relationships – Page 3 – Betrayedwife.net

Dopamine Strikes Again

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.

Help wanted, please!

Our CSAT has given me some homework for next week, and I would like to request your help. We had a good and very productive – but highly emotional – session with her yesterday. In advance of our next session, I am supposed to create a list of needs that I consider to be baseline needs from Handsome in order for me to stay in our marriage.

Here is what I have so far, ranging from the subjective to the more quantifiable/ provable:

truth (Stop lying!)
fidelity/ loyalty
respect
integrity
empathy/ compassion
exclusive love
intimacy (emotional and physical)
healthy selflessness (demonstrate that you can be self-sacrificing – not a martyr – for the benefit of others without the expectation of something in return)
give me your first and your best
sobriety (sexual/ alcohol)
full disclosure
financial and other transparency
complete and abide by an updated circle chart
post-nuptial agreement
annual STD testing
ongoing weekly attendance at individual therapy
ongoing weekly attendance at SA meetings
participation in group therapy if available
ongoing weekly CSAT appointments
stop engaging in other behavior that’s harmful to the marriage (e.g. deflection, minimizing, workaholism)
dedicated time to talk about the marriage/ check-in
dedicated quality time (i) as a couple and (ii) with family

This is where you come in, dear readers. I’ve pondered this list till I’m bleary-eyed. What am I missing? No matter where you are on your journey, and no matter whether your spouse cheated once or is an addict, please let me know in the comments what you think I’m missing – even if it might be aspirational. What would you ask for? Similarly, if there is something on the list you think shouldn’t be there, let me know that as well.

I should note that Handsome is doing a lot of this already. The list of what he isn’t doing is fairly small. There are, however, significant things on that list.

As always, I look forward to and appreciate your thoughts.

Welcome Home

Handsome made it home in the very wee hours of Monday morning. I heard him come in the door, promptly fell asleep again, and awoke sometime thereafter as he loudly brushed his teeth. He got into bed, we talked briefly about what Monday’s schedule looked like… and then he wept. I’m not sure why. He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. (It seemed like the wrong time.) I just held onto him.

We still haven’t really talked about what he learned from the week or what strides he made or anything like that. He did tell me that he thought the intensive was amazing and if he had known what it was going to be like ahead of time he probably would have chickened out. Handsome is used to cognitive behavioral therapy. He’s not exactly comfortable with that process (intimacy disorder), but he’s grown accustomed to it.

His intensive was mostly experiential therapy. Think role-playing and acting out dialogs and scenes from your past in front of a group. It also involves other hands-on experiences to process and evaluate past emotional experiences. As Psychology Today says, “The client focuses on the activities and, through the experience, begins to identify emotions associated with success, disappointment, responsibility, and self-esteem. Under the guidance of a trained experiential therapist, the client can begin to release and explore negative feelings of anger, hurt, or shame as they relate to past experiences that may have been blocked or still linger.” Asking Handsome to do this is like asking a mime to give a dissertation. It’s more than simply “not his thing”… it’s so far beyond his comfort zone that I am reasonably sure that if Handsome had driven himself to the intensive he would have turned right around and driven himself home.

He hadn’t driven himself though, so he stayed and sucked it up and he says he tried to make the most of it even though it made him incredibly uncomfortable at first. There were 50 men and women there – all veterans of an armed service – but they were divided into smaller groups to make it more manageable. Handsome only had 8 people in his sub-group, and he seems to have bonded with most of them as well as with one of his roommates and a bunch of folks he ate with almost every meal. They all exchanged contact information at the end (including a woman who was in his meal group – a boundary violation for Handsome – but I’ll cross that bridge later). I’m incredibly happy that he has some resources to reach out to beyond his small circle of SA contacts.

We’ll debrief more over the coming days, but I’m glad he’s home. I missed him. I did not miss any of the baggage and BS that has accompanied him all too often these days, but I missed my guy.

I did have a truly wonderful week with my kiddos though. We watched movies in our jammies and did homework and we cooked and talked and joked about our days. I showed up with a smile on my face for work each day. I also managed to read two awesome books and I listened to my favorite music on the highest volume in the shower. It was great. I signed up for a glass blowing class (something I’ve always wanted to do) with a few other lawyers from our local bar association and I made two beautiful paperweights. (I toasted my right arm too, but it was well worth it. I just need to wear a thicker shirt next time.) I also met some cool and interesting people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise. When I was growing up I always loved arts and crafts and sewing and different hands-on projects, and then I feel like I aged into being an adult and lost my creativity mojo. It was terrific fun to get it back, even just for an evening. And these lovelies can now serve as tangible reminders that when I take time to set my mind free, the results can be beautiful.

Intensive #3 – Tennessee Blues

When Handsome was caught at the beer distributor in December and blatantly lied about it, I turned to my boundary work. Both drinking alcohol and lying are inner circle activities for Handsome, so the consequences needed to fit the severe violations. Frankly, had it not been the week before Christmas, I would have asked him to move out and find an apartment. I just wasn’t up for dealing with that drama, ruining the holiday for our kids, and all of the crap that would entail which was bound to waterfall forward into the new year.

The best alternate consequences that I could come up with were for Handsome to find and attend another week-long intensive program, and either to attend a meeting or call an SA contact every single day until the intensive started (whether it was one month or three away). Due to his intimacy issues and preference for isolation, the second part of that consequence is much more challenging for Handsome than the first part.

Handsome found a 7-day program in Tennessee with a special emphasis on getting at the root causes of addiction, addressing ones’ family of origin and trauma, and learning to live a centered, healthy life in spite of those circumstances. He leaves on Sunday. The program is for all people with addiction issues, not just sex addicts. I believe this is a good thing for him now. He’s not acting out sexually, but he keeps breaking his sobriety from alcohol and acting out in other ways (anger, pouting, etc.). He needs to address that. The program is co-ed which, frankly, freaks me out a little. Handsome acted out with broken women and he’s going to be off with no contact with his family, sponsor, or SA friends, surrounded by a bunch of them. He’s going to have to police himself and rely on everything he has learned thus far. Mind you, there were huge warnings in the materials about how relationships between attendees are verboten and must be reported immediately. They also mandate that two people cannot be alone and that there must be a minimum of three people in any group. That’s great, but if it wasn’t an ongoing and constant issue I assume they wouldn’t have the warnings in the first place.

Handsome missed a day or two of calls at the holidays, but he has otherwise reached out to his contacts, attended an in person meeting, or participated in a phone meeting every day. I know that’s hard for him, and it’s good to see the follow through even if he’s not exactly enthusiastic about it. He freely admits that he feels better after the calls, so I hope he’ll keep up with them even after his intensive.

And what am I going to do while he’s gone? Absolutely nothing. I want to live like a normal person for a week. No discussions about boundaries or acting out, no SA or betrayal podcasts, no workbooks… nothing. (I am going to keep our regular CSAT appointment, just to get her to myself for an hour.) I hope to enjoy my kids and bask in the absence of crazy. While he is off getting his head straight, I want to get mine straight too. I want, even for a few days, to try to be unburdened by the fallout of my betrayal trauma and my husband’s sex addiction. That’s my only goal for the week.

I cannot wait.

Dissecting a Marriage to Foster Healing

I decided, just prior to Christmas, that I was done pulling punches with Handsome. I was in crisis mode – and thus we were in crisis mode – and I needed him to understand how bad I thought it actually was (particularly after he lied, again,about breaking his sobriety from alcohol, again). It appears that he received and understood the message. Just in case, I reiterated it with our CSAT and she has drilled into him that he is seriously at risk for blowing the most meaningful relationship he’s ever had. His individual therapist has done the same. I cannot say that it will matter in the long run, but I am confident that he cannot say that he didn’t know/ understand/ realize that I have reached my breaking point.

I say that honestly, but the interesting thing is that I’m reasonably sure that I’m at peace where I’m at. Yes, if he screws up again he’ll be working on his recovery in a bed-sit far from his kids and me, but I know that’s on him and not me. Yes, things could still end up in flames. Again, I feel as though he has been given every freaking opportunity possible to succeed. If he fails, it’s not on me. I have not given up… not at all. I’m just placing the burden of his recovery where it belongs: on Handsome.

