Tag: staggered disclosure

A Long Time Coming: Disclosure

Some sunshine, at last

Long-time readers know that there have been a few false starts on the way to my husband doing a full therapeutic disclosure. The closest we came was last May or June when it was essentially fully drafted but his buddy from rehab convinced him it was a bad idea.

Prior to that I mostly had 2+ years of staggered disclosures. My husband did A LOT of things during his acting out. I knew just about everything, but it was still more of a Rubik’s cube than a simple puzzle. I didn’t have a good sense as to how various pieces fit together. It was like having almost all of the pages of a book, but none of the pages are numbered, or in order, and you don’t know what you’re missing.

I know that some people can move forward and heal absent a full disclosure. I couldn’t. At some point it became less about what my husband was going to say and more about the fact that he refused to say it. The pain was less centered around what he did, and acutely focused on the fact that he knew it would help me (and us) heal and yet he couldn’t bring himself to show up for me the way that I needed. It felt disrespectful, dismissive, and selfish. When he finally (FINALLY!) moved forward with the disclosure in January it was literally like a ton of weight was lifted off my chest.

The disclosure took place three years and one month after DDay #1.

Yes, it hurt to hear specifics of how my life was undermined and blown apart without my knowledge, but it was also freeing. The pages of the book that told the story of our marriage were finally being put in order. A few of the pages I was missing were added. Questions that arose were addressed. It was hard to hear, and yet so necessary for me.

I know some disclosures take an hour or two. We were at our CSAT’s office for over 5 hours. He had a lot to read through. I had a lot of questions. There was no Earth shattering new information for the most part, except for one thing.

Our CSAT believed that it would be helpful to me for Handsome to walk through the history of how his addiction developed and how it appeared in his prior relationships. (In other words, she wanted him to clearly show that his addiction had nothing to do with me because it had been going on in various forms throughout his life.) During that part of the disclosure I learned that Handsome blew up his first marriage with the Flame. I didn’t know that. I thought she came into the picture after that marriage ended.

As mortifyingly embarrassing as it is to point out, she was a 17 year old high school student at the time. Handsome was 27. 😳 WTF?!?!? Knowing that my husband was once “that guy”… the awkward and creepily out of place adult date at a prom … was always cringe inducing and wildly uncomfortable for me. Finding out that relationship started as an affair?? There are no words. I was flabbergasted.

Our CSAT pointed out that at that time – thirty years ago, and closer in proximity to his trauma-filled childhood – Handsome probably only had the emotional maturity of a teen. True… very true until recently… but still… yuck.

As distressing as it was, it was still “good information” as they say. I didn’t really see the cycles in Handsome’s acting out or understand how early in his life he started his destructive behavior. I also had no idea of the extent of the Flame’s home wrecking resume or that she was Handsome’s go-to side ho for decades. It explains a lot.

Our disclosure was a long, long time coming, but as I walked out of the CSAT’s office that evening I felt … free. I had just heard hours of really terrible stuff, things no one should ever have to hear from their spouse, and yet my relief was palpable. I was really looking forward to the future for the first time in a long time.

Aftermath – and some new trees

Handsome has been home from rehab now for over two months. The first month home was every bit as rough as my previous posts would indicate. His second month home also did not start off well.

Handsome had been living in a local AirBnB since his return from ST. I was fine with that. He was not. A few days before his stay there was due to run out (a stay which I fully expected him to extend), my son texted me at work and happily announced that Handsome was moving back into our house. You can imagine my response. He had apparently started unpacking in the master bedroom but he was clued-in enough by the time I got home that he had moved himself to our finished basement instead. We used to have a guest quarters there, but then he brought Angel Baby to our house and bedded her down there, so the bed went out with the trash. He was supposed to replace it. He never did. He was shocked to find that he would have to sleep on the floor. Oh well.

