5 Acceptance
It's going to be okay.
I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it.
One of the most upsetting things to confront as I contemplated Acceptance, was the fact that his addiction would forever impact our relationship, whether he went "sober" or not. The real question wasn't whether I could forgive, but whether I could ever trust him or feel safe again.
Acceptance didn't mean that I would "accept" his addiction and his behavior. Acceptance meant that I would accept the reality of his addiction, and take responsibility for my choices in how to respond to it. Whether to stay or to go was my choice. I would have to face all the repercussions of that choice, just as he had to face the repercussions of his choices.
I have copied excerpts from some of the brutally honest stories in Your Sexually Addicted Spouse below. It was in reading these that I found my answer: Unlike these women who stayed, I was not willing to give more years of my life to such a poor investment. I could NOT live with the very real possibility that my husband would act out again. I could NOT live with someone I couldn't trust or treat as an equal. I could stand by and watch him become as obsessed with his 12-Steps as he was with his pornography. I wasn't proud of him. I had gotten to a point where I felt little sympathy and a lot of revulsion. (Perhaps if he had shown any signs of recovery, I would have felt differently.)
Stories from Your Sexually Addicted Spouse
Here are some of those stories of women who chose to stay with a sexually addicted spouse. Get the book to read more:
... being a therapist, I knew that compulsive sexual behavior was less about sex and more about pain management or escape. Knowing this in my head didn't have nearly enough effect on my heart, which was broken and terrified. If he could hide this, lie to me this way, what other things might he be doing? Is he having affairs? Does the pornography include child content? Am I at risk of an STD or AIDS? Is my marriage at risk? What about my girls? our daughters... are they at risk? As much as I wanted to slow my thoughts down, they did not stop. they were racing, along with my heart.
Over the next few weeks, we had many conversations and sought out help and accountability. These were life-saving actions. but the racing thoughts, racing heart, anxiety, fear, dread, irritability, flashbacks... all of that continued for a very, very long time. I could not allow him to touch me some days and others I needed his touch. Yet his touch felt very unsafe. I paced the room sometimes, got lost when driving or when in strange places. I couldn't focus, couldn't control the timing of my tears and I felt a seething anger that I could not let out. It left my chest feeling so tight, so sore, I thought (and wished) I was having a heart attack. This was real, physical heartache.
Early on, we both realized there was no rebuilding...we were building anew. Our relationship had to be a new work because the old relationship had been shattered. It no longer existed. and although he was doing well and feeling stronger every day, my sadness, anger and fear became almost constant companions for a long while. And now, some twelve years later, I still have scars and even soreness in places. I'm not sure these scars will ever heal. I still cannot stand naked in front of my husband. I will not allow him to see me dress or undress. The innocence is gone. I do not want to share that part of myself, because I cannot be totally open to him. I trust his heart towards health and towards me, but I also know deep in my bones that he has the capacity to act out again and I would again be left to pick up the shattered pieces. I don't know when or if that fear will ever go away.
And through my own healing of this traumatic betrayal, I have found safety in other places: in God, in myself, in friends and in my abilities to seek out what I need. I feel safer now with my husband than I did, say, ten years ago. But totally safe? Not yet. Will I ever? I know I will be safe at last when I am finally home with Jesus. There is no other totally safe place.
...
Through these sixteen years the hardest thing has been realizing that my husband has not yet–and he may never–understand the depth of the damage his actions have caused. I used to believe the depth of the damage his actions have caused. I used to believe that I could not be in a relationship with him unless he came to that realization. And I used to believe that I could not heal until he was willing to enter my pain, to know my loss and to walk with me from that place of understanding.
Perhaps the greatest thing God has shown me is that my well-being can exist totally apart from my husband's behavior and totally within God's sphere of care. It has taken a great deal of time to come to this realization, time that included a lot of personal growth and self-care. I have learned that my responses to situation have to do with me and my choices. I have learned that I get to be who I choose to be in spite of others' actions or the circumstances that life presents. I can choose to find healthy people who are able to support what I believe God has called me to do. I can choose to enter deeper into the mysteries of forgiveness and reconciliation and in so doing, come to know my Abba Father in a way I had not known Him before.
...
My husband and I have been married for almost fifteen years and have been in recovery for about nine. ...
While I have come to the point where I no longer dwell on it, I am aware somewhere in the back of my mind that someday my husband could choose to give up his recovery and go back to his addiction. This knowledge does not rule my life any longer. It is just part of the facts I have learned about sex addiction–the high probability of relapse. Yet because I have spent time focusing on my own recovery and releasing myself from trying to control his, I know that should he ultimately make that choice, I will survive. I have regained who I am–the person I'd lost to obsession and fear. This does not mean I am not committed to my marriage or that I am just waiting around for him to go back to his addiction. Quite the contrary. We are building our marriage to be stronger and more fulfilled than it ever was before the addiction nearly destroyed us. Looking back, there have been many times, both before and since getting into recovery, when it would have been easy to leave.
