Tag: CSAT

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?

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.

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.

Maybe it’s time for separate vacations?

This picture is the view from my hotel room on Sunday night. Unfortunately, it was not the room that I had booked months ago with Handsome. It was a room that I had booked less than an hour earlier after Handsome left me sitting on a bench, by myself, at our resort.  One Uber ride and a couple hundred bucks later, I at least had a safe place to lay my head.

I should stop being amazed at how quickly things in my life can go from “great” to “hell in a hand basket” territory. You would think I would have learned by now, but no. As I sat in my unexpected home for the night I could not grasp that my husband was sleeping somewhere else. I could not fathom that he hadn’t called to see whether I was safe or to ask where I was. I couldn’t believe that our vacation devolved into disaster.

About 96 hours earlier we had been sitting in our CSAT’s office talking about how I was struggling with the triggers surrounding the trip and what I perceived as Handsome’s lack of empathy and deflection relating to those triggers. When we left there, I thought we had worked through a lot of the issues and I was (cautiously) optimistic about the weekend.

A day later we had happily packed for our trip, driven to the airport, and found ourselves at the first of two hotels we planned to stay at over the weekend.  Twenty minutes after arriving we were at an outside bar/ restaurant waiting for our room to be available and Handsome started to get highly agitated and to complain about everything (the heat, the bugs, why isn’t the room ready, etc.). I said something like, “we just got here. Are you going to be upset about the heat the whole time, because we knew it was going to be hot, right?” He looked me square in the eyes and responded flatly, “It’s not like I wanted to come in the first place.”

He should have just slapped me. It would have hurt less. Knowing how completely insecure I was about the trip after last year, it was a brutal thing to say. Either it’s true and we shouldn’t have bothered to take the trip, or it was a lie but targeted to inflict pain. So, twenty minutes into the vacation and I’m already having a good cry. In public.

We managed to salvage the rest of that day, but the following day he went through a bout of acting like a turd because he forgot to bring a backpack to carry all of his stuff. Evidently that was my fault or at least enough of my fault to elicit swearing and fit-pitching like a toddler. Cue more waterworks from me (who pre-DDays normally didn’t cry).  I kept thinking that what was happening was exactly why I was worried about traveling with him. He apologized, but “I’m sorry” doesn’t just wipe away a bunch of hurtful words. I sucked it up though, pushed the feelings down deep inside, and we ended up having a fine day.

Saturday, it was my turn to get snappy. It was incredibly hot and humid and we went into a building to sit down and, although there was plenty of room, Handsome sat so close to me that his shorts literally lapped over on top of my thighs. He could not have gotten any closer to me without actually sitting on my lap. I was sticky and sweaty and grumpy and I think I gave him an eye roll and said something about him not leaving me any room. Apparently, although he can get ticked off whenever/ wherever, I am not permitted to display any negative emotion without it becoming a national calamity. He sulked, he pouted, he didn’t speak to me for over an hour. It was utterly absurd.  (Right now I am sure you are thinking “my goodness BW, what an entitled asshat he is” and on this trip you would be completely correct. This is acting out era Handsome, not Handsome 2.0. Post DDay I would see flashes of this behavior, but it has been relatively infrequent. He must have stored it up just for this trip.) We pretty much recovered and ended up having a good later afternoon/ evening, but I was exhausted feeling like I was on an emotional roller coaster.

The next day, the wheels just fell off our bus. They say that timing is everything and, in this case it surely was. We had a lazy morning in bed and Handsome was talking about how he wanted to go visit his hometown sometime soon. We talked about when that might happen and what we might do there. All good. Then Handsome told me how he really wants to visit the place where he went on summer vacations as a kid. Sounds fine, except that place had been the subject of a blow-out argument we had about two or three months ago wherein I flat out told him that I would never ever go there. I did not tell him that he couldn’t go or that he couldn’t take our kids, but I was abundantly clear that I would not go. (To make a long story somewhat short, my refusal to go stems from his repeated acting out in our summer home and how he tainted my “happy place” with impunity. As of right now I won’t go and celebrate his happy place when he shat all over mine.) I might have been less reactive to him bringing it up if the circumstances were different (like we weren’t in bed together) or if he appeared to give a crap at all if bringing it up might be triggering for me, but that didn’t happen. And the day fell apart from there. After completely ghosting on me for about 5 hours, by around dinner time he was so mouthy and defensive and blaming everything on me that I just couldn’t take another moment of it. I packed my bag, dropped it with the bellman, and went off to find dinner. I didn’t hear from him.