The initial days with him back in the house were like a battle of wills. The more he complained about being “banished” to the basement, the more resolute I was that (i) I was absolutely entitled to enforce my boundaries, and (ii) he’d remain in the basement till I decided otherwise. In those first days he tried everything to weasel his way back upstairs. Nope. Not happening. Apparently Doc2 told him to knock it off, and our CSAT ripped him a new asshole. It was hard for him to fuss at me when his hand-picked professionals were telling him he was in full jerk/ control freak mode.

Our in home separation was working, but strained. Under lock down conditions we were mostly managing to stay apart, but meals just weren’t working. The kids were confused, the pets were confused, and trying to stay separate seemed to cause more stress than it was worth so we resumed deliberate family meals. Smart move, it turns out, as the overall stress level in the house plummeted. The change was immediate. 

Then, very slowly, as all the professionals kept working to bring out the positives from rehab and to set aside the gunk Handsome picked up, and as his meds really started to kick in, I started to see a better version of my husband. He went out and bought an air mattress without complaint. He delved into helping around the house and with the kids. I saw signs of humility. He started coming to the grocery store getting personally invested in our lock-down meal choices. (I know that may not sound like much but pre-rehab he would leave all of the shopping to me and then sigh about what I bought. We’d have a fully stocked pantry and fridge/ freezer overflowing with healthy options and he’d complain that there was nothing to eat. No more.)

He started initiating our “Intimacy of the Day” exchanges and spending time with me, when it worked for me, just hanging out. I was actually enjoying spending time with him because he seemed healthy and “normal” again. We had CSAT sessions where we could report that things were uneventful at worst and actually going pretty well. Holidays have been fraught for us in the past, but we pulled off a lovely Easter.

Handsome also decided that he wants to do an organized full disclosure. He tells me that there is nothing new to disclose. Nonetheless, he’s (still) on Step 4 at SA and he wants to complete that step and move forward. He also knows that I’ve always been ticked that he couldn’t/ wouldn’t get through the disclosure process before. The impromptu staggered disclosures and trickle truth were devastating while they were going on and, frankly, he’s never had to sit with me or anyone else that I know of and tell them ALL of his story in one dump. He eventually seems to disclose everything, but it has been parsed out in chunks to make it…more palatable? Less likely to cause rejection?

Handsome has been working on the disclosure now for several weeks. To me, the effort matters somewhat more than content. I don’t expect that I’ll ever know everything that went on. There are likely several things he intends to take to his grave. (Remember the mysterious tampon in the master bedroom that he claimed the cat put there? Yeah, I know how it got there whether it is ever spoken out loud or not.) I am also certain that there are things he did that he legitimately can’t remember at this point. (He did a LOT of stuff and his meds have obliterated his memory.) I know how hard it will be for him to pull this off to the satisfaction of our CSAT and Doc2 though, so that effort is meaningful to me even if I wish he had been willing and able to do it two years ago before time and mood adjusting meds took their toll.

One day earlier this month, Handsome asked me to go to a local nursery and pick out some trees. (As an agriculture-related business our nurseries remain open even during the lock down.) When he asked me what I wanted last year for Mother’s Day, I requested a few new trees for our yard. Despite repeated promises, I never got them. That added  insult to injury because of his conduct on many Mother’s Days during his acting out. I was surprised when he asked me to go, but out we went and we picked out the cool Dragons eye pine (we call it the Dr. Seuss tree) in the picture above, as well as a flowering plum. To make room for them, Handsome spent hours and hours clearing two large trees in our yard that had succumbed to bore infestations two years ago. He probably could have/ should have hired someone or at least rented a stump grinder, but he put all the labor in himself to remove the old trees and stumps to make room for these new additions. I figured that they were for Mother’s Day this year. They aren’t. Handsome told me that he wants to start making amends to me and that he figured he’d start by making things right for last Mother’s Day. That was unexpected. And appreciated.

Things are getting better, slowly but surely. He is still sleeping in the basement, but the separation isn’t strained and seems to be working well. I’m not counting chickens, but I am enjoying this period of relative peace in the midst of the pandemic.

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 – #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)

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.