Tag: lies

What I Know Now

I am 3 years and almost 5 months to the day after my DDay. In the scheme of life, that’s really nothing. A blip. In my heart and soul, however, it feels like decades. I feel as though I have endured a lifetime of pain. In many respects I can’t believe that it has been “only” that amount of time. I have certainly aged more in 3 years than I did the previous 10.

A newer member of this very unfortunate club emailed and asked me what the present me would say to the version of myself that existed on 12/9/17. I’d say a few things, as it turns out. Here are my top 10 in no particular order. Feel free to add any of your own advice to your DDay self in the comments.

1. I know it hurts. It’s like being fully cognizant of your own murder. Days will come when you no longer feel that way. It will take time and hard work but you’ll get there.

2. As hard as it is, don’t waste a minute on the other women. It’s easy to focus on them, but they really aren’t the issue.

3. Each bad day will pass. Relish a good day when you have one. (Good days can be fleeting too, but notice and make the most of them when they appear.)

4. Progress is NOT linear. Whether you stay or leave there will be steps forward and back.

5. The best people to have around you are those who listen well and simply offer nonjudgmental support. It’s okay for someone to say “This happened to me and here is how I handled it and how it played out.” It is less helpful to have people around you who pepper their stories with “you should” or “you must.” Be very picky about who you surround yourself with and who you trust with your story.

6. You’re going to hear a lot about self-care. Just do the best you can. Don’t feel shame if you can’t make time for a walk or yoga or meditation. Some days self-care can be as simple as showering or ordering take out. Some days it can also be crying your eyes out if you’ve been holding it in. What works for someone else might not work for you.

7. Prioritize your physical and mental health needs. It’s very tempting to pour all of your attention into your spouse and focus on getting them help to “fix” them. I won’t tell you not to work to get help for your partner, but make sure that you have good therapeutic support too. And do see your doctor. The physical impacts of betrayal trauma manifest themselves in many ways, from PTSD to Kawasaki syndrome to a laundry list of auto-immune disorders.

8. Gaslighting and lies don’t suddenly end on your first DDay. Trickle truth is real. You can be as understanding and nonjudgmental as can be and your addict may still feel compelled to lie to you. Expect it, and know that your hyper-vigilance is not codependency but a common trauma symptom.

9. This experience will change you. I’m honestly not yet comfortable with the new me, but I have a feeling she’s going to change a bit more before all is said and done. I still mourn the loss of who I was, and working through that grief is both necessary and okay.

10. If you stay with your partner and they do the work you can rebuild trust and mend your relationship. I’ll never, ever forget about what my husband did, but it appears now as an occasional dull ache and not a daily stabbing, blinding pain.

You’ll notice that there is no advice here on whether to stay or leave. I could only tell my DDay self not to make a hasty decision either way. Traumatized brains don’t function really well. I needed space, time, and some therapeutic input to be able to think clearly.

In looking over the list I think I’d like to squeak in a #11: Don’t make your needs small and certainly don’t let anyone else make your needs small. Scream from the rooftops what you need. Those around you will either rise to the occasion or fall by the wayside. Either outcome is fine. Those who wither or fail to show up aren’t worth your time, and those who support you and meet you where you are at are irreplaceable.

A Different Kind of Trigger

My relationship with my in-laws is complicated. For the most part they welcomed me and have been kind. We’ve had some moments, but mostly with my FIL and mostly once my MIL passed and he lost his filter and I started to see the veneer peeling back on the family picture. I harbor resentment though at the trauma their alcoholism inflicted on my husband and their abject denial of same to the present. They image-managed the heck out of their lives before I married their son. That’s a little like spitting in my scrambled eggs and trying to sell it to me as a soufflé.

I’ve written before about Handsome’s Complex PTSD. While a good bit of the genesis of his CPTSD stems from his job, an equal if not greater part stems from growing up with two functionally alcoholic parents.

My MIL was already quite ill with emphysema when I met her, but she was still mobile and somewhat self-sufficient. I saw her drink, but only at dinner and usually just one cocktail. My FIL has been sober for years and, if anything, is probably now only addicted to AA. And cigarettes. And being a controlling ass. I have often thanked heaven for the 10 hours of distance between our homes.

I was at their house one day and looking for a sheet pan in the kitchen. I opened a cabinet and out spilled several fifths of vodka. My MIL wasn’t driving at the time so that means my FIL was facilitating whatever drinking she was doing. On another occasion I picked up her 24oz water bottle to wash it. To my dismay, it was filled with vodka, not water. That was about 6 months before she died.

