Tag: SA

Packing for Trigger City

At the end of this week I will put my kids and my mom and her dog in my car and make the 11+ hour drive to our vacation home in New England. Normally we leave closer to Father’s Day in June, but I made the decision pre-DDay to shift our schedule this summer so that my kids could do swim team and tennis camp. Handsome will be home for about two weeks by himself, until he comes to join us for the final two and a half weeks.

The triggers this Summer are plentiful. July 2nd of 2015 was the day he screwed the Whore in a no-tell motel while I was off having lunch with my elderly mom at the seaside resort where he and I had our wedding reception.

Last year at this time I was still in pre-DDay ignorant bliss. Now I know what was going on right under my nose, and while I was away, all unbeknownst to me.

  • As of the day our kids and I left for vacation last Summer, Handsome was involved (emotionally or physically) with four other women.
  • Three days after we left, he and Angel Baby had a 2-day sleepover at our house that included their field trip to the museum, lunch, and drinks.
  • He was in daily contact with The Flame.
  • He was in daily contact with the Whore and in between their sexting he made sure to remind her how I was going out of town for several weeks, that they should get together, and vividly describing all of the sex acts he wanted to perform on her.
  • He was in regular contact with the woman (The Janitor) he took out on a date two days after he returned to town from vacation.

Handsome joined us in New England for about 12 days last Summer. We did fun things as a family and had a great time. Then:

  • He had his date night with The Janitor at the high-end romantic restaurant two days after he returned home.
  • He tries, but ultimately fails, to set up another hotel meet-up with the Whore two days before I get home with the kids (this time offering up a hotel far from her home but right down the road from ours).
  • He remains in daily contact with all of the women.

To say that I’m uncomfortable leaving him by himself is an understatement, but I’m not his mom or a baby monitor. It’s up to him to stay sober. I’ve asked him to double up on his therapy appointments or meetings while I’m away and he has agreed. That’s great, but boredom, loneliness, and unstructured alone time are all problematic for him… which makes them problematic for me.

It does not help that our vacation home – which I owned since before he and I ever started dating and which was always my very hard earned safe haven and happy place – was the site of some of his compulsive behavior. The epic sexting that went on there (complete with photos and videos from our bedroom) during his “work weekends” is still repulsive and vile and pathetic. And there are other triggers and reminders all around me there. I have to turn my head when I drive by the church we got married in… a church where my dad used to put me on his shoulders and take me to puppet shows when I was a little girl and where I take my own kids now for the same events.

Our summer vacations in 2015, 2016, and 2017 are all tainted by his affairs. In particular, in 2016 we took our regular family vacation that included our extended families, and then we took a “secret” trip – just the four of us – and had an absolutely magical week laying on the beach, playing mini-golf, eating ice cream, and relaxing. There were no schedules to juggle, no elderly relatives to please, no pets to take care of, and it was wonderful. “Best secret vacation ever” is how we jokingly and lovingly referred to it. I now know he was texting and sexting the Whore, Angel Baby, and the Flame literally within hours of pulling into our driveway at home.

Could I sell the vacation house and just start spending summers elsewhere? Sure… if I want to give up nearly 50 years of memories with my parents, friends, and our family. I’m not game for that. The skanks and his addiction aren’t going to take any more from me. I’m trying to ensure that I can take all those things back.

It’s all quite overwhelming. I’m trying to stay grounded. I’m trying to practice self-care. I’m just worried that the next few weeks may all be a bit much for me.

Avoidance – A Close Cousin of Denial?

Even though things are generally going well, I am still aware each day of the need to take care of myself in every way possible. A part of that self-care is taking measures to protect myself and my children in the event that Handsome relapses. I see no signs of this happening, but a few months of good behavior doesn’t wash away several years of horrors, nor can I predict the future based on his present intent. I don’t doubt his present intent not to act out again, but then I didn’t doubt his intent when he said our marriage vows either.

