"Some things you do still bug me," said James

Isn't it suppose to be much better now?  Doesn't recovery equal happiness? No, because we're still two people who have to live together but now we've got all this extra baggage.  And by baggage I mean a history of lies, addiction, selfishness and other crap that has been added to our already difficult twenty-three year history.

My marriage has never been fantastic.  The first two years completely sucked.  We didn't even get through our honeymoon without fighting.  The first two years of our marriage we each were waiting for the other person to leave.  The next three were slightly better.  Then came autism, traveling for work, moving across the country, and job stress and a couple of years when we were both happy when he traveled.

I'm touchy and he's a man.  I guess that can be a recipe for disaster.

But in spite of it all I guess I just figured we were married and we would stay together because well, we were married and autism and a sort of fatalistic "this is my life" mentality.  But addiction was whispering something different in my husband's ear.  It was whispering, "you deserve more."  And "she's not enough."  I love how addiction always tells someone that the problems come from without never from within.  I think I'm probably enough like my dad that I'm difficult to live with.  I'm touchy  and have a temper.  My husband had to learn fidelity and grew up in a family where admitting fault meant that you were a worthless human being.  I never felt that my husband was completely committed to me and he was tired of everything being his fault.  Yet somehow, I want to say stupidly but it's not accurate because I didn't know about his sexual addiction so I'll say, in my self-absorbed state I assumed we would continue to live in our discontented state of matrimony because I only thought about how unhappy I was and not how unhappy James was too.

Our first five years make so much more sense now that I understand addictive behaviors.  My reaction used to be to "fight" rather than "flight."  Addicts justify, minimize, shift-blame and  rationalize.  Add those behaviors to a belief that admitting fault equals worthlessness, stubbornness and a tendency to hold grudges you get the worse qualities of my husband.  Pair him with a person (me) who is incredibly immature, sensitive, has an aversion to being wrong or stupid, and has a really high bar to believe someone is really sorry .... Well, it's kind of amazing we're still married.  But over time my reaction started to become "flight" because the "fighting" wasn't getting me the reaction I wanted.  I think I was giving up.

I think we're both individually good people with a lot of good qualities but I'm not sure that we're such good people together.  Or is that just marriage?  Most other married people seem to be happier.  Is that true?  Or do I just not know about the addictions and other crap in their marriages?  Do I just feel like this because my "honeymoon" period lasted three days?

Meh

I feel kind of meh today.  Some women I know have posted today about their husbands looking at porn and not wanting the wives to tell anyone that they looked at porn.  Addicts kind of piss me off!  I would seriously want to smack my husband if he told me I couldn't work on my own recovery or tell people I needed for my support about his porn addiction.  Many addicts don't want their wives to tell anyone out of shame.  Which is completely understandable!  But it's not just the husband's (or wife's) problem.  It becomes the spouse's problem too.  My husband's porn addiction is my problem because it affects me and my children and my home!  It affects me if my husband lies to me, if I can't trust him.  If his actions changes.  If he acts like an addict and lies, minimizes, justifies, blame shifts, etc.

The affected spouse needs someone safe to talk to!  She cannot heal unless she has someone to talk to!  Her husband who is a porn addict is not that safe person.  If a spouse tells his wife she can't tell anyone he cares more about himself than her.  He is caught up in a shame cycle.  And he cares more about his reputation than the damage he has caused to his wife!  That addict is not in recovery.

My Unofficial Christmas Letter

This one is going to be about me.  I usually gloss over what I do because I don't like to brag but hey, I'm going for it!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas or Happy Late Hanukkah or Thankshanukkah or whatever you celebrate!  This has been an interesting and exciting year for us, full of minor fender benders Yes, even a little one including two of our own cars- one of which was parked.  Actually, both children have had an accident with another parked car in our driveway.  (I'm beginning to suspect our driveway is dangerous.)  A word of experience to all parents of future drivers out there.  It doesn't matter how responsible your child is, they will have an accident.  I recommend AAA's towing service. (And sometimes you will have to replace the tires on your daughter's car one by one as she manages to destroy 3 within one week's time.)

Our biggest news of the year was that I found out James was a porn addict.  Not the best news or what I ever expected to find out but sometimes you find out really sucky things!  So, I am pretty disappointed and disgusted and occasionally mad/sad/numb about that.  But the couple of days I just stayed in bed because of it, my husband stepped up and didn't complain.  Not that he really could have said anything.  I mean what would you say?  "Sweetie, I know you are laying in bed because you're super distraught over my virtual cheating, excessive porn use and beginning escalation but I'd really like you to make dinner."  No, you really can't.  Unless you are stupid.  So, clearly my husband had not lost complete functioning in his frontal lobes. YAY!

