grateful you continue to share your story. Your thoughts. Your experiences xxx
The “forever gift” indeed, right?
The onset or development of anxiety has really ticked me off. When I tell you that I used to be able to “work the room” at a business function, I lived for those moments. Now? I really don’t even want to talk to anyone, let alone freestyle conversations with people I don’t know.
The feeling of the anxiety in my chest (that’s where it manifests for me) is so odd and uncomfortable that on more than one occasion I wondered whether I was having a heart attack. It’s just such a foreign feeling to me because I never, ever had it before. Now I’m having to do mindfulness exercises and regulate my breathing in IKEA like a total nut just to function and get out without being in tears.
I’ve mostly (but sadly) accepted that I’ll have a new normal, but I need a better grip on some of these lingering issues. You are right that the daily cost – the toll they’re taking – is enormous. Xxx
There’s a very wide range of ‘normal’ – what is normal? I think we grow through this trauma and grief, and then ??? We can determine what is quality of life for ourselves and what our lives will look like. I’m grieving a lot; it’s like I finally feel safe enough to let go of some of the pain. I still have flashbacks too (mostly form my husband’s attempt on his life which is entwined with betrayal trauma — I realized the one flashback playing on “loop” this past spring had to do with him being exposed (figuratively and literally at the scene) and how I feel exposed b/c our private information was shared with numerous state licensing medical boards, many psychiatrists examining my husband, and more. Keep on growing. That’s what I plan to do, too.
Funny enough, but I see myself grieving a lot too. I lost a lot to my husband’s addiction. Meaningful things. Both tangible things (like money, my health…) and intangible (memories, my sense of safety and security, trust). Those losses can’t just be swept under the carpet. Processing each of them is somewhat agonizing, but very necessary. It seems to be how I’m growing. I’m glad that you have been able to process the trauma and your very understandable grief about the loss of privacy you have suffered. I can empathize and I can relate to how very painful that is, particularly if you’re normally quite private. It’s jarring to have that turned upside down. Good for you for having the insight to link it to your flashback. ❤️
Agreed. We (IMHO) need to feel all of it to process it and then let it go – release it from our bodies – the best we can. The type of situation (visual flashback on ‘loop-feed’) I was seeing was during my husband’s attempt on his life. He was literally exposed to rescue people (his private areas) as he was attempting to find his femoral artery with a box cutter during his “break” – he had two other modes of suicide going on, but the bloody one was a long jagged incision on his groin. I was the one who initially found him and intervened or he would have died. Then, numerous states were informed of his major depression and details b/c of his medical licenses. UGH. Docs can’t get and recover from major depression – medical boards punish them. That’s not realistic. Docs get depressed. So do vets. Within 18 months, he was finally stable and passed assessments from 3 psychiatrists to be able to work in medicine again (of course he shouldn’t have worked while that depressed and actually, he had resigned before he became that depressed, as we were preparing for a move). He wasn’t interacting with patients when the MDD hit big time. But – nope. They picked him apart and, yes, I felt so exposed by my (our) private life being in 911 records, state medical board records – you name it. But you know what? I will recover, b/c that’s what I do. Here’s to healing!
“I will recover, b/c that’s what I do.”
Yes a million times to this. 👊🏻👍🏻❤️
Hi I found this blog by googling CASRD which fits my sex addict husband to a Tee. I can relate to the nice life before Dday versus the hellish revelations after. All the history that was my family/marriage changed in an instant. Im still learning about his covert double life. He has since gotten into a 12 step program but was so clever in his consealment for decades its hard to tell if hes doing well or just gotten sneakier. Hard to tell and is maddening because I want to believe it but definitely has not been his track record. The deafening broken trust, his subvertive behavior and arrogant entitlement comingled with no morals or integrity is the opposite or antithesis of who he was/portrayed prior to Dday when he was undercover as a normal family man. Reading the posts here I will likely suffer from Ptsd for a long time to come as well as the triggers. I suffer from triggers often because the areas he acted out are literally everywhere even church. I see here the struggle and saddness in others dealing with this too. My heart goes out to you. It scares me to death but now feel confident this life or lifestyle of living with a sex addict isnt acceptable to me anymore. Its time for me to escape this stranger yet not a stranger in my house. Im getting out of this marriage asap.
I can absolutely understand why you want out Katherine. I completely and totally understand. If my husband wasn’t willing to work on his broken self, I would have fled. If I was younger and we had no children, I would have fled. It’s just the very particular dynamics of his efforts and our situation that led me to stay. I will say that I think the advice not to make any permanent decisions in the first 3+ months is solid advice. It’s like standing in a tornado trying to thread a needle. No matter how steady you think you are there is too much mayhem around you. If you are able, find a good therapist with experience in trauma (preferably from a partner sensitive viewpoint and not codependency). There are a number of great resources online if you can’t find someone near you. That will help – over time – with the PTSD and triggers. I’m three and a half years out from my DDay #1 and I still occasionally get triggered and have PTSD symptoms… but they are WAY better than they used to be. There is light at the end of that tunnel.