I reached out to our CSAT and basically asked what I should do. Leaving my SA husband alone seemed like a bad idea, but I also didn’t think I needed to stay and have the weight of the world dumped on me. She suggested that I try to talk to him, so I texted him and asked him to meet me. He came but was just angry and hostile. He admitted that he spent the previous few hours sitting in the hotel bar, drinking (there goes 6 months of sobriety from alcohol). I tried a dozen ways to get him talking and to try to reach past that impervious armor of callousness, but I was getting nowhere. I finally realized it was almost 10PM and I didn’t think he had eaten, so I mentioned it to him because I was concerned that the restaurants would close and he’d be starving. He just got up off the bench we had been sitting on and walked away from me off into the night.

I managed to collect myself enough to get the bellman to find my bag and to get into an Uber. Unbeknownst to me, Handsome apparently watched me leave. I didn’t see him off in the shadows. He said nothing. He never asked where I was going. I simply got a text from him at 1 in the morning telling me that he was sorry that he squandered the opportunity to talk to me. The next day – the last of our vacation – he asked me to please come back to the hotel to meet him. When I got there he hugged me and started crying and apologized profusely for the night before. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until about 5PM that he even asked where I had spent the previous night.

We made it through the remainder of the day (we actually had some fun) and flew home together. He apologized again this morning for “ruining the vacation.” For my part, I’m just very sad. I’m sad he threw 6 months of sobriety from alcohol out the window at the drop of a hat. I’m sad he didn’t/ wouldn’t call his SA sponsor. I’m sad he didn’t/ wouldn’t try to participate in a phone meeting or an online meeting. I’m sad that he didn’t try to call me, even though he was mad at me, to try to talk through things. I’m sad that he did not use a single tool at his disposal to help him deal with whatever was going on inside his head. I’m sad that the high I normally get from travel is just stunningly absent this time around. I can’t shake the feeling that I wasted three vacation days and that if this is what vacationing with my recovering SA husband means, I’d rather go alone.

Updates & Tying Up Loose Ends 1.0

I enjoy shows like 20/20 or Dateline that cover true crime cases, but I’m always a bit sad if there is no conclusion or a “since this story was filmed” postscript. Thus, please accept these updates (in no particular order) to some issues raised in my previous posts:

Fire Dude & the Whore:  Having the Whore’s burner phone in my possession was like keeping a flaming coal in my pocket. It’s mere existence hurt me, and as long as I had it, I had an unsettling link to Fire Dude. He would text me at all hours of the day and night and send me pictures of people he thought looked like Handsome driving by their house. I finally managed to have the burner phone copied and I returned it to him in June. I haven’t heard from him since. He and the Whore welcomed a baby girl to the world on August 4th. That child would have been conceived during the Whore’s affair with Handsome, although he swears that he hasn’t had sex with her since 2015.

Vasectomy: Handsome had his initial consultation with the urologist and scheduled the surgery for mid-October. Given the amount of time he will need to be off – about 2 weeks since he doesn’t have a desk job – it may be delayed due to his work schedule, but he did follow through and make the appointment.

Post-nuptial agreement: This is a work in progress. Handsome tells me that he’s open to it and willing to discuss it, and then it never happens. He avoids it like the plague.  When we do manage to talk about it he says that he feels as if I’m discounting his contributions to our family and that he fears that I’m asking for the agreement only to hurt him. Those are fairly big accusations. I can understand why he might perceive those things to be true. Neither is true. This is solely about sharing the risk of staying in the marriage and protecting me and our kids in the event he is unfaithful again and the marriage ends in divorce. This is a major item on my “I need this to stay” list, so I’m not giving up and I’ll raise it in front of our CSAT if he continues to dodge the issue.