One thing that he shared with me recently is that he feels like his recovery is in fits and spurts because he struggles to avoid getting burnt out or bored after a bit (this is the adult ADHD in effect). We realized that, to a degree, things were more productive when we were task oriented. You would think that would be easy for him since he is supposed to be working the 12 steps. He asked for other things to be added to the mix.

One of the tasks that we were supposed to do for our couples retreat last year was a marriage timeline. We did cursory ones at the retreat and, to put it mildly, they were quite different. Handsome’s was more or less a straight line along the “highly satisfied” axis, while mine started to look like a roller coaster starting in about 2012 when his acting out started (unbeknownst to me). I think we were each stunned to see the other’s graph. I couldn’t figure out how/ why he would cheat – relapse into his sex addiction, really – if he was so “highly satisfied” and he seemingly had no idea that I was truly unhappy so often during the time he was acting out. We clearly needed a more careful discussion to really share what was going on with each of us. We finally had that chance. That’s my actual timeline at the top of this post. I’d love to tell you that the discussion went well. I can’t. It didn’t (but it turns out okay in the end).

Prior to 2012, the only big dip in my satisfaction with our marriage came when I found out that I was pregnant with my son. (It really wasn’t a slide to that point as the timeline seems to indicate… that’s just a function of the milestones mapped out. It was a sudden drop.) It wasn’t that I didn’t want another child… it was simply that I had just figured how to balance one small child with a full-time job and the rest of life and I found myself suddenly overwhelmed trying to figure out how to keep it all together with the addition of a second child. Handsome seemed to think it was no big deal, and I felt like he ditched me to figure it out on my own. It was not until our son acquired a deadly bacterial infection two days after he was born that Handsome and I immediately re-connected as a team and started to get ourselves back on solid ground. We stayed there until The Flame made her first appearance three years later in mid-2012 (that’s the gigantic 2nd dip you see).

Since then, the roller coaster of our marriage – to me at least – is evident from my chart. Some things are obvious: I am not happy or satisfied in my marriage if I am being cheated on (like his initial emotional affair with The Flame) and lied to. Others are less obvious: times when I was unhappy because he was so detached from me, our kids, and the marriage in general because (I know now, but didn’t then) he was really far down the rabbit hole of his addiction.

I asked Handsome to re-do his timeline thinking that perhaps he was just delusional at the couples retreat and, indeed, his chart looks very different now. He insists he was almost always “somewhere between happy and very happy” in the marriage but his new chart is like a roller coaster during his acting out too.

Data analytics aren’t my thing, but after Handsome started acting out in 2012, the majority of his “happy” periods correspond with vacations and family events. It’s when we were home (and he was acting out daily) that he’s reporting that he was unhappy in the marriage. Coincidence? I think not. He recalls that at certain points we were bickering a lot and he was upset about any number of things but, as our CSAT pointed out, he has only just recently had the epiphany that some of my behavior was driven in large part by his crappy addiction-driven behavior. To use her analogy, he can’t complain about the taste of the water when he’s the one peeing in the well.

I’d love to be able to say that we completed this exercise and hugged it out, but that didn’t happen. I asked why he had indicated that he was “very unhappy” in our marriage when his mother died. Simply stated, he recalled being alone at her funeral. Nope. I handed off our 2 tiny kids (a herculean endeavor that’s a story in itself) to an army of sitters/ nannies… and got on a plane and flew to him and was there for 3 days, all the services, and the 11 hour car ride home. Over time, he just wrote me out of the experience in his mind. Sadly, I’m sure that historical re-write was one of his mental justifications for his acting out. I’m sure he whined about it to his APs. I can picture it… “she’s so mean she didn’t even bother to come to my mom’s funeral… .” In that moment, I got slapped in the face with exactly how deep his illness goes. I am not perfect, but when I KNOW I stepped up and was every bit the wife and partner I was supposed to be? Knowing that he had erased me from the entirety of the experience of the death of his mom? It made me feel every bit as “irrelevant” as he told his APs I was.

So, where’s the happy ending? We talked through this process with the CSAT yesterday. She walked him slowly through a number of things where Handsome’s reality and actual reality differ. She told him that moving forward in life he is going to have to question every negative “season” from that period of time and decide whether the memory is real or not. He’ll have to assess what role, if any, his addiction played in his perceived experience (was he peeing in the well or not?). Since our 2nd DDay Handsome has always acknowledged that he’s an addict, but I’m not sure that he even recognized the extent of his illness and how it truly corrupted his brain. This session was probably the first time that I saw that light bulb go off for him. As pissed as I am that he erased me from such a life altering event, I’m sympathetic to the fact that it surely couldn’t have been pleasant for him to think he was abandoned by me when his mom died. It breaks my heart that his almost sole memory of those days is of standing in the cemetery at her graveside with no one else around. There’s a lot his therapist could unravel in that one memory. (Did he view his mom’s death as abandonment and switch us somehow? Was this really the driver behind his relapse?)

We did end up in each other’s arms at the end of the session, because he realized that yes, I was there for him then, just as I’ve always been there for him. He realized that while his addiction may have been telling him that I didn’t love him, surely I did and still do because otherwise I’d have left a year ago, if not earlier. He realized that the negative narrative he told himself to justify his addictive behavior simply wasn’t real. Now, we can move forward and focus on reality.

An Alternate Perspective on Trickle Truth / Staggered Disclosures

A Happy New Year to you all! I offer a big, hearty “thank you” to everyone who read and commented on my Week of Brutal Honesty posts before the holidays. It was very cathartic to me to write those posts and to participate in the comments, and I hope it was for others as well.

So here we are, rolling into 2019. Handsome’s primary focus at the moment is eliminating his compulsive lying. To a “normal” brain, it sounds fairly ridiculous, but addicts are relentless liars. Handsome’s compulsive lying likely started in his childhood and escalated in his high school years when he first started living a kind of secret life. (His parents would think he was at school all day when he would actually leave and go hang out at the town library for hours on end. He was dying to learn, but hated school for a variety of reasons.) It certainly set the stage for the decades of addiction-driven secrets and lies that followed.

His assignment is essentially to do two things: (i) not lie, and (ii) journal about every time he thinks about lying, whether big or small, and explore his motivations behind why he was going to or did lie. If he lies he is supposed to fess up and correct the lie immediately. (I am fully aware of the irony in relying on an expert liar to admit to his lies, but it is what it is.)

I was working on some recovery materials this past weekend and one of the topics involved trickle truth and the damage and trauma it causes. As is often the case, this got me thinking very specifically about Handsome’s disclosures. In short, it occurs to me that the use of trickle truth – staggering his disclosures and lying by repeatedly stating that he had told me “everything” – was likely highly effective for him.

To be clear, I am not saying that there were no negative consequences of the trickle truth. I am instead suggesting that – on balance – the negative consequences of the trickle truth for him were likely less severe than the consequences of telling me everything honestly from the beginning. Handsome’s initial disclosure was that he had one physical affair. In those initial, highly charged days after disclosure, I was making a decision to stay or to leave the relationship based on, I thought, his extra-marital involvement with one person. If I had any inkling that there were at least five other long-term emotional and physical affair partners, plus all the pros and online randos, my initial analysis would have been very different. I tend to think that I would have simply thrown him out and filed for divorce.

It’s almost as if to stay in the marriage I had to ease into the concept of being the wife of a sex addict just as he had to ease into the disclosure of his acting out and acknowledgement of his addiction.

With that said, I do believe that we reached a point – probably about 2 months after our 2nd DDay (when his addiction truly came to light) – after which additional disclosures became nothing but destructive. After that point we had both put considerable time, effort, and money into healing separately and together… we were staying together if we both did the work… so further trickle truth just undermined the new foundation we were trying to build.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that trickle truth is a good thing. There are power dynamics and certainly selfishness and self-preservation at play when one is asked to tell the whole truth and they do not do so. It is also unquestionable in my mind that trickle truth exacerbates betrayal trauma. Instead, I think I’ve just come to the conclusion that trickle truth from a cheater is to be expected. It often works, to a degree, for them.

