Good Times

I think I've pulled out of the worst of it.  At least as long as my husband continues to recover.  I feel a little guilty about my husband's recovery.  Maybe a little survivor guilt?  Why did my husband choose to mostly tell me the truth within a month of my questioning?  Why was I lucky blessed enough to have a sister going through the same thing who could support me and fold me into her support network?  Why was I blessed to have so many resources?  And my husband blessed to instantly have a brother-in-law for a sponsor?  Why hasn't he slipped up once since July?

The biggest blessing was that I didn't know about my husband's sexual addiction until after he recognized the path he was on, didn't want it and was willing to change!

"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?

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.