Do Compliments From Sex Addicts Count?

After my husband's disclosure I banned him from complimenting me on my appearance until further notice.  This ban is still in place.  I didn't call it a boundary then, but it was one of my first.   In the past he had complimented me on a regular basis, and he had been generally validating of my looks.

But, if a porn addict thinks you look nice, what exactly does that mean?

I was so confused and wracked with trauma.  If his brain teemed with pornographic garbage, and I knew it did, then I didn't want that same brain evaluating my looks, making judgements and generating compliments so I could feel better about myself.  Besides, I didn't trust anything that came out of his addict mouth anyway.

As the months have passed, I have realized how much I leaned on his approval for my self-esteem.  I relied on his validation in an unhealthy way.  This has surprised me, as I believed myself to be both confident and self-accepting.

But, this addiction in my marriage was silently eroding me: my self-esteem was becoming as hollow and empty as my husband's soul.  Neither of us realized what was happening.

It happened just like C.S. Lewis described, "Rats and mice in the basement are doing damage whether or not you know they are there."

I have known intellectually that my worth isn't based on my clothes or my hair or my weight.   God doesn't care about any of this.  But, I have been insecure in my marriage.  For years I felt my husband's love ebb and flow, and there was no constancy.  I blamed this on his depression, because I knew nothing of his addiction, porn or other women.  This insecurity led me to doubt myself, and I see now how desperately I sought approval from him.  It was a normal reaction to the situation, but I can do better now.

With God's help I am learning that I can trust my own sense of self.  I am practicing listening to and respecting my own opinions about me.  If I look in the mirror and something looks weird or too tight or whatever, then I change it.  I don't need to walk around the house taking a survey of popular opinion.  I can practice letting go of my desire to be validated on my physical appearance, especially from Mr.W.

I got my hair cut yesterday.  I went to a new stylist, and I liked what she did.   In the past it has seemed awkward when I saw my husband after a haircut.  Would he even notice?  Would he pay me some flippant compliment?

In my heart I believe that any hairstyle that isn't long and flowing is not beautiful to him.  Long and flowing doesn't work for my hair, but I have nevertheless tried that style a few times over the years.  I am done with that!  My hair is my hair, and I like it how it is.

After all, it is unrealistic to expect our spouse to embody every attractive quality we hold dear.  We are all package deals.  His receding hairline and greying temples are part of his package.

This compliment ban is a good thing.  It is helping me lean on God and His view of me.  Abstinence from compliments has been almost as helpful to my marriage as abstinence from sex, but that's a topic for another day.

Sugar Cookies Are A Sign

On Sunday I made sugar cookies with Child #4.  He has been asking me for months, and I just couldn't do it.  When it comes to cookies, sugar cookies take extra effort.  I am talking about mixing, forming into a ball, refrigerating, rolling out, making sure they don't bake too dark, making the frosting and frosting.  I have not had the emotional reserve for all that.

Making sugar cookies is a sign that I am no longer in basic survival mode.  I am doing more than microwaving hot dogs for dinner!

Enforcing hard consequences with my kids is another sign that I am no longer in basic survival mode.

These two activities intersected yesterday in the kitchen.  While I was frosting the cookies and marveling that I was enjoying myself and feeling peaceful,  Child #2 approached and tried to engage me in an argument.  The day before, in response to some blatant defiance, I had said,

"If you do that again, tomorrow you will have to....."

Well, he did it again and this was tomorrow and I was sticking to my word.

This made him madder than a chicken.  He hovered around pestering me, crying, and trying to get me to back down.  After a while, when it was clear that I was holding my ground, he came around to where I was rolling out the dough and deliberately coughed on it.  How lovely.  I was furious, but I kept my cool and stuck with the consequence.  Later that day, he did "punish" me by not going to church, but I was able to have a good day, despite all that.

Cookies and consequences are things that have gone by the wayside, as I have focused on doing the bare minimum to hold things together, to hold myself together.  Kids don't need homemade cookies.  Heck, they don't even need cookies, but they do need consequences.  I notice my kids are more secure when I am stronger and hold my boundaries.

I hope that what I am now learning in my recovery can compensate for the survival parenting I have been doing.  I don't want to look back.  Here's to cookies and consequences!

Triumphal Entry

Years ago my husband and I were on a vacation in Mexico.  We were walking from our hotel through the city to find a grocery store, because I'm frugal, and I like to buy food at grocery stores and not eat out every meal. :)   We noticed that the street was littered with palm fronds.  We followed this trail of palm fronds to a church.  The doors were open and we heard singing.  We thought about what day it was, and we realized that it was Palm Sunday.  We don't speak enough Spanish to really know what had happened, but we imagined that they had reenacted the Savior's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the Sunday before He died.

My life's experiences have broken my heart.  I never wanted a broken heart, but now that I have one, I can at least try to keep it soft.  A soft heart is not my natural tendency.   I am letting Christ enter my life and my heart in much greater measure than I ever have.