The good news is that James is on the path to recovery and has 4 months sobriety.  The bad news is that his frontal brain functioning is not yet 100% evidenced by his asking me if I wanted to celebrate his four month sober anniversary.  I obviously said, "Yes, why don't I give you a cookie every time you don't look at porn!"  Addicts are a little dumb.

I look forward to a year of chocolate, book reading, watching stupid TV and a porn-free husband.  

How pathetic is that?

In my opinion, only the porn-free husband because that should be taken for granted!

love,

Elizabeth

***I actually love that phrase: Porn-Free Husband it's like Free-Range Children but with a really vile allusion.  Now I have blog naming angst.  ARGGGG, maybe I should switch?

My Husband Cannot Make This Up To Me

I realized this truth today.  He is not capable of fixing me, our relationship, or most importantly himself.  There is not a quantifiable amount of regret he can display to help me feel that he understands the devastation he caused. And more importantly display enough regret for me to believe he is extremely motivated not to slip back into porn addiction!  He does not have the ability to make up for his actions.

I really want to see remorse ... a lot of remorse!  Enough remorse to overwhelm me and make me know that he is safe!  That he has recovered.  Unfortunately that is not in my husband's nature.  Nor does our society make it safe for men to learn how to display that kind of remorse.  And realistically ... how much would be enough for me?  Maybe a half an hour every day for three months?  Longer on the days I have more time?  Honestly, if I don't know, how can he?  Would I be willing to display that much remorse or do I just think I would "if I had ever done something so awful to someone I loved?"

I don't know if I will ever feel 100% safe enough in our relationship again.

Did I really ever feel that way?

But I know he is different than he was four months ago.  He's better.  I just don't know if I am.

****

Another day I'll write how Christ can make this up to me.

"I can choose to be sadder if you want."

When I told my husband that I didn't feel that he felt bad enough about his porn addiction, acting out and about how I felt; he said that for the first time in ten years he didn't feel like he had to repent before giving a priesthood blessing, that he could ask for inspiration while preparing for a lesson and that he felt really happy.  He was trying not to live in shame.  He said, I'm sorry you're behind me and in the anger phase.  I can chose to be sadder if you want."

How do you answer that?  Obviously, since I've only known he lied to my face for 22 years and is a porn addict for less than 4 months I might be a little behind him in processing.  I think if he was capable of more empathy he might be a little sadder.  It's hard being married to an emotionally stunted man.  Because he's changed a lot in the last 4 months I forget that he still has addict thought patterns and lacks empathy.

I'm sorry to have caused you pain.

Today my husband asked me if I wanted to celebrate his four month porn-free anniversary.

I said that I didn't think his "anniversary" meant the same thing to him that it does to me.  For me it's the anniversary of the day I found out my husband was a liar and virtual cheater.  And it's not even the day he stopped lying because, if he has stopped lying, it was only 4 weeks ago.

I told my husband James that I felt that he wasn't sorry for the pain he caused me.  I thought he was sorry for how his addiction and choices made him feel about himself and that he was a little sorry about me but that I feel that his sorrow is primarily about how it affected him and made him feel.

I see myself defaulting back into my old patterns.

When James and I were engaged one of his high school girlfriends flew out to see him for two weeks and they made out.  Well, they actually did a little more than that but I only found that out 4 weeks ago - a week after he went through his inventory with me!  He didn't tell me the night he went though his inventory with me because "he didn't want to get bogged down with the Jen issue."  And he actually had other really great things to share with me like going to a strip club in February and walking Amsterdam's Hooker District for an hour or so in November.

But my old pattern was, when I felt Jack didn't feel sorry for making out with Jen, was to fight with him to try to logically convince him he should feel sorry for what he did and that it was wrong.  Then when that didn't work, I'd fight with him because I was angry and hurt.  Then when he got mad at me I would feel bad that he was angry and have sex so he wouldn't ignore me for days.  So, it was an incredibly emotionally healthy and effective cycle!

I don't believe James feels as bad as he should about the porn addiction and virtual infidelity because he doesn't usually act like he is or talk like he is.

I want to try to convince James that he was really bad for looking at porn et al. and that he should feel really bad!

I start a fight about how bad he is or about how bad he should feel.

He doesn't respond how he used to.  He takes responsibility for his actions instead of blaming it on me but if he can ignore what he did or how it made me feel he will.  Porn, Jen, etc. does not exist unless I bring it up.

I don't want to go through this cycle again.  It didn't work the first time.  I need to think about if I want  to stay married to someone who I don't believe really feels sorry about hurting me.

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye

I married James because I knew I would.  Two months after he got home from his mission I just knew the same way I knew what a tree was - unquestionable and absolute.  I wasn't even in love with him.

I think I knew it because I would not have married him if I felt that I had a choice.  Which leads to all sorts of unanswered questions like why him? And what's wrong with me?  What did I need to learn?

"What did you do today?"