Absent a crystal ball, the best that I can do is ensure that I’ve taken the steps necessary to anticipate and to address the possibility of future problems. Fortunately, for the most part our finances have always been separate. We have one joint account, but it rarely has anything in it unless we need it to for a particular reason. We do, however, have assets, and I need to protect those not only for me but for the benefit of our children. Our son and daughter are the only two kids either of us is ever supposed to have. Everything that is ours is intended to be theirs and theirs alone should some harm befall us. Handsome and I agree on that. While I can ensure that I don’t have more children, I cannot really ensure that Handsome doesn’t get some trashy, holster-sniffing tweaker chick pregnant. He still insists that the Whore was the only AP he had intercourse with and that he used protection, but who knows? I’m not betting the proverbial farm on it. (She is actually pregnant and due next month and Fire Dude has no idea if it is his or not.) More specifically, I’m not betting my kids’ futures and college funds on it or on his ability to stay sexually sober.

I have asked for two things: a post-nuptial agreement and for him to get a vasectomy. Given what Handsome did, who he did it with, and how long his behavior went on during our marriage, I don’t feel as though either of these requests are unreasonable. Uncomfortable, sure, but not unreasonable. I pondered both things for months before I broached them with Handsome. He’s pretty miserable about both asks.

He raises all of the issues you’d expect a guy to raise about the vasectomy. (“It’s surgery!! On my balls!! What if it goes wrong???”) I can’t help but feel like he should have thought about that before he screwed the Whore and crawled into bed with Angel Baby in my f’ing house. It is literally the only way that I can ensure that I don’t open my door one day to find some ho bag standing there with a kid that looks like my husband. My family’s assets will not be used to pay child support for the spawn of his compulsive behavior, nor will my kids see their current standard of living diminished as that money goes out the door. Not happening. Not on my watch.

As to the post-nup, he’s absolutely indignant about it. If we divorce generally (not arising out of any new infidelity), we each walk away with what we came with, anything we inherit from our families, and our pensions. We split anything we accrued together. If, however, we divorce because of future infidelity (not what has already transpired), in addition to walking away with their own stuff the betrayed spouse also gets half of the betrayer’s pension. That infidelity clause (not allowed in every state, by the way, but allowed in mine) was originally specifically directed at him. In the petty move of the century, he whined that it needed to apply to me (the faithful spouse who didn’t kick his ass to the curb after all the shit he did) as well. Fine. The change was made. I know I’m not a cheater. I’m confident in my core values.

He is avoiding both issues like the plague. I think he believes that if he drags his feet enough, I’ll forget or I’ll decide they aren’t really necessary. That’s not happening. I’m happy to wait till next month to bring them up with the CSAT, but I will also continue to raise them each week in our check-in. I am nothing if not persistent.

I absolutely understand why avoiding difficult things is preferable to facing them head on. I get that. But I also think that avoidance is closely tied to denial. If Handsome had never acted on his sexual compulsions, there would be little need for either ask. But the reality – that he created by his own conduct – is that I sincerely believe that both things are necessary to protect me and our kids from his possible future behavior based upon his actual behavior in the very recent past. To take the position that this is somehow overkill is to deny that undeniable behavior.

We cannot even say that bad behavior on his part is unlikely in the future, because if I have learned anything these last few months it is that the behavior of a sex addict cannot be predicted. I know what his present intent is, and I believe him completely when he says that he doesn’t want to ever act out again. Nonetheless I, for one, would rather be safe than sorry.

Good Intentions Gone Awry

I am feeling terrible today… for my husband.

I vented here for a few months about Handsome’s apparent inability/ general delay in finding a sponsor at SA. Yes, he’s sober, but not working the steps. I would nudge him regularly about finding someone and he would assure me that he was trying and remind me that he wanted to find the “right” person. He was, I thought, perhaps waiting for a unicorn to fall into his lap. He had very specific and seemingly well thought out boxes he wanted the sponsor to tick:

  • sober for at least several years
  • has worked through all 12 steps
  • still together with his wife
  • speaks highly and respectfully of his wife/ women in general
  • makes intelligent/ good comments in meetings
  • smart and confident enough to call Handsome out if/ when needed
  • experience as a sponsor

March passes. Then April. Then most of May. And then Handsome finally identified his unicorn. I have a feeling it was akin to asking a girl to prom, but Handsome got his nerve up, asked him to be his sponsor, he said yes, and we were -I thought – in good shape. The guy ticked every single box and had been regularly attending the meeting Handsome thinks of as his “home” meeting. I very literally breathed a huge sigh of relief when Handsome shared the news.