Perhaps I handled it all wrong with Handsome. Perhaps the mantra shouldn’t have been “tell me the truth or I’m throwing you out” but rather “move out until you can prove to my satisfaction that you have told me the truth.” Perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, that would have been the smarter move.

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #5 – Handsome’s Clock is Ticking

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. 💔

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #4 – L is for Loser

Image result for loser meme

This is the fourth post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first three posts here, here, and here.

There really is no easy way to diplomatically address this, so I’m just going to dive right in. There are girls/ women who date broken and damaged men because they either like the drama involved in trying to get them to change, or they enjoy the project of trying to spiff them up, or they think it’s the best they can hope for in a relationship. That has never been me. With one particular exception (it was a brief, 6 month bad-boy phase right after college) I’ve dated guys who were squared away. I’ve never liked drama. I dated men who seemed to have confidence and were secure in who they were and what they wanted out of life. Some of them were selfish assholes, to be sure, but they were far from secretive or apologetic about their lives or their goals and dreams.

I had one long-term (10 year) relationship prior to Handsome and he was not a project in any way, shape, or form. Neither he, nor any of the men I dated, were into porn or escorts or massage parlors. They openly mocked the men who utilized such services. They referred to the women involved as dirty, skanky, trashy and a host of less printable names. Mind you, none of these guys were chaste. Every one of them was completely into sex, sometimes overwhelmingly so, with their own unique takes on kink. Every single one of them was reasonably adventurous, but they wanted that adventure with someone “clean.” That matched well with my sexual background and experience.

I came into my relationship with Handsome fully believing that men who paid for sex or sat in their basements self-pleasuring to porn were losers. Who pays for sex when you just go out and find someone you like and get it on?

If guys who watch porn and pay for sex are losers, what is my husband?

🙄

I struggle with this. Handsome has been a sex addict for decades… long before he met me. His pattern is to start a new relationship sober, and then after several years fall back into a phase of acting out until he walks away from the relationship (he tries to leave first so he isn’t dumped). Our CSAT calls this the “rinse and repeat” cycle. If I knew the truth about Handsome, I never would have dated him. I certainly never would have married him. And yet here we are. I find myself married to a man I deeply love, but now struggle to respect.

That’s a tough spot to be in. I used to look at him with admiration. Now, all too often I see him through glasses colored by sadness and pity, generally with a dose of resentment thrown in as well. When he would walk into a room pre-DDay, even when I was tired, or ticked, or hungry for that matter, I would smile and get a warm fuzzy feeling. Now, I often look away. There is still love there, but it has a lot of hurt and disgust piled on top of it.

And yet this result was very predictable. Nothing in my background would suggest to Handsome that I wouldn’t be violently disgusted by his behavior. His boss is (allegedly) a complete male whore and Handsome and I used to talk about his antics disparagingly all the time and discuss how sorry we felt for his wife. More than half of that time Handsome was doing the same or worse things. (Transference, perhaps?)

Handsome certainly knew that when I found out that he’d been going down on the town syphilitic whore, it would turn my stomach for him to do that to me. He had to realize that knowing that he came inside women who were basically smashed by a steady train of paying guys all day long, having him inside me would be a lot less meaningful or fun or intimate. He must have known that the knowledge that he trolled for anonymous pussy online – and that he’d essentially fuck anything – means that whatever he says to me about wanting me is kind of a moot point. Why wouldn’t he want me after what he’s been fucking?

Of all of the issues I’m covering this week, this may be the one that is most difficult to overcome. Handsome has to work – hard – to regain my esteem and respect. So far, a year in, his record is lackluster. Yes, he has made strides, but then he undoes everything with a giant helping of lies or trickle truth or gas lighting. That can’t continue forever.

I want desperately to rebuild trust and respect for him, but only Handsome controls whether or not that is possible. I want to look at him and be proud of all of the hard work that he is doing to heal himself and us. I have had that at fleeting times throughout the last year, and then it vanishes when he undermines and self-sabotages his own hard work. I’m willing to do everything I can to help him, but he also needs to help himself.

Tomorrow – A Week of Brutal Honesty – #5 – Handsome’s Clock is Ticking

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #3 – A Crime of Passion (a.k.a Why I’ll never get picked for a jury)

This is the third post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first two posts here and here.

I’ve been pondering this post for a long time, but frankly it just seemed way too awkward – and revealing – to write. I was on a support group call a few days ago and someone had a very similar experience, so I’m thinking that perhaps I’m not as alone in this as I thought. So, if this makes sense to even one betrayed spouse out there, just know that you aren’t the only one.

I am not a physically aggressive person. I don’t think that I have ever actually struck another human in anger… ever, even as a kid. I did throw a bottle of water at Handsome’s head at some point in the last few months, and it seemed to shock the hell out of him – which is probably indicative of how out of character that kind of thing is for me.

Based on that, it might surprise you to know that I’m reasonably certain that I seriously considered killing him the night he first disclosed his infidelity to me. I feel really weird just writing that sentence out, but it happened. After dumping his initial disclosure of lies on me, Handsome headed downstairs to sleep in our basement. I wept initially, and then… well, then I got mad, (like really, really mad), that he had done such a thing, to me, to our family, and that he only came clean because the Whore’s husband was going to out him. I was seething hot with rage.

Rage is probably the most relatable word that I can use, but it was really far beyond that. I felt with absolute clarity the depths to which he had betrayed and harmed me. I did not want revenge. I wanted him to no longer exist. The maelstrom of fury inside of me was truly like nothing I had ever felt before.

We are not gun nuts, but he is in law enforcement and my dad was an accomplished skeet shooter, so we have guns in our home. For the record I’m all in favor of gun control and background checks and closing the gun show purchase loophole and… well, generally anything that the NRA opposes. Nonetheless, I know how to shoot.

And yes, I thought seriously about where the guns are in our house, where the ammo is, whether he might be expecting my rage or if he actually managed to fall asleep now that his guilty conscience was relieved (ha! if I only knew how far from the truth that was at the time)…. and then one thought popped into my mind. I pictured our kids and how that would be the loss of both parents for them, since I knew I wasn’t going to get away with anything. I recall being absolutely fully aware that I’d go to jail. We had just had an absolutely terrific day with the kids and I couldn’t imagine them without either parent, losing their home, moving to their godmother’s, having to give up their friends and their school and their pets because of me or their asshole cheater-father. I wasn’t going to cause that.

This was not, to be honest, as linear an argument in my head as this makes it seem. I sat with these thoughts running through my head for longer than I care to admit. I did not ever touch a weapon that night (nor since then), but I had run through about every scenario I could think of in my mind. In the end, it wasn’t my great love of my husband that saved him that night. In that white-hot fury I truly did not give a shit about him. He was saved by my great love of our kids and my own moral compass.

I used to think that crimes of passion were some BS concept that defense attorneys used to get their clients off. That’s likely true in some cases, but if I could be driven to seriously evaluate the pros and cons of homicide, then I’m reasonably certain that just about anyone can. I’m pretty even keeled (or, more precisely, I was before DDay). I don’t have anger management issues, and I’m very often more pushover than powerhouse at home. I’m also a pretty law and order kind of girl. Today though? If I were on a jury and a betrayed spouse had whacked their mate in an incident worthy of 48 Hours, I get it. I can empathize. I would sign on the “not guilty by reason of temporary insanity” line in a heartbeat. I’m not talking about someone who plots and schemes for weeks, but in that heat of the moment after discovery or disclosure? I know that crazy pain and the crazier thinking that goes along with it. I’ve been there. I’m not saying that it’s right or that it makes sense (and, in fact, that’s precisely why it’s so crazy… because it makes no sense). I’m just saying that I understand.

Tomorrow: A Week of Brutal Honesty – #4 – L is for Loser

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #2 – Regrets: I have a few (but maybe not what you think)

Image result for regret meme

This is the second post in my week of soul cleansing. You can find the first post here.

My best friend is one of the few people I have told about what is going on with Handsome. She is supportive of me, for sure, and also of the marriage (if Handsome does the work needed). She is also frank with me in a way that only a best friend can be. She asked me if I regret marrying Handsome in the first place. Hmmm…..