My sister told me that last year when I called she wouldn't pick up the phone if she didn't have an answer to the question.  "What have you been doing?"  She didn't feel she could tell anyone the real answer to that question which was, "Oh, spending hours online on a forum for the wives of porn addicts."  So she wouldn't call me back until she had a non-porn related answer.

Last week I went to Europe with my husband on a work/vacation trip.  Now is not best time for us.  About a month ago my husband went through his inventory with me.  And I learned about a couple of new things he had not told me previously.  Then about a week later he told me more about an incident with his ex-girlfriend during our engagement.  He told me about something he had done with her that he has lied about for 22 years.  Something that he lied about directly to my face when I asked about it.  What I already knew about what happened has caused problems in our relationship because he refused to give up his relationship with her for years and shifted the blame for what happened to me for a couple of years.  And the crazy thing about hearing a lie for years is that you start to believe it even though the logical part of your brain says that what he says is ridiculous and it couldn't possibly be your fault.  The real damage was caused less by what they did then the aftermath.  The years of blame-shifting, lying, justifying, minimizing and refusing to give up the relationship.  We have only been able to really talk about our engagement and Jen during the last 3 months because he is less defensive and more humble.  But learning than he lied to my face repeatedly and that he was so strongly committed to keeping that relationship at the expense of ours for four or five years has made me feel a little dead inside.

I wasn't sure that I wanted to go with him to Europe.  Part of me wanted to enjoy him being gone.  But I had started making plans before he told me about Jen and I thought I would be ok.  And the trip was ok.  But the days he was working I just wanted to stay in the hotel room and not do anything.  But I felt I had to leave so the room could get cleaned less awkwardly and so I would have something to tell people at dinner when they asked me, "what did you do today?"  Because doing what I wanted to do - stay in bed all day and do nothing - isn't the kind of answer you can give without a porn related explanation.

Truth is the First Casualty

Trying to figure out what I should believe is hard.  I believed my husband was honest for years.  He says that he was honest ... mostly.  But since he was dishonest about some really big things that I asked him directly, should I consider him honest?  He thinks I should but I don't.  And that hurts his feelings even though he accepts responsibility for his actions.  He thinks that being mostly honest, and actually more honest with me than anyone else, means that he's honest and I think that being dishonest about some really big things (pornography and an old girlfriend during our engagement) means that he lied to me daily.

The truth hurts frequently.  It can leave you feeling like a knife has been thrust in your side and twisted as you realize - that is how he justified his actions, that is how he felt about me!  But I haven't changed so why should I believe his feelings and justifications for looking at porn and starting to look elsewhere has changed.  Maybe I should believe him but I don't.  And I only believe he loves me on good days.

Learning About Trauma

When I told my sister about somethings I've gone through with my husband and how it affected me.  She said that she thought I had experienced Betrayal Trauma.  I had never heard about that.  My usual response to trials is research.  And I started researching Trauma.  I read Coping with Trauma by Jon G. Allen.  Here are my notes:

The severest forms of trauma can be inflicted deliberately.

Dose-Response Relationship:  “the higher the “dose” of trauma, the more potentially damaging it’s effects.”  “The closer you are to the sniper the more you are affected.”

It’s not just the sheer amount of trauma that contributes to the severity of effects.  the type and context of the trauma are also extremely important factors. … the effects are likely to be most severe if the trauma is man-made, repeated, unpredictable, multifaceted, inflicted with sadistic or malevolent intent, undergone in childhood and perpetrated by a caregiver.

Psychologically, the bottom line of trauma is overwhelming emotion and a feeling of utter helplessness.  there may or may not be bodily injury, but psychological trauma is coupled with physiological upheaval that plays a leading role in the long-range effects…. I think many people suffer unnecessarily from minimizing the seriousness of what they have undergone ...no matter how bad it was, it could always have been worse.

The secure base provides a feeling of security.  [in childhood]

secure attachment is the antidote for trauma. … Ideally, a secure attachment and a secure base are provided by the caregiving -- first in the mother-infant relationship and later in other relationships. … from the perspective of attachment theory, the worst possible trauma occurs in relation to the primary caregiver, typically the mother.

… trauma in adulthood disrupts attachment.  In adulthood a single traumatic experience (assault, accident, natural disaster) can shake our sense of security to the core…. any traumatic experience can shatter the most secure base and rock the foundations of basic trust.  Naturally the more solid our foundation in secure attachment, the more resilient we will be to disruptions.

Trauma evokes the flight - or- fight response, which entails massive physiological arousal association with sympathetic nervous system activation.  