The sponsor called Handsome a few days later, suggested reading material and a step book, all of which Handsome eagerly and dutifully obtained, and they had one other call a few days after that. And then… nothing. Crickets. Zip. Zilch. Nada. It’s as if the guy fell off the face of the Earth.

Handsome was initially worried (the first few days of no contact) that he had somehow  committed some sort of faux pas. I don’t think he did. He would only call each day as requested and leave a message along the lines of “This is Handsome, please give me a call back when you get a chance.” Days later, we hypothesized that perhaps the guy was just incredibly busy with his professional job. After a few more days passed Handsome actually googled him to see if there were reports of his untimely demise. Nothing.  It has now been three weeks since last contact.

Handsome is trying to brush this off, but I know he’s taking it personally. This might sound strange, but I’d actually feel better if he was outwardly angry about it because then, at least, he wouldn’t be shoving his feelings down (eg. how we got here in the first place). It is incredibly difficult for Handsome to put himself in a position where he has to rely on another person. He went out on a limb here, only to have it sawed off at the tree.

I’m angry on his behalf. If it turns out that his sponsor was in an accident, experienced a sudden grave illness, or was eaten by a bear, I’ll forgive him. Otherwise, even if he has relapsed, shame on him for not at least replying to Handsome to say “something has come up and I am terribly sorry but I cannot be your sponsor.” Who leaves someone hanging out there who is so relatively fresh to disclosure and seeking help through SA? It is, I think, a very shitty thing to do.

Some might say that turn about is fair play here for what Handsome did in the first instance, but I don’t see it that way. He has done just about everything I’ve asked him to do in our/ my recovery efforts. I see the work he is putting in daily. I see the huge changes for the better in his personality, outlook, and mindset. He is TRYING mightily, even if one or both of us gets frustrated from time to time. I know he was committed to starting his step work and to progressing through the steps. He had the best of intentions here, and it just sucks that someone else doesn’t seem to have taken it as seriously.

So, I’m going home to hug my husband today. I’m going to remind him that he is worthy of being loved and cared about and that he matters. And I’m going to suggest that perhaps he consider a zebra (or even a horse) instead of a unicorn.

Thinking about betrayal (and driving myself nuts)

I try mightily to be fair(ish) to Handsome when I write here. Yes, I often vent, but I aim for rigorous honesty and if it looks bad for him, that’s on him. I don’t need to portray his actions in a negative light because they were horrific enough all on their own. When good things happen, I try to recognize that too. For example, Handsome finally got a sponsor. He’ll have six months of sexual sobriety and three months of sobriety from alcohol this week. This coming weekend we are going to the couples intensive he arranged for us a few months ago and he’s doing the pre-session homework. He’s keeping up with the after-care from his intensive with Dr. M including journaling every day (which I never thought he’d do, but he actually says he likes it).  All good things.

Occasionally though, things come up that I just have no idea how to process. Perhaps they are too overwhelming, or create too much confusion, or are too triggering. Or maybe they just make me ask myself, “What the actual fuck am I dealing with?” One example: during his intensive with Dr. M, Handsome was incredibly raw and overwhelmed. We were talking one night about his cheating in broad terms and I asked him out of the blue whether he had ever cheated on me during the 27 months I lived and worked on the other side of our state, when we were commuting back and forth to see each other. I had never had occasion to ask him that before, because it never occurred to me (before DDay #2) that he would have cheated all the way back then. Keep in mind, we were either married or engaged for 21 of those 27 months.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when someone asks me if I’ve done something awful and I haven’t, I answer immediately, emphatically, and without hesitation. When Handsome’s answer was “Welllllllll… (crickets chirping during long pause)… not exactly.” I knew the answer was just “yes.” His story is that we had a big fight, he didn’t think we could recover, we didn’t talk for “weeks” and he went to a local bar and he met a girl and he later took her out to dinner. During dinner he says he realized it was just absurd and not what he wanted, so he finished dinner, took her home, and that was the end of it.  I didn’t want to sound like Ross and Rachel, but I grilled him on whether he was under the impression we were on a break or that we had broken up. No, he wasn’t. He acknowledged we had never broken up.