Do I regret marrying him? No. I don’t. I made the choice to marry him based on what I thought to be true. The lies only recently came to light. I can’t undo 14 years of marriage (and 2 awesome kids), but if he wants to continue in this relationship he needs to double down on his efforts to rebuild what he has carelessly and selfishly destroyed. He can’t just float through and be occasionally nicer to me and think it will fix everything. He needs to figure out how to show empathy without pouting. He needs to be able to articulate how he is going to work to make things better, and then he needs to follow through and do those things.

That said, I do have other regrets:

I regret the way that I handled Round 1 with the Flame back in 2012. Here was my husband, in daily inappropriate communication with another woman and, after I found out and pitched a hissy fit, I took him at his word that it was over and done with and that we were all good. I believed him when he said he was sorry. (He wasn’t sorry. He thought that I had over reacted. He had no intention of not communicating with her ever again.) I believed him when he assured me that he wouldn’t humiliate me that way again. (Ha! Little did I know…) I was upset enough to leave him over the incident. I told him that very bluntly, but I don’t think he ever believed it. Still, I didn’t insist on counseling or take any other protective steps. That was stupid on my part.

I regret how I handled Handsome’s drinking. After this episode with the Flame, Handsome’s drinking escalated for a time. He had always had a few beers (2-3) but this is when it got really bad, seemingly out of nowhere. It was taking a toll on our family and on Handsome’s health. I grew so worried about him that I actually reached out to his dad and asked him to come stay with us and talk to Handsome about his drinking. Handsome’s dad has been sober for a few decades and still attends AA. I thought he might be helpful. He was useless. First, Handsome didn’t drink in front of his dad the entire time his dad was at our house (heaven forbid that daddy see him drink 8-10+ beers a night). His dad left thinking I was just a crazy wing nut. I also know now that Handsome’s dad is likely a key component in his family of origin issues. He is squarely in the man-box, and is seemingly incapable of empathy let alone much self-awareness. He probably couldn’t have helped if he had wanted to and my sense now is that he could never admit that his golden child is also an alcoholic (like him, and Handsome’s mom, and Handsome’s brother…). Again, I would have been better off to insist on marriage or family counseling and see if the drinking could have been addressed there.

I regret the way that I handled Porngate. When Handsome finally stopped gas lighting me and came clean, I should have insisted on counseling of some kind. I didn’t. Again, I believed him when he said he was sorry and that it was “just for fun” and that it was over. (Yep. I was such a freaking idiot!) If it was no big deal he would have owned it and brushed it off. He didn’t. Today, I kick myself for not seeing (1) that a pattern of acting out behavior was emerging, and (2) that Handsome was escalating, and (3) that he was lying through his teeth. Perhaps more importantly, I was crushed to find out about all the porn. Handsome never had to deal with that devastation. He never addressed how it impacted me. I just had to push it down inside, and he marched on and started engaging in increasingly outrageous behavior about a month later. What followed was by no means my fault, but I do feel as though I missed an opportunity to possibly prevent things from blowing up in such epic fashion. If he had help earlier, maybe his addiction could have been identified and addressed before it got so terribly out of hand.

Finally, I regret not trusting my gut more and not speaking up for myself. I’ve written about that here on multiple occasions, and it continues to be true. I did not know about Handsome’s affair with the Whore (or all the others) prior to DDay #1, but there were things that gave me a great sense of unease and I just tamped that feeling down and ignored that gut warning. I’ll never do that again. I trust my gut now. If something seems wrong, it probably is, and Handsome no longer gets the benefit of any doubt. Quite the opposite, in fact. Moving forward I am highly likely to always side with my truth (or my sense of it) over his. That’s his fault, of course, and perhaps it will change with proven integrity over time, but we aren’t anywhere near that yet when staggered disclosures continue to occur.

Tomorrow: A Week of Brutal Honesty – #3 – A Crime of Passion (a.k.a. Why I’ll never get picked for a jury)

A Week of Brutal Honesty – #1 – An Intro – Sex with My Sex Addict Husband

Let me assure you that nothing bad has happened (recently, that is), I haven’t lost my marbles, and I’m not out for pity or sympathy. I use this blog to share my experiences and feelings and there are some very specific ones that, to date, I’ve been too embarrassed/ hesitant/ insecure/shy/reluctant/ whatever to share.

I don’t want to carry this baggage into 2019, however, so I’m going to pound them out over the course of this week by posting one per day. I just need to get them off my chest and toss them out into the ether and move into the New Year without the burden of these thoughts. If something resonates, great, or maybe it will just be me cleansing my soul, but that’s fine too.

Today’s topic: sex with my sex addict husband.

My experience, like many on this journey, is likely really different from what others experienced. I can only speak to us. You might think that sex with a guy who had numerous sex partners, including pros, and who watched more than his fair share of porn, would be awesome. He must have learned something, right?? In our relationship, throughout the entirety of our relationship, it was rarely so. Were we having sex? Yes, but not usually a lot. Was it fulfilling? Not usually for me.

Pre-DDay, Handsome was quite selfish in bed. I see this very clearly now. I didn’t then. I was always just so happy for the attention when it came my way. In bed, I fell into that trap where I was so focused on trying to please him that I became irrelevant to the process. Foreplay was minimal, intercourse was usually brief, and when he was done, it was over for both of us. By DDay #1, I couldn’t even remember the last time he brought me to orgasm, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that it had probably been a few years. I always told myself that our relationship was about more than sex and that I could deal with barely adequate sex since I had an otherwise great husband [insert laugh track here…]. It makes sense, and it’s foolish, all at the same time.

Two other factors certainly didn’t help: his ED and his compulsive masturbation. It’s hard to have anything left in the tank if you’re engaging in daily solo play and you have ED. I can honestly say that I never, ever did anything other than try to be supportive about the ED. I told him often that it wasn’t a big deal and not to worry. I am, however, really f-ing resentful that he could somehow manage to get it up for the harem of whores while he couldn’t manage that most times with me. That simply sucks. He claims that he very often couldn’t perform with them either and that that’s why he preferred oral to straight sex, but I doubt that’s the case. He wasn’t spending $200-300 a pop for blow jobs. If he was, he’s a bigger fool than I think.

There was a third factor too: his drinking. On a daily basis I’m sure it didn’t help his ED, but it otherwise didn’t come into play. Date nights or special occasions where he drank a lot were a different story. I detest sloppy drunks. I’ve felt that way ever since college. I find that slobbery, stupid drunk stage just intolerable. Handsome seemed to think it was cute (not!). On nights when most couples would have carried the fun of the evening into bed, I’d spend an extra 3-4 minutes in the bathroom until he fell asleep/ passed out. I’m incredibly happy that I haven’t had to deal with that dynamic for a year.

Finally, even when we were having sex he often seemed disconnected. He was there physically, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. Was he fantasizing about someone else? Maybe. Probably. I’ll never know for sure. I just know that he wasn’t connecting in any real way with me most of the time.

Why do I struggle mightily with this? None of his APs or paid pros are anything like me. He deliberately chose them and lusted after them and somehow managed to perform with them. I’m sad, and yes resentful/ bitter/ angry/ hurt, that he could perform with them and not me. I feel like I played the chump for years, trying to be a good wife, putting up with a crappy vanilla sex life, all the while he’s getting his rocks off unbeknownst to me. (As an illustration of how clueless I was, about a month before DDay #1 I started to research doctors that might be able to help him with what I guessed was low-T or general mid-life funk, because that’s the level our sex life was at. He had four (4!!) active affair partners at the time.)

With some caveats that I’ll address in another post this week, the good news is that things are generally better post-DDay. It took a few months, but the selfishness is mostly gone. He is more connected and attentive. He has remembered that I have a clitoris and that it can be fun to pay attention to it. He’s not drinking, so that eliminates the sloppy drunk issue. Sex is no longer just about him. I occasionally wonder if he’s really present with me or if he’s elsewhere in his mind, but I’m guessing that’s normal and just another gift of the betrayal trauma (the gift that keeps on giving).