So why am I still here? I've been asked that question a lot and have asked it myself, too. What it boils down to, for me, is that I am willing to be here and continue to work through the problems in our marriage–both related to his addiction and those common to every marriage–as long as my husband is doing his part. If he gives up his recovery, that would change. I am not willing to go back to living with an active addiction. Each woman has to make her own decision in that regard.
Seven months post-discovery Journal: Lessons from Running
Today as I ran, I thought about why my right thigh is sore. Has it been that because of my new sore-tailbone-influenced gait I'm moving stress to the right thigh? And then it occurred to me that running ALL these distances in the same direction might be putting more stress on one leg than the other. So today I TURNED AROUND and ran the second half of the 9-miler in the other direction. It was good! It changes the whole feel, because in that direction I face one killer hill that becomes increasingly more steep til it reaches the top, then I'm coming down on the three-tiered side.
It was a good run, a cold run. I was contemplating a lot of things - how running is helping me through this very difficult time.
Here I am in mid-life, and the life I had for the past 25 years is demolished. I've been struggling to find my new path. The grief has been intense. Running was one release. Lately as I'm starting to work more on recovery, one of the things I've been doing is "going back to high school." I've been looking at the person I was before I met and married my husband. I'm discovering that I had some good tools for "success" back then, and I'm trying to utilize them again. One of my tools was goal-setting – small, attainable goals that moved me toward larger attainable goals. That's what I've been doing with this running thing, and it has made me feel SO MUCH BETTER on so many levels.
Anyway, it occurred to me IF I can approach dealing with the upheaval in my life in the same methodical, small-attainable-goals way … If I can flip the perspective from running away (escape) to running toward (opportunity/destination) … there's a chance that my "tears could be turned into dancing."
A very wise and dear friend wrote to me this week. We were discussing "relentless optimism," a term my cousin–in the midst of his divorce–told me was his attitude. This is what my friend wrote:
Life is so remarkably difficult. Jesus was not simply a really good example. Look, we don't celebrate really-good-example day. We celebrate a resurrection. Holy #$%! A resurrection!!! Yeah, I believe in optimism. But not a sort of fiddle-de-dee optimism. Rather, I believe in a dirty-hands, creativity-soaked, fully-aware-yet-courageous optimism. Though much is BEYOND OUR CONTROL, we remain RESPONSIBLE for telling a really good story with our lives.
I have a good story yet to tell.
Nine months post-discovery Journal: I want my name back
I want my name back.
I want to get on with my life.
I want to have the possibilities open to me.
I’m afraid of the financial aspect.
I’m afraid he will hurt himself.
I’m afraid he will become angry.
I’m afraid that my “value” is as a wife. I’ve been paid to be a wife all this time. And if I get a divorce I will have to go to work in a different way.
I miss being married. I miss having sex. I miss the companionship.
But I don’t miss him.
11 months post-discovery Journal: Dumpers vs. Dumpees
Contemplating divorce is taking a lot out of me this week. Every time I feel like I'm making strides forward, it takes such an enormous amount of mental energy out of me!
I'm reading a book called Rebuilding that is making a lot of sense; more sense than the books about recovery from being the spouse of a sexually addicted person. Also, Kristen Armstrong's Happily Ever After gives me an optimistic, positive scriptural boost.
Rebuilding made it clear to me that running has been where I've been depositing a lot of my anger. Which I think has been a good thing. I want to be ready to let go of anger.
A chapter on Dumpers vs. Dumpees put some things into better perspective for me. I realized that through his behavior, my husband has been in the process of Dumping me for many years. His behavior has been calculated to force me to leave him physically and emotionally. He SAYS he's sorry; he SAYS he wants to make the marriage work (or did he ever say that?) but his actions speak of his need to get out of our relationship. I realized that for a long time, I've been trying to hold onto him. I realized that I feared ABANDONMENT. I feared REJECTION. These things hurt, but it's far worse to try to hold a marriage together when your partner resents you and uses you sexually without sharing intimacy.
I think he is too weak to SAY he wants out, so he speaks it through his actions, forcing me to become the Dumper. It's easier for him than taking responsibility for it. (Sort of a theme for him.)
Surprisingly, I'm realizing that I've been IN a period of blame (it's all his fault) and coming to a place where I can accept my part in things. I married him right out of college without KNOWING him all that well. He went straight from his home or origin to me – never balancing a checkbook, never filing his own taxes, never taking responsibility for researching big purchases, never taking responsibility for his own HAPPINESS, etc. I NEEDED a partner – I didn't think I was worthy without a man to love and support me. I tolerated the alcoholism all those years when it was clearly a problem. I saw how irresponsible he was, made excuses for him, let him disengage from the family by taking the second job and spending so much time out of town. I didn't demand marriage counseling years ago when I could see we needed it.
I feel myself moving into another phase, which is good. But with each phase, as I step further away from this relationship that has been my anchor for 25 years, there is a grief and an ache.
I fear loneliness, but I'm reading that everything I'm feeling is normal and part of the process. That is comforting.