What do I make of this revelation now, years of marriage and two kids later? His story simply isn’t plausible for a variety of reasons. First, we have never, ever gone weeks without speaking. In fact, we’ve never gone more than 48 hours without speaking. Memories can be faulty, so I actually went back and reviewed my cell phone records from back then (I swear I’m not a hoarder…I have them only because at the time the phone was a plausible work expense, so they’re in my tax files). There are only a handful of times we didn’t speak each and every day. Next, I simply have zero recollection of this allegedly big fight. I went back through my calendars to see when this might have happened, and over the 6 months I lived there before we got engaged we saw each other regularly every two weeks if not weekly. We talked daily, sometimes several times a day. We took trips and vacations together. It just doesn’t add up. Plus, this was not a hook up. By his own admission, he chatted her up at the bar, got the girl’s number, called her, set up a date, and then took her on that date. That takes a few days, and we’d have been in touch in that time. In short, my conclusion is simply that he cheated. We hadn’t broken up and he took someone else out on a date. That’s cheating.

By my best guess, this occurred sometime in late January 2004. We had seen each other over the New Year holiday and then again over the long holiday weekend mid-month. Then we didn’t see each other again for three weeks (we spoke daily) until we took a long-planned vacation together to Punta Cana the week of Valentine’s Day. Why do I suspect that window? When we got to Punta Cana, Handsome was an asshole. I mean a miserable jerk face. He snapped at me so badly before we checked in that I thought about turning around and flying home alone. The vacation improved greatly over the week, but those initial few days were incredibly difficult. At the time, I attributed it to a dozen things: his hatred of flying, exhaustion from work, maybe I really was a bitch? Now, post DDay, it’s the same behavior I saw throughout his acting out… picking fights and blaming me to “justify” to himself whatever crap he was up to.

So, then I start to wonder… now that I know, what exactly do I do with the information?  To me, this ties to my post a few weeks ago on betrayal and whether our choices would have been different if we, the betrayed, had the whole truth (click here for that). Would I have kept dating him if I knew he did this? Hard to say. Maybe not. Yes, I was in love with him, but I was also living hours away and had plenty of other non-cheating, educated, employed, single guy options at hand. I’m not entirely sure what I would have done. Would I have agreed to marry him? Even more doubtful, and certainly not so soon afterwards. I most definitely would have wanted him to do some serious work on himself first.

Just like now, he had choices then. He could have actually had the balls to break up with me before dipping his toe (or anything else) back into the dating pool. He could have admitted what he did at the time he did it. Or, better yet, he could have chosen to work through whatever disagreement he claims we had and stay faithful to his devoted girlfriend of three years that he kept talking to about marriage.

Many of my decisions that have flowed forth since then have been based on my ignorance. I used to confidently tell people that I actually thought our long-distance romance was helpful to us early on because we had to learn to communicate really well with each other. Unbeknownst to me, it also seems to have been when Handsome started honing his compartmentalization and deception skills. I had no idea.

So, what am I going to do? Likely nothing, other than ruminate on how long he has actually been betraying me. That’s the sad fact of it. I don’t see a point in driving myself more nuts over something that happened 14 years ago. I can dissociate myself from that. Compare and contrast that though with driving myself nuts over whether he’s been keeping secrets throughout our entire marriage, as opposed to just the last five years. (I say “just” now as if that number of years is de minimus, but it isn’t. It’s a hair  under 40% of our marriage, to be precise.)

Does it matter?  I don’t believe the answer makes his cheating better or worse depending on the answer.  It’s all bad either way. Nonetheless, the more time passes the more I reconsider previous events that I thought I had processed and moved beyond. I’m not suggesting that Handsome is still overtly lying (of course, he very well might be). He is, however, a master at lies of omission. I am left to wonder what secrets he may still be holding on to for dear life… the tightly held mysteries of our marriage and the vestiges of his addiction.

Our weekly check-in follows a format from his intensive program, and one of the  questions is “What is a lie or secret that you are keeping?” No matter how much thought or effort Handsome puts into the rest of the check-in, and it’s usually considerable, he inevitably glosses over this question. He has, on occasion, tried to skip it entirely. When he does address it, either the “secret” will be something hardly secret or the lie will be something along the lines of a white lie. (“Daughter asked if I liked her haircut and I said yes, but I really don’t care for it.”) It’s maddening. I’ve started to call him out on it, to hold him somewhat accountable for half-assing that part of the exercise. You would think that 5+ years of acting out would give him fodder to come up with legitimate, meaningful answers to that question, but he can’t (or won’t) as of yet.