Tomorrow: A Week of Brutal Honesty – #2 – Regrets – I have a few (but maybe not what you think)

One Year After DDay #1

Yesterday was precisely 365 days after my husband blew our lives apart last December. It was the day everything that seemed reliable and good in my life felt like it was instantaneously sucked into a black hole, never to be seen again.

The intervening year has, I think, largely been devoted to triage. Yes, there have been signs of progress, but there have also been set backs, even recently. The wounds are still potentially fatal, and they are still bleeding.

In the “good” or positive column I would list that Handsome goes to SA, he goes to his individual therapy, he joins me and participates with our CSAT, he is not drinking, he has been sexually sober for a year, he has made additional disclosures when he didn’t have to, he journals daily, and he says he wants to get better.

I have made progress too. I’m more willing than ever to speak up for myself, I’ve developed a reasonably good sense of objectivity about this mess that is my life. I call Handsome out when the need arises. I’ve taken steps to protect my health and financial well-being apart from Handsome. I no longer cry every day (although I did have a good cry today so I feel like a fraud writing that, but it’s been a few days since the last one so it’s not a lie). I could become a private eye if my regular day job doesn’t work out since I’ve had so much training this past year.

There is a flip side though, and it isn’t as small as I’d like. Handsome still struggles to tell the truth. He remains terrible at availing himself of the resources available to him. He acts out in non-sexual ways (anger). He broke his vow to not drink for a year. After 9 months in SA he has yet to complete Step 1. He continues to struggle with self-awareness and empathy. I believe there are likely additional disclosures to come.

I haven’t been a picnic either. I yell more than I used to or I get exasperated and sigh (which is just a crappy, sad response to anything from an adult). I have said unkind things to Handsome… and often meant every word of them. Some days I still resent him for breathing. I hate that his recovery is a drain on our time and money. I struggle with knowing how broken and damaged he really is. I am devastated that he cared more about self-soothing and filling the void within himself than he did about the consequences to his family. I still ask myself more often than I think I should be at this point whether I should stay or go.

I figured that Handsome would forget the significance of the day. He didn’t. Most likely he remembered because it coincides with his sobriety date, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’d have remembered anyway.

If I take a moment to reflect, his life is likely better than it was a year ago. He’s sober and is getting help for his various issues. Is my life better? If I’m really honest, I don’t think so. That’s hard to admit, but I think it’s true. The lies and secrets were still going strong as recently as two weeks ago. The only obvious improvement is that my husband isn’t actively cheating on me. No small thing, for sure, but that seems like a really low threshold. Yes, Handsome often tells me that he loves me and I believe he means it. But he did that before DDay too. Yes, he surprises me with the occasional sweet, loving gesture, but he did that before DDay as well. He is endeavoring to be more kind and patient with me and with the kids. What I think I still lack are the basic building blocks for a marriage: trust, respect, loyalty, honesty, integrity, empathy. Those are fundamentals that are still works in progress.

As I told Handsome yesterday, “The next 12 months cannot be like the last 12 months or I will not be here 365 days from now. To be clear, I can’t endure 1 more month of it let alone 12, and I shouldn’t have to. … My “reward” for staying – for continuing to be a part of the shit show – is supposed to be a better marriage and all of the honesty, respect, loyalty, and other good things that go along with it. When is that going to start, because I’m tired of waiting?”

Did our CSAT just pull one over on me?

Looking back at my session last week with our CSAT, it was pretty hard-core. We talked about Handsome’s lack of real progress in his recovery, how a physical separation might be necessary, how long I was willing to be patient for that recovery that may never come, how a separation might trigger a relapse, etc. etc. It was fairly doom and gloom. She met with Handsome yesterday, individually, for what I surmised would be something of a “Come to Jesus” meeting. She flat-out told me that if Handsome couldn’t find that turning point/ change of heart that he needs to move into real recovery, there would be little she could truly do for us as a couple other than helping to moderate the temperature of the relationship.

Imagine my surprise when Handsome returned from the session yesterday and reported that it went “great.” Did they talk about his lack of progress? Not in so many words. She recommended an intensive program in January for him. Did she raise the possibility of a physical separation? Nope. She told him that I’m at the end of my rope, but that’s no surprise to him. I’ve told him that point-blank at home and in our sessions. She had asked me in some detail about how long my patience would last and when a separation might make sense. She also told me she would need to share that with him. Did she? Nope. WTAF???? I lose sleep for a week and virtually none of what we discussed is actually raised with him?

I like and respect our CSAT, but I was ticked. I felt let down that she soft-sold her points, to the extent she made them at all. I felt like that played into his “you blow things out of proportion” victim mode (he did not say that, but he did question why I was so highly agitated after last week since there was “nothing really wrong”). I felt more than a bit misled. One of three things seemed to have happened:

Handsome was minimizing and downplaying the session; or
She had her own change of heart on how to deal with him in the last week; or
For some reason she felt the need to scare the crap out of me last week.

I’m no shrinking violet, so I went to our couples session today fully prepared to ask what, exactly, happened either over the course of the previous seven days or what I was completely missing. I warned Handsome in advance that I was ticked because I wanted him to understand that I wasn’t mad at him. He knows me well enough to know that I would be frank in conveying my surprise at what I perceived as a turn of events.

So, today, I put my fancy suit for an after work cocktail party and as I’m driving to the CSAT’s office I’m rehearsing what I’m going to say (both because I’m a dork and I get unusually rattled in there). I decided to go with “I was kind of surprised yesterday when Handsome came home from your session and said that it went great. It doesn’t sound like many of the issues you and I discussed last week were covered…” and leave it open-ended. I couldn’t tell if she was surprised that Handsome shared his session with me or that I shared our doom and gloom session with him yesterday (See, we do communicate!! lol), but I think she was a bit unprepared for that. Handsome sat there during the start of the session like:

I jumped right in. I was calm, but collected. It turns out that what transpired was a mix of #1 and #2 and general soft peddling on her part. Handsome did, to some extent, minimize parts of their conversation. That said, she reconsidered some of her statements to me in the intervening days, so he didn’t exactly get the full impression of her concern. And she admittedly walked back her comments about essentially firing us if Handsome doesn’t make progress. I walked her through those again, in front of Handsome, so he could hear her concern – as it was told to me – from her. I think that was helpful because it showed him that I had not blown the comments out of proportion and that yes, she is looking for him to have a sincere and meaningful change of heart, and that we cannot heal without it.

Building off of that, I added that even though I love Handsome with all my heart, this faux recovery (love that term, Maggie) or dry drunk state, just isn’t good enough for me and that I believe the next step may very well be a separation so that Handsome can focus on his recovery. I needed Handsome to hear that from me, and I wanted the CSAT to hear me say it too, in no uncertain terms. Interestingly, after that, today was the first time that I saw what I think was real, honest vulnerability from Handsome in months.

It seems that there is something to this detachment thing after all.

Stuck on the path out of sex addiction

Seo, Young-Deok Anguish #25, Stainless chain, 120 x 80 x 40cm, 2015

Our CSAT threw a monkey wrench at me yesterday. Handsome was working, so I saw her alone. We were supposed to be touching base on the therapeutic disclosure.

After our last joint session, Handsome had made two comments to me that I just couldn’t really seem to process well. I didn’t know what to make of them, so I wrote them down to discuss with her. That led the session in an unexpected direction.

The comments? I had told Handsome that I thought I was doing pretty well prior to the most recent disclosure, but that his new revelation (after he had months of opportunity to disclose it and instead continued his denials), really set me back. Yes, I expected it to a degree, but it was nonetheless devastating. I had a guess about the prostitutes and massage parlors, but the additional long-term whatever (anonymous physical affair? relationship? sext buddy?) caught me off guard. Handsome’s reply was “I don’t think you were doing well before this. I think it was a facade.”

The CSAT nailed her dissection of that comment. It’s a sneaky combination of gas lighting and defensiveness all rolled together. He didn’t hurt me anew because I was already miserable. Uh, wrong, ass hat.