Could I call that Christ's triumphal entry into my life?  Yes, because I need Christ to heal my broken heart through the atonement.  It's that simple.

Without using the atonement, I may become wiser and more educated about addiction.  I may learn how to set and hold boundaries.  I may do counseling, read books, talk to my sponsor and go to meetings.  But, ultimately, only God and Christ can make me whole again.  Only God and Christ can keep my heart soft and forgiving.  I do not have that power.


Isaiah describes Christ's mission: (Isaiah 61:1-3)

"to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;...to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

Happy Palm Sunday!

Shopping For Pain In The Costco Of My Brain

It's time to write about a self-defeating behavior of mine.  Pain shopping.  I seem to do it when things are going smoothly between my husband and me.  When there is some peace and harmony in the marriage.  Sometimes he has just expressed a large amount of gratitude or love for me.

When I shop for pain, I subconsciously browse down the aisles of my brain.  I scan the shelves for painful things my husband has said or done in the past.  There are plenty from which to choose.  When I find one that feels still raw and bleeding, I pull it off the shelf and fling it at my husband.  It sounds something like this:

"Ya, but remember the time I was sick, and you blah, blah, blah?"
"What about that one time when you said blobbity, blah blah?"
"Then how could you have done blah, blah, blah?"

Another way I shop for pain is to ask for more details of his past acting out.  It sounds something like this:

"I bet you did blobbity blah blah when you were blah blah blah.  Didn't you?  Didn't you?"  I look at him with disgust.

Now there was a time last year, when I was in the finding out stage, when I needed to ask a lot of questions.  I am sorry to say it took close to nine months of serious and consistent effort for Mr. W to fully disclose to me.  Those were dark times.  This included a formal disclosure in our counselor's office.  That was excruciating.

I feel there are no further details of his past sexual misconduct that would be helpful for me to know at this point.  But, when I pain shop, I forget that I don't want to know more, and I think up hurtful questions.  Pain shopping hurts us both.

My husband now has some significant sobriety under his belt (yes, pun intended).   Even though his progressive victory over lust means he still has lust slips, and those do hurt me; he is not causing me the kind of pain he did last year.  So why can't I just bask in the peace, gratitude and love he is exuding now?

Because, apparently I am getting something out of this regurgitated pain.  I know I pain shop out of fear.  I think I pain shop to protect myself from more pain.  This is getting confusing.

Somehow I feel that if I don't bring up the bad times, Mr. W might think everything is dandy!  And how about we go right now and consummate all this dandiness?

Somehow I feel that if I don't bring up the bad stuff, he might not feel sorry enough.  He may not know how much damage he has done.

If I bring up the bad stuff, I get to stay in victim mode.  That's it.  That's why I do it.  When I am with my husband, the pain of being a victim is far safer than being vulnerable.

Maybe I am waiting for some invisible person out there somewhere to yell out, "Yes, Wildflower, you have been treated like crap!  Look what horrible things the person you love has done.  And yet, look at you!  You are a saint for sticking with this guy."  This is me NOT looking to God for my validation and acceptance.

And so I sally forth in my journey of self-discovery, shopping for pain, and seeking validation from invisible people.

Warning: There's A Rattlesnake Inside Me

I am not proud of the fact that a rattlesnake lives inside me.  A creature full of poison that strikes when threatened; that's what I am.  I am trying to learn new ways of reacting, and the snake lies dormant in there sometimes, but tonight, it came out with a vengeance.

I have mentioned before that one of the boundaries I have set for myself in recovery is, "I will not use anger or busyness to medicate my pain and sadness.  I will slow down, figure out what I feel, what I need and communicate that to the proper person."  Well, I shattered that boundary in a matter of seconds.

Tonight my husband told me something that hurt me.  I felt like I was a fool for staying in this marriage.  I felt sad.  I wish now I could have recognized how sad I was and taken time to cry or write in my journal.  Maybe call a recovery friend or my sponsor.

Instead my lower brain activated my fight/flight response, and I lashed out at him with all the venom I had in me.  I was far away from my own above boundary.  I wasn't true to myself.  I don't want to inject poisonous words into the people I love.  I wish I hadn't.

I know that for me to stay in the sadness, for me to not get angry, I must have an enormous amount of courage and faith.  I need courage, because I am vulnerable to more pain when I am sad.  I need courage, because it takes practice for me to change my anger default setting to sadness.  I need faith that God will comfort me and fill up my sad heart with love.  

When I punish my husband with anger and meanness, I think it is because, deep down, I don't trust that God will take care of me.  I don't trust that the Savior's promises are true.   Will He really give me His peace, not as the world giveth, if my heart is troubled [sad] or afraid?  John 14:22.  Will He really make all things right ?  My trust in Heavenly Father and Jesus waver, and I feel like I have to handle things on my own.

Sometimes it helps me to write out my prayers.  (Abilene did this in the book, The Help, and I've since tried it out a few times.)  I am going to bed soon, so here goes.