I know he’s an addict. I know that secret keeping is as much a part of his addiction as what those secrets are about. There is probably very little more he could disclose that would shock me. We’ve been through a polygraph that he passed with flying colors. Certainly, what I can imagine in my head is likely worse than anything else that may have happened. (As I commented on another blog, I’ve told Handsome in all seriousness that if someone called me tomorrow and said “Hey, BW, I just saw Handsome fucking a monkey,” I would politely thank them for calling, hang up, and then start Googling intensive treatment programs for monkey fuckers.) That’s the tragic part here. I just want to know the totality of what I’m dealing with, process it, forgive, and move on. He wants to keep his secrets to save his pride and to protect himself from further shame. The two are fairly mutually exclusive, and so I continue to drive myself a little nuts over things that are totally outside my control.

 

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary

Yep… today is lucky #13.  On my work calendar – which I must have filled out late last Fall but before DDay #1 – the date has pink and yellow highlighter all over it and “Our Anniversary!!!” scrawled across it as if it belongs to a love struck teenager rather than an actual, gainfully employed, responsible adult. (If, of course, said teenager still used a paper calendar…) It makes me sad. Then versus now.

How are we celebrating the day? We aren’t. I cannot cheer for under six months of sexual sobriety. I won’t buy a card for honoring your wedding vows recently. I do not yet wear my wedding rings. (He does.  I’ve never seen him without it. Go figure…)

I’m not trying to be an asshole about the day or wallow in self-pity. Hey, I’m still here, trying very hard each day to work through things. That is, I suppose, my way of honoring our marriage. He’s still my person, despite the horror he brought to me and our kids (literally, to our home). I can’t, however, pretend for a day that the world hasn’t shifted off its axis and that we’re all good.

Instead, my son turns 9 in two days. I’m going to focus all of my energy on him and put out of my mind how his dad’s deceit traces all the way back to before he turned 3. I’ll ignore the previous anniversaries where I thought I had something to celebrate, or the kids’ birthdays where I’m smiling in the photos because I’m oblivious to my husband’s acting out. Don’t get me wrong. I’m truly grateful that we are both committed to healing and making our marriage work. I appreciate all the work Handsome has done and is doing in that regard. I’m happy we can celebrate our son’s birthday as a united tribe, together in our home, and I’m sure it will be lovely.

It just doesn’t mean that I’m not sad too.

Reclaiming Mother’s Day (Part 2)

Mother’s Day flowers

Just a quick update. In short, Handsome did go away to visit his dad and I had a pretty terrific weekend with the kids.  The flowers? My 8-year-old son came shopping and helped me pick them out and we made arrangements for me and for my mom.

On Sunday I had a hearty breakfast of berries and cookies in bed (better than it sounds because there was no syrup to clean off the cat… or the steps… or the carpet…). In the evening we went to a great new steakhouse downtown for dinner.  I love seeing my kids dressed up. I love seeing them in anything really, but when they’re all shiny and clean it just rocks.

Handsome wasn’t great about observing the boundaries of the day, but I had my phone off so it didn’t matter.  He called twice and texted me once and then tried to text the kids (“Tell Mom I said… .”). Whatever.  I had the wonderful day I wanted and he was utterly uninvolved.

Back to reality today as Handsome returns home and there are a few things we need to deal with from last week.  I’ll write about those later. But for now I’m still basking in the glow of a terrific weekend. Thanks to everyone for the kind words of encouragement. I needed that support and I needed this weekend to myself.

Reclaiming Mother’s Day

So very true.

I’ve sent Handsome away. Not permanently, mind you, but for a long weekend this weekend. “But it’s Mother’s Day,” you say? Yep. Exactly.

Last year over this weekend, Handsome was at our summer home, ostensibly for the purpose of getting it ready for the season for our family, but rampantly texting three other women the entire time. He was sexting one of those women – the Whore – as well, taking dick pics throughout the house and exchanging them with her for pictures of her dirty vajeen. There were videos too, if I recall correctly. (sigh…)

In the text messages on Mother’s Day specifically, he flattered each of the women, praising them as exemplary parents and shining examples of motherhood. That includes the Whore who, you may recall, was arrested and jailed for punching her young son in the face with a closed fist. Handsome knew that, but he fawned over her the same as the others. Angel Baby doesn’t have custody of her first illegitimate child, but she was praised as well.