His second comment? Remember that this was made one day after DDay #3… “Because of my integrity disorder you are always going to believe there are things I am lying about.” Well, for the time being at least, yes, yes I am because to date I have been absolutely correct to doubt his veracity. As the CSAT pointed out, it begs the question of what he’s willing to do to address that issue. Pointing out the problem (a fully justified problem that he created) does nothing. It’s a pointless comment that frames him as a victim of my supposedly unjustified disbelief. What’s he going to do about it?

Then, the bombshell: given Handsome’s two intensives and his nearly one year of sobriety and his individual therapy and 9 months in SA, she would expect him to be further along than where he is now. She feels like he’s “stuck” and still too defensive to move forward. She equated him to a dry drunk which, when I think about it, is likely not too far off the mark. He’s sober from his acting out, but I’m seeing a lot of the pre-DDay bad behaviors that accompanied his acting out (like being unkind and picking random, pointless fights with me) because he hasn’t yet developed the coping skills to prevent those things from occurring. His brain doesn’t even usually register that he’s doing them.

She’s planning to meet with him individually next week to talk through this with him, and tell him flat-out what she thinks of his progress, and then we meet with her together the following day. She told me to be prepared to answer the question of what I intend to do if he won’t/ can’t move ahead? What if he is sober, but not really recovering? What if he hasn’t actually hit rock bottom yet? What then?

Yeah, what then? And why on Earth is this the second holiday season in a row that I have to make weighty, significant decisions to deal with his addiction and the related fall out?

Show me the love

Apparently Handsome spent his individual therapy session this week talking about the difficulty he has showing me he loves me in the wake of our 3 – count ’em, three – disclosure days.

Well… duh.

I think we come at this from very different perspectives. First, to put it diplomatically, Handsome’s social/ emotional skills are stunted. Blame it on his family of origin (I do). Second, he is dumbfounded that it is hard for me to believe that he loves me simply because he now very often says he does and he has ramped up the thoughtfulness and kind gestures. To me, that’s all truly lovely, but insufficient.

At 10:00PM on December 9th last year, I knew without a doubt that he loved me. By 11:00PM…? Not so much. And we all know now that initial disclosure was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Almost a year later, I do believe Handsome loves me (though I admittedly waffle on whether it is romantic love), but I also believe his interest in self-preservation is even stronger. I can’t exactly say that he loves himself more, because it’s clear to me that his compulsive behavior arises from self-loathing. Nonetheless, if it’s between him or me, he picks himself. Each and every time.

Forget (if you can, and I cannot) the individual aspects of the five (5!) simultaneous, long-term affair partners and the 20+ encounters with paid sex workers. How about the fact that condoms do not prevent all STDs and STIs? How about depriving me of the knowledge of this high risk sex life for at least three years, thus ensuring that I couldn’t protect myself? Imagine sleeping next to someone you say you love, knowing your behavior could literally kill them, and yet continuing to engage in that behavior without a care in the world? (Or, maybe you care… but not enough to give them a heads up or anything.)

Is that loving? I think not. It’s beyond selfish. As a lawyer I would label it “deliberate indifference” (reckless disregard for the consequences of one’s own actions or omissions).

To me, that’s the hurdle that Handsome has to overcome. I’m not hung up on the idea that he gave a crap about any of these women. I don’t think he did, with the possible exception of the Flame, and he appears to now see her for the homewrecker she is. I even believe that he loves me in his own way. I just believe that he prioritizes himself over me. His behavior over time (including now with his staggered disclosures) evidences that when there’s a choice between him or me, he almost always sacrifices me to save himself.

When you come at the issue of how he should go about showing me he loves me from that perspective, it’s very different from the norm. Hugs and snuggles aren’t going to cut it.

Step 1 – Stop lying (even by omission).

Step 2- Stop engaging in other behavior that is harmful to the marriage (we can call this the “just quit being a dick” step).

Step 3 – Display appropriate empathy and compassion.

Step 4 – Prove that you can be self-sacrificing for the benefit of others (not to the point of martyrdom, but just recognizing that the world doesn’t revolve around you… a point most other adults already understand). Do this without the expectation of anything in return.

Step 5 – Repeat steps 1-4 daily.

Step 6 – Do what normal people do to express love (this is where the thoughtfulness, consideration, and romance comes in).

Note that there is nothing in this list that is really about his recovery. That’s for him. While it’s helpful to him and that trickles down to be helpful to me, at the end of the day it is for him. His new emphasis on thoughtful gestures, neck kisses, hand holding and saying “I love you” is wonderful, but talk is cheap after what I’ve been through. If I am important to Handsome, he needs to prove it, every day, with meaningful actions (see steps 1-5).

*** I’ll be mostly offline for a week for our holiday trip, but I wish my blogging friends in the States a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!! And a good, safe week to all of my blogging friends outside the US as well!

The Confession – DDay #3

Patience may be a virtue, but I don’t have any to speak of, at least not when it comes to Handsome’s lies and secret keeping. I received a very insightful comment from Joshua Shea to my last post. To paraphrase him, his question was “So your husband is still withholding. What are you gonna do about it?” Fair point.

For the reasons I explained in reply, my hands were a bit tied, but I told Handsome that he needed to make calls to his sponsor and SA contacts every day before our Thanksgiving vacation, and attend three meetings this week and one meeting next week before we hit the road. That is way more than he normally does, and I knew the calls would take him far outside his comfort zone. He agreed.

Nonetheless, the very fact that he was still keeping secrets (even if they would be included in the big therapeutic disclosure planned for early January), burned – and burdened – me deeply. As I asked him: “How am I supposed to tolerate hugging you or being physically or emotionally intimate with you when the knife is still sticking out of my back and you are twisting it every day?” He was frustrated. He thought we had both freely agreed to hold everything until January. Indeed, I had agreed, but (1) I had been blindsided at the CSAT’s office by the development that what remained secret was “big” and (2) I didn’t feel as though I had the agency in that moment to insist that I hear it then. After pondering it endlessly I decided to go back to my long-held position that whatever Handsome has disclosed to someone else he sure as hell had better disclose to me. Why was I agreeing to have that anvil hanging over my head until January… or later? No thanks.

For the record, I don’t believe that our CSAT intended to put this stress upon me. I think that her suggestion of the therapeutic disclosure at this time of year was well intentioned but missed the mark, and that Handsome should have been encouraged to disclose what he had to disclose to me, and it could then be rolled together with his prior disclosures and addressed again in some organized and orderly fashion in January. I also think that she believes that I am stronger than I really am. I put on a good public show, but inside? Some days it’s like a cyclone inside my head.

So, what was all the hoopla about? He was withholding one additional physical affair (if you can call it an affair… he claims to not know her last name and claims he only knew her by “Katie”), and the use of escorts and a local massage parlor. All of this allegedly occurred from 2015 forward -the same period as all the other mayhem.

How do I feel? Some combination of hurt beyond belief and numb. There are so many things about this that I only believe with difficulty. I am dismayed that he so compromised his morals and values that he committed illegal acts. I am dismayed that he is an embarrassment to his job and that he is no better or different from the people he arrests. I am dismayed that he would ever EVER scream at me about money when this is how he saw fit to spend it. I am dismayed that he put my health at risk without a care. (He is in dire need of a very basic 6th grade lesson on how HPV and other diseases are spread and how a condom isn’t a magical shield.)

The flip side, of course, is that as disgusting and repulsive as I find this behavior, the escorts and massage parlors were business transactions. Nothing more. It’s not as if these women liked him. Based on the hooker/ prostitute/ escort blogs I’ve read they were likely (1) high, (2) revolted by him, (3) completely faking it, and (4) terrified. I find it pathetic that he’d be turned on by that, but at least he wasn’t talking with and texting them daily. There were no real relationships. He claims to not even know the physical affair partner’s last name – despite texting with her for the better part of 3 years and screwing her at least twice. It was just cock + scabby cum dumpster = release. The very reasons that made it so difficult for him to admit these things are, ironically, the very things that make them somewhat manageable to my brain.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that if he only had sex with pros that this would all be a cake walk. Far from it. I’m simply saying that in the scheme of what my husband did, this is not the most damaging disclosure to me. His emotional affair with the Flame (and the related lies and secrets) is far more painful to me… less disgusting and vile, for sure, but much more painful.

