Do I deserve what I want?

I attended a stake conference a year or two ago in which there was a visiting general authority.

He and his wife spoke at the adult session and very nearly broke my heart. They spoke about marriage and how important, divine, eternal and happy it should be.

They offered tips and advice for how to make the marriage relationship work and casually told stories about their life together.

At this point in our life, we were not happy. Husband was spiralling deeper into the addiction and fighting recovery. I was demanding that he change or I leave. We were wildly unhappy. Husband was in school full time and working and I was angry that he spent so much time at school and so little time with our family.

The GA spoke about a time in his life that he was in school and his ever-supportive wife would quiz him and help him study. They joked that she could pass every test that he passed and it was only fair that she have the licensing he had at the end of it.

She spoke of the sacrifices he willingly made in order to spend quality time with her and the kids. He lovingly taught and played with them.

As she expressed her love and appreciation for him, I sat in the back row sobbing because I wanted to love my dirty-rotten-good-for-nothing husband that much. Why, WHY couldn't he be worth loving that much?

As he expressed his love and appreciation for her, I sobbed because I knew my dirty-rotten-good-for-nothing husband would never be so kind and gushing and loving to me.

Then, very suddenly I saw clearly why he would never love me that way. I was giving him absolutely nothing to gush over. I didn't help him study, I didn't invite him to be with us at the end of the day, I didn't ask how his day was or offer any support because I was too busy being hurt and mad. Of course he didn't love me, I gave him nothing to love.

I'd like to say everything changed from that day forward, but it didn't. But I am trying, and I often think of that talk. If I want him to gush and adore me, I must be adorable and gush-worthy.

Of course there are behaviors I will support and those I cannot tolerate; however if we're going to live happily in recovery I need to give Husband something to love.

And you know what? I like being lovable.

What I Wish I Had

My sister has 4 children. All of them boys.

She loves them all (of course) beyond all reason.

But when she found out her 4th (and last) was a(nother) boy she was heartbroken. She was studying psychology at the time, and told me that even though it sounded stupid, she needed to grieve for her loss of having a daughter. She would never do mother/daughter things. She'd never go to girls's camp with her own girl, or spend a "girls' night" during the priesthood session. She wouldn't do hair and nails before prom. She wouldn't go dress shopping or get ears pierced or or or or or.... (the list goes on).

I feel like every now and then I suddenly need to re-mourn for the things I may never have. Sometimes this is simply ridiculous and a worthless waste of emotions. Other times I think it's good for me to validate why this is so hard...

Will Husband come to his senses and be temple worthy?
Will he baptize our sons?
Will we be an adorable old couple so in love that we weep when we talk about each other?
Will we grow together and pull through this?

Or will I be consistently mourning for these things I want so desperately to have in my life?

Exhaustion

I feel like I spent a lot of the time "in the beginning" (I don't really know when "the beginning" ends and something else starts....whatever, I'm calling it the beginning anyway) trying desperately to find and avoid Husband's triggers.

He couldn't be alone - so I babysat him.
He couldn't be stressed - so I took on everything I could to relieve him.
He couldn't be angry - so I walked on eggshells. I'm bad at shell-walking. But I sure tried.
He couldn't be bored - so I invented things for him to do.

In case you're new to the addict language THAT is a beautiful picture of codependence.

But I have worked (and am continually working) to let him be the boss of making sure his triggers don't happen often and he deals with them properly when they do.

It's left me all kinds of time for me to identify MY triggers for my bad behavior.

And exhaustion is a big one for me.

Not just being tired. Or not sleeping enough. I can usually deal with that pretty well, but that run-ragged can't do enough, be enough, or try enough kind of exhaustion. It kills me - every time.

The thought of cooking another meal, writing another e-mail, or reading one more story to my boys makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry.

I get overwhelmed and overworked and overtired and I simply can't deal with my life and all that it demands of me.

So I lash out, and I suddenly see all of the horrible things that I hate about the people around me. Husband included. I simply can't tolerate my extraordinarily imperfect life.

So I am trying hard to avoid exhaustion by better managing my time and resources. I'm trying to work more efficiently and spend time doing the most important things. But I know that I won't always be able to avoid that feeling of complete exhaustion when I simply can't deal anymore.

So I'm curious - what do you do when you hit that wall? (or any other wall that you might have...)

Sacrifice

I am certainly aware that we are going to have to make some significant sacrifices if we're going to beat this thing.

Both of us will.

It has impacted our lives and disrupted our schedules.
It has turned things upside down and sideways.
We are learning and doing differently than we ever thought we would.

As an addict Husband doesn't get to behave the way a non-addict would. He doesn't get to take days off from "The Stuff", he doesn't have time to waste, he can't allow casually dangerous behaviors.

As the wife of an addict my standards are going to have to be higher. I can't allow material that is even a little bit questionable into my home. I don't get to spend Sunday evenings with my family (PASG night), I don't get to read "whatever I want" because right now all of my available reading time is spent studying this addiction and the atonement and working on my own healing.

Sometimes I hate these sacrifices. Sometimes I hate that our lives can't be "normal" ever again. Sometimes I'm bitter that Husband's choices took over MY life.