What did I get last Mother’s Day? A five-minute phone call from him completely devoid of any praise or affection. And the gifts and cards from my awesome kiddos… that I had bought and paid for myself.

“But he’s so busy getting the house ready! You can’t expect him to chat forever.”

“He’s a little strapped for cash, but if you buy your own gifts at least you’ll get what you want.”

“You’re not his mom.”

Those were the things I told myself. And then I sucked up the hurt and enjoyed myself with my kids.

I have the specifics about last year because I was able to see the text messages. I have to assume that the prior two Mother’s Days during his acting out were more of the same. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

So, even though Handsome took this weekend off, I’m not inclined to celebrate with him. I don’t even want to see him, frankly. I’ll buy my own flowers, enjoy a great meal somewhere with my mom and kids, and try to demonstrate to myself that he is utterly unnecessary in order for me to enjoy this holiday. The whores will not ruin it for me and neither will he.

He is traveling to visit his father who lives several hundred miles away. (I didn’t want him here, but I did want someone keeping an eye on him.) I’m sure that on Sunday he will miss his own mother who passed away in 2012. Hopefully, when Handsome and his dad go out to eat on Sunday and he sees all the families celebrating together he’ll take a moment to process why he is excluded this year and why his wife can’t bear to look at him on that day. I’m sure it would be a comfort to him to be with me and the kids instead, but this weekend my self-care means having him be far, far away.

Small steps

This coming week, Handsome will have 5 months of sexual sobriety under his belt. He will also pass two months of sobriety from alcohol. (He never relapsed with alcohol.  He just stopped drinking completely a few months after he started his sexual sobriety.)

He has regularly attended SA meetings since the day after DDay #2 (when the addiction became obvious), and he attends weekly counseling without fail. He also flew completely across the country to attend an 8-day intensive program and he’s faithfully doing the after-care work required by that program. He started couples SA trauma therapy with me this past week, and he signed us up for an affair recovery couples weekend next month.

He sold the car that was the site of some of his misdeeds, and got rid of the mattress/ box spring that he slept on in my house with Angel Baby. He is making an effort to learn my triggers and to avoid them. He works daily to stay out of the “Man Box” and be a better husband and father.

He is not perfect. We still fight occasionally over the awful things he has done. He still procrastinates in his reading of recovery literature and in discussing some of his more problematic acting out. I know he wishes this would all just go away. (So do I, so we are aligned on that point.) I have lingering questions. He sometimes, but not always, has answers. He is still challenged to have emotional intimacy with others, including me.

Yet I struggle to think of a single thing that I have asked from him in our collective recovery that he has not done or tried to do. He is making effort. He is putting in the work.

We are not in the clear by any means, but I complain about him so much here that I feel I owe a bit of space to the small steps forward.

Pic collecting and eye stalking – what next?

(Apologies if this has posted twice… somehow it reverted to draft form…)

I’ve been gone from the blog for a bit as Handsome spent a chunk of the last two weeks in an intensive program in LA and I took the opportunity to try to have a few days where his SA was not the focus of my world. He’s back home now and I had my debriefing with the doctor who ran the intensive.

On the bright side, he said that Handsome was fully engaged in the intensive, put a lot of thought and effort into the homework, showed up every day on time and ready to participate, and he feels like Handsome’s prognosis is good if he continues to do his recovery work. Terrific, right? That’s what I had hoped to hear. No complaints there. I’m truly proud of Handsome for that because I know it was incredibly difficult for him and yet he went “all in” with the program.

The doctor ran me through a lot of information that Handsome had shared during the intensive and although there were a few childhood things I wasn’t aware of, the acting out and affair activity was essentially exactly as Handsome had disclosed to me… with two exceptions.  The doctor was running through the list of Handsome’s acting out behaviors and I was almost tuning out because the list is long and hurtful, and then I heard “…pic collecting, blah blah blah, eye stalking, blah blah blah… .” Wait, what? I had to ask him to go back and read those two to me again. And then, because I am apparently the world’s most ill-informed spouse of a sex addict, I had to ask him to explain to me what those two things are.

Per Urban Dictionary:

Pic collector – A leery anonymous person who replies to your personal ad for the sole purpose of collecting your pics to inflate his or her poor ego. An encounter with a pic collector is always short and obnoxiously one-sided.