At the end of the day, my husband has to live with what he did. I have lived through our marriage with honesty and integrity. Handsome is my last first-kiss. I am likely not even in the 5 most recent first-kisses for him. I’m probably not in the 20 most recent first-fucks. That’s on him. I do not need to worry that anything that I have done may harm his health or well-being. He has to wonder what might pop up on his STD tests or mine in the future (since HPV can go latent). At least since 2015 he has not been the person I thought I married, for sure, but I loved him with every fiber of my being and I was present and committed. I did not waste time or opportunities. He has to account for his years in his addict bubble. It has taken months (and months) but I’m good with me. I honored my marriage vows and my husband. I will not bear his shame.

Do I think I finally know everything? Nah. I’ve been around this block before. There are a few details I could still call bullshit on, but we’ll see how it all parses out in the therapeutic disclosure he’s working on. My gut tells me that he’s nearing the end of what he’s keeping inside, but maybe I’m just sensing that he’s as exhausted with this process as I am.

Learning to Say No

The Way It Was

Breaking a stranglehold has been a lifesaving technique since such training first began in the late 19th century. In fact, turn-of-the century rescuers were taught to break a victim’s “death grip” by knocking the person unconscious.

I can relate. After learning from our CSAT that “there is new information that will be coming forward” from Handsome, I’ve been pondering what that means for me. Conclusion? I feel like a lifeguard that’s about to be drowned by the very person she’s trying to save.

I see very clearly now that Handsome has for years (and continues to) prioritize himself (his comfort, his fears, his needs, etc.) over me. The trauma that staggered disclosures cause for betrayed spouses is well known and, particularly, it is well known to Handsome after two intensives – including one with an expert in the field of betrayal trauma – and a ton of therapy. Yet rather than tell me the whole truth at any point along our journey, he has continued to keep secrets knowing full well the impact of his lies, secret keeping, and staggered disclosures on my health and well being.

I asked yesterday if we were going to do a check-in last night since it has been about two weeks since the last one. I just wanted to get it over with because I was already in “affair mode” from our appointment with the CSAT. He asked if we could do it another night since he was tired. Since I so very often go along to get along, I automatically replied “okay.” It wasn’t okay, however. It was, on a micro scale, just me trying to keep him happy at my own expense.

When I got home I explained that I shouldn’t have said okay because I really wasn’t okay with it, and that we’d have to put it off till next week because I do not want to deal with it on the weekend. I went on to explain that I finally concluded that I’ve got to look out for my own interests since he has demonstrated clearly that he will not do so. I told him how incredibly disappointed (not surprised, but definitely disappointed) I am that after all this time and everything, EVERYTHING I have been through with him, he still chooses his own comfort (keeping secrets that are “too hard” to tell) over my health and mental and physical well being. I feel as though he is the drowning victim that I swim out to save and, when I get there, he pushes me under the water so he can stand on my shoulders and breathe while I drown underneath him.

I asked him to sit and really ponder what it would be like if I, his spouse, constantly and to his detriment prioritized myself over him. I asked him to contemplate what our kids would be like, and what their lives would be like, if he and I both acted that way. Finally I asked him, when push comes to shove, what kind of husband always picks himself over his wife and family? And what does he think that must be like for me and our children, to realize that if it’s us or him it will seemingly always be him?

He admits that he has been (and is) a selfish asshole used to doing things his own way. He says he’s “working on” changing that and being less selfish and self centered. He tells me he’s trying to change that about himself. I told him to screw trying. He simply needs to do it. Immediately.

Therapeutic disclosure (DDay #3??)

Been gone for a bit. We just wrapped up the second of two long family weekends away. We had a decent time in NYC (Handsome was highly agitated all weekend, but the kids and my mom were good fun), and we just got back from the Breeder’s Cup in Louisville. That was an awesome trip. Beautiful horses, great racing, fancy hats, Derby pie, and bourbon. Lots of bourbon. What could be better?

Before we left for NYC, our CSAT said that she thought a formal therapeutic disclosure would be a good idea for us. She has been able to see what Handsome has voluntarily disclosed versus that which I’ve had to investigate on my own. She has observed his responses to various questions about his acting out and, in particular, how certain answers just don’t make sense or seem a bit lacking. She also sees the frustration this causes me.

If you’ve been on this roller coaster with me for a while, you recall that our first DDay was December 9th last year. At that time Handsome disclosed parts of his affair with the Whore. He minimized the heck out of it, but most of the truth trickled out about their involvement once I got a chance to go through her burner phone. On February 26th, we spent hours doing what was supposed to be a full disclosure on our own. Within days it became apparent that 90% of what I had been told was absolute BS. March 3rd became our DDay #2 when I learned about his numerous other affairs and acting out behaviors. It’s also when it became obvious that Handsome has serious issues with compulsive sexual behavior. I knew then, even before he was formally diagnosed, that Handsome is a sex addict. Since that day there have been smaller disclosures, most of which I would consider to be “filler” around the broader stories of his acting out. Many of those little disclosures have been during our weekly check-ins in response to the question in his check-in format from Dr. M regarding a lie or secret he is keeping. I do believe that he has told me the majority of what he did. I also believe, however, that there are certain things that he has decided he should keep secret. Some of those things have become obvious in our therapy. I, on the other hand, believe that the absolute least he can do for me is tell me the full truth. I have always said that I don’t need the color of someone’s lingerie or who was on top, but I do need to know the totality of what I am supposed to be forgiving him for.

The CSAT sent us a template for the format of the disclosure and, frankly, I find all of the limitations “for the protection of the betrayed spouse” to be utter BS. To me, if it is supposed to be a disclosure it had better be exhaustive and thorough. A therapist or his SA folks should not know things that I do not. If he knows something and fails to disclose it to me, it’s a secret and that’s a problem for me. I really wish that everyone else, including Handsome, would accept the fact that I’m an adult and quit perpetuating secrets under the guise of “protecting” me. I find it insulting, patriarchal, offensive, and unnecessary.

I raised that point with the CSAT and also said that if all Handsome intended to do was to waltz in and tell me only what he has told me thus far, we should just skip it. I’m not going to put myself through torture so he can check off a box to say he accomplished something. If I’m going to go through this, it had better have a point. She informed me today after meeting with him privately that “there is new information that will be coming forward.” Lovely. So much for telling me 300+ times that he has told me everything. It’s a good thing I never bought that completely. (Does anyone wonder why we betrayed spouses develop trust issues that we never had before after all of this??)

Despite this development, I know that I’ve made personal progress over the last 11 months because I’m not in tears or a basket case over whatever might be forthcoming. I have assumed that he slept with everyone he says he didn’t, and then some. I have assumed that he engaged in other acting out behaviors that have yet to be disclosed. In short, I’ve already steeled myself against the worst of the possibilities. That’s not to say that the new disclosures won’t hurt me. They just won’t destroy me. He did that already, but I feel as though I’m doing a commendable job rebuilding myself in this new epoch.

Our CSAT wanted to get the disclosure scheduled and completed in December, but the holidays are upon us and I refuse to destroy another Christmas and New Year’s with new disclosures of Handsome’s acting out. I would love to start 2019 fresh, but I’m not willing to sabotage my 2018 holidays to do so. He can toil away at his part in this disclosure till the new year rolls around. Let it weigh on him for the next few weeks, not me.

Inertia

In the example in the photo, I feel like my happiness is the human and my melancholy days are the elephant. My happiness can (and for the last 10 months has on multiple occasions) shift in an instant, whereas my feelings of sadness are much more difficult to change. They tend to linger. It’s like trying to turn the Titanic. It will happen, but slowly and not in enough time to avoid the iceberg.

Handsome and I have been… fine since we got back from our trip. Not great. Not bad. Just… fine. My problem then? It’s not good enough for me. I feel as though I’m working really, really hard and achieving mediocrity. That’s not my style. I’m not bouncing back to happiness in the wake of our trip.