Just as trauma disrupts the secure base and basic trust, it also disrupts physiological regulation.  there is often a kind of “double whammy” here: the traumatic experience generates hyperarousal (fear, panic, pain), and the individual is often abandoned or neglected after being injured and aroused.  there is arousal beyond normal bounds and there is a lack of soothing or comforting.  This uncontrollable arousal is especially problematic when the primary caregiver is abusive or when the trauma is hidden and kept secret, precluding restorative comforting. … Even when trauma occurs in adulthood, secure attachments may not be easy to re-establish.  Traumatic  experiences in adulthood (assault, rape, spouse abuse) can profoundly undermine the foundations laid in childhood.

Anxiety and depression are close cousins. … often occur together.  Anxiety entails a state of high arousal - feeling agitated or distress, upset.  Whereas anxiety  is an example of high negative emotion, depression is a state of low positive emotion- the absence of excitement or pleasure, a general disengagement from the world. .. Anxiety is often followed by depression.  Chronic stress tends to drive the nervous system into depression.  Anxiety is a state of readiness to cope (take flight), whereas depression is a state of giving up the attempt to cope. - in effect a kind of collapse.  Anxiety has been associated with feeling helpless - not knowing what to do, or which way to turn.  Depression can be characterized as a state of hopelessness - a sense that nothing can be done, that no effective action can be taken.

… understand depression in terms of learned helplessness. … helplessness goes with the sense that events are uncontrollable. … helplessness is associated with anxiety.  But prolonged helplessness can also eventual in depression.  … when escape is no longer possible [in experimental conditions] 2/3rds of the dogs developed learned helplessness.  They gave up trying to cope.  Learned helplessness is akin to depression..  The essence of both is “the belief that action is futile.”  Depression can render you unable to learn; even when the situation is no longer aversive or dangerous, you continue to respond as if it were.

… depression has been described as an inborn”conservation-withdrawal reaction” that serves to shut down arousal to avert excessive stress to the organism associated with prolonged agitation…. most psychological triggers for depression can be boiled down to two categories: loss and failure.  the grief response  associated with loss is nearly universal, and the symptoms of grief overlap those of depression.  In depression associated with loss, the individual commonly feels alone, abandoned, unwanted, deprived, and unlovable.  In depression associated with failure to achieve some highly wanted goal, the individual feels inadequate or incompetent.  It is easy to see why low self-esteem goes with depression, whether depression is associated with low loss (and feeling unlovable) or failure (and feeling inadequate).  Of course the two themes often run together.

It is not surprising that traumatic experiences and maltreatment and neglect in relationships with caregivers in particular, are associated with depression.  If Seligman’s theory is correct, prolonged traumatic experience almost assuredly leads to depression. .. the depressed patient believes or has learned that he cannot control those elements in his life that relieve suffering, bring gratification or provide nurture.  Consider the effects of repeatedly being injured and then left alone - repeat abandonment and continual loss. … depression is also likely to be connected with a sense of failure … often blame themselves.  failings and inadequacies.  Accordingly depression is compounded by feelings of shame and guilt.

Establish Emotional Control

our natural emotional responses can be overwhelming when evoked by trauma.

Learning to tolerate painful emotions is extremely important. … you must be able to keep them within some reasonable bounds.

Among the most important condition for the well-being of self is self-agency- a sense of self mastery and control. … the most profound experience of helplessness, however, is associated with deliberate cruelty.

self-concept is reflected in your self-esteem. … we may be inclined to minimize the impact of verbal abuse.  We should not.

Self destructiveness

traumatic experience may lead to self-loathing, and many individual inflict punishment on themselves out of self-hatred.  self -directed aggression feels safer because it can be controlled and hidden.  In addition individuals who have been mistreated are prone to take on the characteristics of those who have abused them; in effect they imitate their abusers by abusing themselves. … eating disorders [neglecting one’s health].  self criticism can become so severe as to constitute self-inflicted verbal and emotional abuse, causing great suffering, eroding of self-confidence  and confidence and driving the individual deeper into depression and despair.

Self-mutilation

cutting … form of self-destructive behavior  If there is an overriding function for self-mutilation it is tension release.  If there is an overriding trigger for self-mutilation, it is a feeling of abandonment, separation or rejection.

Suicide is often aimed at eliminating consciousness

traumatic experience is damaging to self-esteem.  Self-loathing, shame and guilt all fuel depression.  Imposed helplessness can become learned helplessness.  

Caring For Yourself

taking care of yourself involved valuing yourself  [with] self-blame or hatred taking care of yourself will go against the grain.

“Trauma survivors do not simply get over their experience.  It is permanently encoded in their assumptive world; the legacy of traumatic life events is some degree of disillusionment.  from the perspective of their inner worlds, victims recover not when they return to their prior assumptive world but when they reestablish an integrated, comfortable assumptive world that incorporates their traumatic experience."

Why Pioneer Day Is Not My Favorite Holiday

It's not my favorite holiday because that is the day I asked my husband, "when was the last time you looked at pornography?" And "how often do you look at it?"