Beyond Affairs:  We just wrapped up the last of the post-intensive calls following our participation in their Healing From Affairs weekend. In retrospect, altogether it was a very worthwhile experience for us. We are (generally) communicating much better than we did before and I think we have a better understanding of how we have each viewed certain things that occurred in our marriage. We have identified our vulnerabilities in tremendous detail and talked through them in a way that most couples never do. While Handsome’s SA puts a slightly different spin on certain things, he still cheated and I’m still a betrayed spouse. There was enough relevant material in the weekend and in the after-care that we both agree it was worth the time and expense. I note for anyone considering their intensive that there are six big follow-up group calls after the intensive. Those are spaced out and are just for the participants of the particular recently concluded intensive. They also have calls every other Wednesday night throughout the year that are essentially open in perpetuity to the people who participate in any of their programs (there is a call for women and a separate call for men). The men’s calls seem to always be pretty secular (as was the intensive itself), but the women’s calls shift through both secular phases and bible-study related phases.

The Flame: Perhaps the gum is wearing off my shoe. Handsome realizes (now, finally, duh!) that The Flame isn’t all sunshine and light. He recognizes that just as he was having an emotional affair with her, she was also equally cheating on her husband. He seems to have gained some insight into why she was such a willing participant with him and what that says about her.  The Flame has gone underground on social media. I had heard that her husband was filing for divorce, but I’m not checking. She seems to have lost one of her two jobs in the last few months. One way or the other she will get what she has coming.  (Karma!)

The Unicorn: Believe it or not, but things appear to be working out for Handsome with his unicorn of an SA sponsor. I’d even go so far as to say that perhaps The Unicorn is an ideal match for Handsome. They resolved their initial communication issues and now talk fairly regularly. He has given Handsome space and time to do recovery work outside of SA, like our affair recovery work from the intensive, and because his schedule is crazy he is forgiving of Handsome’s crazy schedule as well. In short, things seem to be just fine with the two of them.

Today Handsome hits 9 months of sexual sobriety. On Sunday we will be 9 months out from our first DDay. I would say that it seems like a lifetime ago, except the pain is still so very fresh and close to the surface. We are hanging in there together though. I am trying to stay strong, one breath at a time and one hour at a time and one day at a time. Some days I do a better job than others, but writing here helps me through good and bad patches. I didn’t start blogging because I thought anyone would ever see it. I just needed to shout on paper (or a screen, to be more precise). The fact that I have received so much terrific advice, commentary, and support here from men and women that I’ve never met – even when we agree to disagree – has been both a wonderful surprise and a tremendous blessing.  I don’t really have the words to express how much you have all helped me in my healing, but I want to say that I appreciate each of you. Thank you all. ❤️

The CSAT Returns

I’m not certain that I have ever looked so forward to seeing another woman as I did to seeing our Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) yesterday upon her return from maternity leave.  We were able to meet with her only once prior to her leave, and I was confident I could get by till she returned, but it was tougher than I thought.

It has been three and a half months since we last met with her. In normal people years that isn’t a very long time, but when you’re well within your first year post DDay, it seems like a lifetime. There were new disclosures to face, accountability and boundary issues to navigate, and although progress was definitely made there remains a lot of individual and couples work to be done. In short, we need her. I need her.

As torture goes, it was a good session.

She asked me how Handsome’s sexual acting out and the partners he chose made me feel, and asked me to tell Handsome. My main answer? Diminished. I feel like everything about me and my life is “less than” because of what he did.  I am looked at with pity by those who know what he did whereas I used to be viewed as a person of strength. Dealing with the betrayal trauma has negatively impacted me as a mother and as a daughter. It has impacted my work. I have withdrawn socially. At least for the last 5 years I did not have the marriage I thought I had. I could go on.

I’m accustomed now to thinking through these thoughts and to writing about them here, but this was the first time that I actually got to express them to Handsome where he was a captive audience.

We talked briefly about Angel Baby and the CSAT asked Handsome about his relationship with her and whether it was sexual. He said it wasn’t. Since I’m sitting RIGHT THERE though, I was able to turn to him and say “… but you’ve admitted you wanted to have sex with her. You actually slept with her in a bed in our house and supposedly had an erection…?” He then fessed up and acknowledged that yes, in the end, it got sexual even if (he maintains) they never had sex.

This is going to be a different therapy experience for him. He doesn’t just get to tell his version of events without challenge. He can still minimize and deflect the way sex addicts love to do on things I don’t know about, but on anything else he cannot hide.  I think I’m going to find this to be very refreshing.