My MIL’s death unmoored my husband. I’ve written before about how he disassociated during her funeral to the point that he convinced himself that I wasn’t there. Then he used the resentment from me not being there to “justify” his acting out. (“My wife doesn’t love me. She couldn’t even be bothered to come to my mother’s funeral.”) The fact that I moved heaven and earth to be present and that I was there, standing beside him and holding his hand, was just lost in the recesses of his mind and replaced with resentment. All of his major acting out rolled forward from there.

Now, as I write this, my FIL is in failing health. It seems unlikely that he’ll see Christmas this year, and next to impossible to believe he’ll last a year. I can already see the toll this is taking on my husband and it’s nerve wracking.

I don’t want to make this all about me. It’s not. But my experience tells me that when the time comes and my FIL passes, my husband is going to be adrift. There will be no more parental affection to chase. No one to try endlessly to impress (to no avail). No one to be a theoretical safety net.

Handsome is not the same person he was when his mom died 8 years ago. He has experience and resources and tools to bring to bear, but the loss of a parent is no small thing. That’s particularly true when you’ve spent your life trying to connect with that parent and chasing the unconditional affection you could never exactly muster from them.

A part of me wishes that Handsome would be more angry at his dad. If not for himself, then maybe for our kids who are mostly ignored by the man. He either forgets their birthdays entirely or he remembers one child and not the other. Handsome acts as though he could care less. Maybe that’s true, but I doubt it. This is the dad whose behavior – no matter how deplorable – he excuses. The dad who told Handsome he was fat (he wasn’t) which prompted Handsome to pursue months of dieting. (FIL told my size 0 daughter the same thing during a visit. Not “wow, I’ve missed you” or “I’m so happy to see you,” but “you’ve put on a lot of weight.” Jerk.) It’s the same dad who never attended a single school event or sporting event for Handsome – even though they lived only 3 blocks from the school.

Handsome enlisted in the Marines and went into law enforcement because his dad did those things. He’s been chasing attention and approval and love from his father for decades. Getting those things from his dad has always been just out of reach. Just beyond his grasp. It’s not that Handsome hasn’t earned or deserved them. His father just has no idea how to give them freely. Once it is literally impossible to get those things from his dad, I have to wonder if the longing will stop. I suspect that it won’t.

Flooding: Triggered About Consent

I was scrolling through the New York Times on Friday and I came across this article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/opinion/sexual-consent.html

On the surface the article might seem to have little to do with my life. What I learned, however, after reading it and finding myself triggered and flooded with feelings for the better part of 24 hours, is that I have nagging, unresolved issues related to consent and my husband’s betrayals.

The premise of the article is just a few sentences: “Frank and Ellen meet at a night course and end up getting drinks together after class several times. The drinks start to feel like dates, so Ellen asks Frank if he is married, making it clear that adultery is a deal-breaker for her. Frank is married, but he lies and says he is single. The two go to bed. Is Frank guilty of rape? To most people, even those who consider Frank a dishonorable creep, the answer is clearly no. … But why?” The author goes on to compare and contrast procuring a loan through lies – which is fraud, punishable in criminal court – with Frank who duped Ellen into a sexual encounter.

I have to wonder what the author would think of my situation? I married a man who had been a sex addict for nearly two decades before we walked down the aisle. His addiction was completely hidden from me. We had sex because I thought he was only having sex with me. That wasn’t true for 3+ years of our marriage. I didn’t know.

That’s the rub for me. I have yet to resolve my feelings about things happening to me – very directly- that I did not consent to in any way. My then fiancé never said “Hey, before you commit to me for life you should know that I have issues with compulsive masturbation and other forms of sexually acting out.” I was never enlightened that it might be a good idea to use protection during sex because my husband decided to have affairs, visit massage parlors, and hook up with internet randos ten years into our marriage. I did not consent to STDs. I did not consent for pictures of my children to be sent to affair partners or for details of my life to be discussed with them. And yet those things all happened, all without my consent.

I was flooded with sadness that choices I thought I made well and deliberately weren’t based in reality. It eats at me that my husband’s lifestyle of deceit robbed me of an opportunity to consent and make informed choices. I know that my choices now are informed choices. I can and do take comfort in that. Great comfort, in fact. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mitigate my feelings of being duped by my husband for years. Those feelings are going to take some time to process.

My trauma therapist has her work cut out for her this week…

*** A side note- if you have commented and not seen your comment published or acknowledged, bear with me. (Thank you for commenting!) Some glitch is causing my WordPress to not play well in the sandbox. Hope to have it resolved soon.