Eye stalking – The act of stalking with one’s eyes. [duh]

The eye stalking was not particularly surprising and, in the scheme of things, kind of low down on Handsome’s acting out totem pole. Troubling (and sad and pathetic) for sure, but I didn’t consider the omission of it from prior disclosures to be a crisis.

The “pic collecting” though is a bit of another story. Whose pics?  Where were they from? Was he talking about the pics from the Whore? Those I knew about for sure, but were there others? I learned that this is one of those situations where Handsome didn’t overtly lie to me, but rather he left out a part of the story that makes him look bad.

Knowing that he had signed up for Seeking Arrangements and failed at that endeavor, I grilled him about his use of Craigslist and Backpage. He admitted to visiting both intermittently but insisted that it was for work (prostitution stings and the like). He and his colleagues would reply to ads from women and try to determine if they were hooking out of houses in town and, if so, they’d try to shut them down. That may be true – or not, time will tell – but what he failed to mention is that he would keep the pictures that he was sent in communicating with those women. I can guess what he did with them.

So, I went there… against my better judgment, I asked why he did this. His reply, which I think was honest, was “Because I wanted to look at real women.” That crushed me. Forced the air from my lungs. He said what he said, but what I hear in my head is “Because I wanted to look at real women other than you.” It’s not as if I was absent, gone away, missing. Nope. I was there in our house virtually every single day of our marriage, including the times when Handsome was indulging his addiction while I was struggling with a full-time job, two kids, an aging parent suffering from complex grief, and a checked out husband. Clothed, naked, whatever… he could have looked at me, but he made repeated decisions to look elsewhere.

Would I have been more real if I posted titty photos online? If I had time to troll for men on sites like Craigslist and Backpage? If anonymous sex was my thing? I don’t think so. I certainly feel pretty real each day when my alarm clock goes off and I get the kids clothed and fed and off to school and I head for my job, to return home ten or eleven hours later to wrap up the day and return the kids to bed, ensure our bills are paid, and check that my mom is okay. To me, that’s the definition of reality.

Therein lies the rub… as I’m discovering more and more, my sex addict husband’s reality is very different from what I consider to be actual reality. I don’t (or didn’t) exist in any real way in his land of pornography, masturbation, physical affairs, emotional affairs, voyeurism, sexting, pic collecting, eye stalking, etc. etc. There, I’m not his Wife who loves him and finds him handsome and sexy and who supports him no matter what and is just waiting for him to get through his midlife crisis, or get his head out of his ass, and be a good husband and father again. No. In that land, I’m simply the “Boss Lady”  or the uncaring wife who denies him sex that he’s entitled to gosh darn it. (Because he’s such a great catch, of course… once you ignore the drinking, screaming, and cheating… whose panties wouldn’t just fall to the floor?) Forget that he was never, ever denied sex… that fact doesn’t fit his story.

I would love a break from reality. It would be glorious to stick my head in the sand or put on my noise cancelling headphones and drown out all the SA chatter around me with white noise. I can’t do that, however, and neither can Handsome if this marriage is going to work. He’s had at least a five-year break from reality. It’s time for him to join me in this delightful mess we call married life, both in the highs and lows of it, the fun and the sad, exciting and boring, but above all things, real. Hopefully he can gain (or re-gain) an interest in collecting pictures from our family’s happy life instead of those of random sad, broken strangers online.

Wednesday musings

A few brief thoughts for the week:

* Farewell Backpage! So long Craigslist personals! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

* No sponsor yet for Handsome at SA. (sigh) I don’t think he’s stalling exactly, but maybe the unicorn he is after just doesn’t exist.

* Handsome is going to be off soon to attend a long intensive program in LA with Dr. Omar Minwalla, who may just be my new hero. Google Dr. Minwalla if you aren’t yet familiar with him. Given that I do not identify as either a co-addict or co-dependent, I’m squarely in the trauma survivor (I hate to refer to myself as a victim) category when it comes to Handsome’s affairs and sex addiction. I really hope that this program proves to be incredibly helpful to Handsome in kick-starting his recovery. He’s not exactly excited about it – as he says “no, I’m not looking to have all of the awful and disgusting things I’ve done be the topic of conversation for an entire week” – but he does seem eager to get it underway and to see what he can learn from it. If it helps him to better handle the damage and pain he caused to me, all the better.