But today I'm thankful for these changes. None of them are bad. None of them are things I should ignore or put off anyway. So while I hate the addiction and most of its affects on my family, I love that it is bringing us to our knees and raising our bar.

Blame

I mentioned that I'm just starting to see that not everything bad in my life is because of my husband's addiction. I know it sounds unreasonable, but I have honestly felt that it was.

We were so happy and so in love before this (which just happened to be the first year of our marriage) that it seemed logical to me that every unhappy moment came back to the addiction.

Don't get me wrong, this addiction has wreaked havoc on our lives and on our marriage, but I was taking it to the VERY extreme.

I'm sitting here scrubbing dishes in the middle of the night because my idiot husband is addicted to porn. I'd think. If he wasn't addicted he would be much less lazy, much more giving, and less selfish. He would be willing to help out around here. He'd have time to do things and he'd care aobut me enough to wash his own dishes.

If Husband didn't have an addiction we'd be able to spend our Sunday evenings enjoying each other as a family instead of going to PASG meetings. Just one more night away.

I wouldn't be so worried about my boys if I knew they had a decent human being for a father.

Writing it makes me feel a bit foolish and a lot childish, but the truth is I could not see any bad thing in life that wasn't his fault. Every fight, every chore, every thing I did not love was caused by the addiction in my mind.

I was venting to Therapist about how much I had grown to hate Husband one day because "He's good for nothing. He continually hurts me and I don't trust him. We don't have the connection we used to have and quite frankly he grosses me out."
Therapist asked me why I do the things I do at home. Why do I change diapers, wash clothes, run errands and work. My (sad) answer was this. "Because Husband certainly won't. So I have to." And what causes the negativity between Husband and I? "The addiction. Before the addiction he was perfect, we talked and laughed and enjoyed each other, but this addiction has made him mean and selfish and ornery."

Here is the truth. I do dishes, run errands and change diapers because I love my family. We'd eat and wear clothes no matter what Husband was doing in his spare time. Husband is in school full time and working full time, so he'd be largely unavailable to me no matter what he looked at on the internet. While isolation, selfishness and retreat are signs of a problem, they are not caused by the problem, nor cured by the lack of the addiction. Husband wasn't perfect before and I'm not perfect now. Our lives are different now in a million different ways. (2 kids, more school, more jobs, more responsibilities and less time for fun.)

So while there are plenty of negative side-effects I can legitimately blame on this addiction, my day-to-day life being overwhelming and exhausting is MY problem. Not his. He is capable of being an addict AND nice at the same time. And most importantly he is still the man I chose to marry. And I chose to marry him for a million reasons.

The totally awesome side-effect of this realization in my life is that I don't hate my husband anymore. I don't curse his name with every swipe of the dust cloth. I don't wonder if I should have married him every time I log in to work. When we disagree about something, I can let it be about the thing we are discussing instead about the addiction and how he "ruined our lives!"

I am learning to separate the addiction problem from all of the other problems (of which there are many).

Suspicious

During the first few years of my husband's sexual addiction, I was certain we were the ONLY ones on the planet dealing with such a horrific and embarrassing problem.

Then I attended one PASG meeting and ran into someone from our ward and met no less than 15 women in my area dealing with the same thing. Then I talked to Husband and learned that the men's side of PASG was so large that they split into 2 and sometimes 3 groups. And these are just the people attending PASG.

Now it's been a few years and I am having a hard time finding anybody who I think is not dealing with sexual addiction and pornography.

Of course most people don't go around with a sign on their shirt saying "my husband is a porn addict" (although if they did I think we'd all be surprised...) but I see and hear signs that make me think people I love (or even just know) are dealing with it.

Every comment somebody makes about "having a hard time right now" = porn addiciton. Every time someone says they saw something weird on their credit but it was just fraud makes me think = LYING HUSBAND! Every time I hear of someone's marriage ending I'm confident that it is because of porn. Every unexplained negative situation leads to sexual addiction SOMEhow.

I'm just beginning to stop blaming the addiction for all of the horrible things in my own life, so maybe once I have that under control I can stop blaming addiction for all of the bad things in everybody else's life too.

Are you/did you go through a period when you were suddenly suspicious of everybody around you?

Happy for real?

When things are good and I feel good about it, I worry that it's not real.

I want to badly to be "OK" regardless of how Husband is doing. I want my happiness and my wellness to be completely independent of his behavior, good or bad.

So every time things are going well and I'm feeling good, I find myself questioning my OKness.
Am I OK because he's doing well?
Am I happy because he's talking to me? or because I'm happy?
If he lost today, would I still feel good?
Is this faith and happiness OK to feel when he's doing well?

I almost feel like if he does well AND I'm happy, it's a manufactured happiness that I am not entitled to feel.

Currently Husband is talking to me, we're dating, we're laughing, we're playing and I'm enjoying our relationship and feeling good.

But he's still struggling on the sexual addiction front. Struggling a lot, and I don't care.

I don't mean for that to sound insensitive or disconnected. Of course I want him to make better choices and gain control of his life, but when he doesn't, I don't care. It sucks for him and I wish it didn't - but it does, and I honestly don't care.

So I'm happy in spite of his addiction - but I find myself wondering, would I be happy in spite of his addiction of he wasn't talking to me?

I hope so. But I'm not sure.