A few things have happened since I last wrote. First, I made it very clear to Handsome that while I support him and I’m always available to him I do not want to be his accountability partner. I tried to explain why. He said he understood and he walked me through his safety plan. It does not include me. I’m fine with that. Time will tell if he uses it and we’ll see if it works.

Handsome had his vasectomy last week. He was a miserable ass in the morning beforehand, but it went well and he’s off work for about two and a half weeks. Is it wrong that I slept really, really well that night? We won’t know for a few months whether the surgery was entirely successful but, assuming that it is, the reassurance that our kids and I do not have to worry about any unexpected progeny lifted a huge weight off my sagging shoulders. I take no delight in seeing him in discomfort, but with his history and the two kids recently born to his AP’s, I was more overwhelmed by fear than I had expressed. There are plenty of things that I still worry about, but Handsome has taken a big step to ensure that one comes off the list.

We did our check in a few days ago and Handsome is back to dodging the question about lies and secrets he is keeping. He says there are no more. After years of acting out, I’m reasonably sure that’s BS. I understand that he doesn’t want to sit and ponder his bad acts because it makes him feel like a turd. Nonetheless, it’s something Dr. M told him he needs to do. Our CSAT told him he needs to do it. Thus, in my book, he needs to do it.

I think my failure to bounce back is likely due to what happened on our trip (Handsome went back to his vices) and also all of the triggers that surround me this year based on what I now know was going on behind my back last Fall. When I was away at a work conference Handsome was texting and sexting like crazy and trying to have another hotel hook up with the Whore. I leave for that same conference today. The day last year that my in laws were to arrive to celebrate Halloween with us, Handsome spent the morning sexting and recording a masturbation video in our master bathroom and sending it to the Whore. A few weeks later when I went out of town for a work meeting for two days, Handsome was again sexting and texting and trying to hook up with the Whore before I had even pulled out of our driveway. Finally, just before Thanksgiving, Handsome sent the Whore a ton of text messages complaining about cooking for the holiday and devaluing and diminishing me. Their exchange which, frankly, probably pisses me off more than any blow job, went like this (crap grammar/ punctuation is all theirs):

Handsome: I get off at 7:30 in the morning and then I have to cook. 🙁

Whore: No you don’t REALLY?

Handsome: REALLY

Whore: WTF!!!

Handsome: Exactly

Whore: Why????

Handsome: Just the way it is.

Whore: That’s fucked up big time that pisses me off

Handsome: You and me both.

Whore: You work all night you should be able to come home take a hot shower go lay down for a bit and eat

Handsome: Not if I want to eat.

Whore: Is that every holiday

Handsome: Yep

Whore: Does she cook at all?

Handsome: Lasagna @ 3 times a year. That’s it.

Whore: I have no words. What do your kids eat if your (sic) not home

Handsome: Babysitter cooks [note from BW – As to dinner during the work week when I get home from work between 7:30 and 8:00PM, he’s correct. All other meals, including holidays? Not hardly.]

Whore: So everyone cooks but not her wtfh

Handsome: Lots of pizza lately because I have been saying F it no wonder I’ve gotten fat 🙁

[note from BW – Riiiight Handsome… it couldn’t possibly be the case of beer you’re downing every 2-3 days, your failure to exercise (because masturbation isn’t exercise), or your disdain for healthy foods… it must be the failure of your lazy bride to play chef for you… .]

Whore: Does she work

Handsome: Yes

Whore: As much as you

Handsome: No

[note from BW – That one word response still makes me want to throat punch him, almost a full year and a shit ton of counseling later, as I contemplate my 50-60 hour+ work weeks and what I bring to the table economically and otherwise for our family. What an absolutely delusional bunch of bullshit.]

Whore: I’m sorry handsome That’s just messed up in a lot of ways Wish I could cook for you so you wouldn’t have to

Handsome: Me too

***

Three days later the Whore’s husband found her burner phone. Had I known of this exchange prior to Thanksgiving last year, I would have kicked Handsome out so he could celebrate with her. She likely got a free turkey from the food pantry and her fraudulently obtained food stamps covered the rest. I’m sure it would have been delightful for him to eat with the drunk, pill-popping, child abuser in her filthy house with 22 cats running around. Yum.

This year? We’re going to Williamsburg for Thanksgiving. If he thinks I didn’t cook before, try me now.

Fighting for One Another

It’s been a long couple of days since we returned from our trip. Handsome and I have been civil. We pulled off a nice date night a few days ago. And yet I still had the feeling that we were both suffering, separately, and in silence lest we rock the proverbial boat.

For my part, I know that to be true. Immediately after the weekend I was simply sad about the happenings of the day and night we spent apart. It just seemed like such a wasted opportunity for us. Then, the more days that passed, I started to get ticked off. No… really pissed off… at how things turned out.

Handsome has a circle plan which, if you aren’t familiar with concept, is supposed to identify inner circle behaviors (those that are de facto relationship damaging), the middle circle behaviors (those that may lead to the inner circle and are serious enough to be addressed but which may or may not damage the relationship), and the outer circle (good behaviors used to cope in healthy ways and to help the addict avoid the inner and middle circle). By way of example, a circle chart for a gambling addict might look like this:

As a sex addict, Handsome’s inner circle includes things like sexual contact with anyone other than me, using or viewing dating/ hook up/ massage sites, voyeurism, possessing a burner phone, etc. His middle circle includes things like drinking alcohol, objectifying women, working excessive overtime, and unavoidable contact with any of his affair partners. His outer circle is filled with great ideas for self-care.

When he responded to our fight by going to the hotel bar and having a few beers (thus tossing 7 months of sobriety from alcohol out the window), I was hurt. Then, I got mad. I was (am?) mad that he ran back to one of his old tricks the minute things got tough. I was mad he didn’t use a single tool at his disposal. I was mad he utterly disregarded his outer circle items. I was mad he didn’t reach out to anyone, including me, to talk him off that ledge. I was mad he felt no need to apologize for it at the time.

He talked with his therapist last week about what happened and the therapist directed him to develop a safety plan to keep in his wallet. It’s supposed to be a list of people he can call and things he can do to avoid his inner and middle circles. Sounds great, but since he threw the circle plan out the window in his time of need I’m not sure what one more piece of paper will accomplish. I know that sounds really cynical, but I can’t articulate how stunned I was that he so readily dove back into his old behavior. The plan is worthless if he refuses to consult it and follow it when needed.

His explanation? He says he thought it was all hopeless and that we were over. Thus, fuck it all, he’d have a beer. Why did he think it was over? Because I left our hotel. Because I told him I wouldn’t put up with the verbal nastiness. (For his part, he said the same thing to me during the fight.) To be clear, I never mentioned the word “divorce” or threatened divorce. In fact, I really don’t think that I’ve ever brought up divorce since telling him after DDay #2 that if he still loved the Flame that he should go and be with her, and explaining around that same time that I would leave and seek a divorce if his sexual acting out did not come to an immediate end. So, his rushed conclusion all these months later that we were over pisses me off. If anyone has justification to get a divorce, I certainly think I fit that category. Four affairs, years of lies, porn, bringing skanks to our home and…, and…, and…? It would surprise no one if I left, but I haven’t. I’m still here. I swore for better or for worse and this has got to be the “for worse” part, right? I’m still fighting for him and for us, and it rocked my world that he just threw in the towel at the drop of a hat.

I see Handsome’s recovery work as his way of fighting for himself. I also believe it is valuable to our entire family for him to be healthy and sober and for him to have self-esteem and confidence. When the shit hits the fan though, if he just gives up… ? After a bad but not exactly exceptional argument? I agree that the fact that we were away from home likely contributed to his excessive reaction, as did the fact that I did something different by standing up for myself and distancing myself from the situation, but c’mon… after all we’ve been through? Is his skin really so thin? I didn’t tap out after finding out that he was juggling all those other women and his other forms of acting out. It admittedly sounds righteously indignant, but is this the thanks I get for hanging in there? I’m angry that he didn’t care enough in that moment to fight back against his own demons for me. For us. Even for himself, for that matter.

Will we get through this? Sure. It’s just going to take time. It’s a set back, but not an insurmountable one. We need to get back on the same page where we both feel supported and where we are fighting for each other instead of with each other.