* Handsome says his therapy took a turn for the much harder and more challenging this week. Amen. Perhaps my talk with the Doc is bearing fruit.

* Oh, and I just saw that the woman that Handsome “dated” last summer got herself arrested AGAIN recently for harassment. I don’t think he could have scraped the bottom of the barrel for his acting out partners any more if he actively tried. Yuck. How ironic is it that in those moments of chasing the dragon of his addiction when he felt most wanted and desired he was engaging in behavior that is a complete and total turn off to the person who loves him most in the world?

Have a great week everyone!

Four months of sobriety for him – eye opening for me

Handsome and I are almost four months past DDay #1, but since that disclosure only revealed a portion of the story, it is more relevant to say that Handsome has been sexually sober for four months and he has been actively participating in SA for a little over a month. He has struggled to find a sponsor, but is hopeful that he’ll have one after his next meeting. I admit to some frustration at how long Handsome is taking to find a sponsor, but I recognize that – given the extraordinary difficulty he has opening up to people – he wants to find someone he feels comfortable with, who will challenge him when he needs it, who remains married, and who has similar views about his spouse. Those things are important to him and thus they are important to me, because I think Handsome can really do well in recovery with the right people on his team.

It is also true that Handsome has not had a drop of alcohol to drink in a month. He and I agree to disagree for now about the significance of this. He admits that he drank way too much, but insists he was not an alcoholic. To me, there’s a lot of denial in that belief, but I admit that he did quit drinking cold turkey without much of a glance back at it.  At worst, I get some grumbling when he’s having a meal that would have historically been accompanied by a beer (or four).  Yet alcohol played a role in almost every single physical encounter he had with his affair partners, whether it was “pre-gaming” to drown out his conscience ahead of time, or pounding beers afterwards to dull the guilt and shame. Alcohol certainly didn’t help his mood swings or anger issues either, and his health had suffered as well. I also find it to be no coincidence that there have been zero (nada! zilch!) issues with ED since he stopped drinking. (Hallelujah!!) I feel entitled to this version of my husband. We had agreed to reevaluate his abstinence from alcohol in June, but at this point I’m sticking to my guns on the “no drinking” thing for the foreseeable future. The thought of adding alcohol back into the picture seems incredibly premature, and fills me with dread. Could he have a (singular) craft beer with a burger or pizza in 6 months? A year? Maybe.  But he has a lot of damage to repair first before I’d even be willing to consider it.

I know that I’m still a newbie in this process – both as a betrayed spouse and as the wife of a sex addict.  Nonetheless, most days I feel like I’m making progress addressing both of these new, painful, and unwanted aspects of my life. There are days when I absolutely resent and abhor what Handsome has wrought upon me and our kids. Strike that – I  resent and abhor what Handsome has wrought upon me and our kids EVERY day, but some days I’m much better at dealing with it than others.  And there are issues that plague me. Those are fodder for other posts, but I can now function throughout an entire day at work, actually be productive, and not collapse at home afterwards.  I still cry often, but it’s less than it used to be. I’m gaining my sense of peace back at home. (Physically disposing of the bed that Handsome slept on with Angel Baby did wonders for that.) My appetite is returning as is my sense of humor. These are small things, and they aren’t exactly all consistent yet, but it’s a big improvement after where I was following DDay #1.

I’m learning… both things I never thought I’d need to know, and things I never wanted to know. I can articulate the difference between the co-addict model and the trauma model in a few sentences. I’ve explored with Handsome what it means to lust and what exactly he lusts after. I’ve familiarized myself with the 12 steps and have read more betrayal recovery and SA literature than I would have thought imaginable. My detective skills are honed to near Sherlock Holmes-like perfection and my spider senses are on high alert. As my young son would say, my game is tight.

Most importantly, my eyes are open. I do not think that Handsome and I have an easy road ahead of us. To the contrary, I know it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I want him to be honest with me, but honesty can hurt. I want him to change, but even change for the better can be difficult, especially if I am changing too. That said, four months in I can see some hope and sunlight in our future and that alone seemed too much to hope for immediately after DDay #1.  I booked a Thanksgiving trip today for our family. I’m planning ahead – months out. My eyes are open, but I have hope.