Please, Heavenly Father, help me feel sadness first, when I am sad.  Keep my heart soft and loving.  Please forgive me for trying to inflict pain on someone else to make myself feel better.  Help me to look to Christ (not my husband or anyone else) for the restitution of wrongs against me.  Help my belief in the atonement to get stronger.  Help me to eventually feel healed.   Help me feel Your peace and love.

Several years ago my sister was bitten by a rattlesnake on her ankle.  She was standing outside on a concrete patio, and the snake was in the nearby planter.  After an anxiety-ridden and expensive ride in an ambulance to the hospital, the doctors discovered that it was a "dry bite".  The fangs had punctured her skin, but they hadn't released any venom.

What if I could get to the point where I am doing dry bites?  I start to attack, but I catch myself and no venom leaves my mouth?  What if I eventually don't even attack?

You Can Still Have Fun With Shortened Telomeres

I flew away from home today, by myself.  I am meeting up with some old girlfriends, for the sole purpose of some F.U.N.  In over a year, this is my first attempt at relaxation and recreation for more than a single day.  Just saying that gives me anxiety.

Within seconds of takeoff my eyes filled with tears.  I stared out the window and let the them flow.  What the heck?!  Why am I crying?

Some possibilities:
Am I just grateful to have a break from my daily life?
I know I am thankful that I am NOT where I was emotionally last year.
Is it going to be possible for me to relax?
I feel like I have been wound so tight for so long, I don't even remember how to relax.
Will the creases between my eyebrows go away?
Will I be able to sleep all night?
Will my tight neck and shoulders still feel like granite when I get back?
Can I dump all my sadness and worry in God's hands for a few days and live it up?

A few years ago I read about an interesting study.  The research looked at the effect of chronic stress on our chromosomes.  Apparently, we have parts of our chromosomes called telomeres.  As we age our telomeres naturally shorten.  The researchers measured the telomeres of mothers, whose children had cancer.  They measured these poor mothers' telomeres at the beginning and at the end of the ordeal.

The findings were not surprising.  The mothers' telomeres had shortened significantly more during their children's cancer than the control group of women of similar age.  The chronic trauma, worry and stress had changed the very core of the genetic material in every cell of their body.

I don't know anything about what it feels like to have a child with cancer.  My heart goes out to those who do.

But, I feel changed down to my cellular level by my life's experiences.  I'm guessing that being the wife of a sex addict and the mother of a sex addict can shorten telomeres, too.  I'm guessing a lot of things can.  My thoughts go to one of the friends I am meeting; she is mourning a suicide in her family.

Could that be why I'm crying?  Because I feel ragged and roughed up by life?  Because I have been profoundly hurt and stretched beyond all my previous capacities?  And yet, I am still alive and OK.  I am learning to trust God more with my life.  I have a lot of living left to do.  Maybe even a lot of fun left to have?

A wise recovery friend says, "Don't let your husband's addiction ruin the things YOU love."  Thank you for the advice.  And so, with my shortened telomeres, I am off to have some F.U.N.!

Boundaries: Time To Sweat The Small Stuff

Last night I was tempted not to hold a boundary that I had set with my husband months ago.

This is the boundary:  Whenever he goes somewhere, my husband tells me what time he will be home.  If he finds that he will not make it by that time, then he needs to tell me.  Text or call, I don't care.  When he does this, he adds a small drop of trust into the trust bottle.  When he doesn't text or call, and he is late, he sleeps one night in the other room.  

Aside: When I first set this boundary he was OK.  The first several times I enforced it, he tantrumed like a 2 yr old.

We are rebuilding our broken marriage one day at a time.  I need to see my husband practicing trustworthiness.  Our marriage follows different rules now.  He says his days of thoughtlessly and selfishly coming and going with no accountability are over, and I gratefully agree.  He is trying to help me feel safe with him.

So last night, as he left to meet a business acquaintance, he casually announced that he would be home in half an hour.  After an hour and twenty minutes, he called and talked to one of the kids.  He was ten minutes away.  He came home, we had dinner, and we didn't discuss it until later.  Because I had a boundary, I didn't feel the need to get mad or punitive. 

I want to be clear. The issue is not that he came home later than he had planned.  In this case I hadn't been inconvenienced. The issue is that he hadn't called or texted a new ETA.  He hadn't kept his word. 

He admitted he had been thoughtless and not mindful of his time and commitments.  That same casualness got him into trouble with his addiction for years.  He couldn't keep his word to himself or anyone else.  

So why was I tempted not to hold this boundary?  Because it was the night before I was leaving on a long-awaited girls trip.  He had been kind and generous and helpful.  He had weighed my suitcase and stood by while I discarded unnecessary, heavy items.  I felt grateful that I was going, and I felt loving feelings toward him.  

I weighed it in my mind.  He could just sleep here tonight.  Why not?  He hadn't done anything malicious.  It was a small thing.  

I thought for a minute.  No.

Recovery, for both him and me, is the small things.  Recovery is hundreds and thousands of small things we do, small changes we make.  These small changes over time can add up to a completely changed heart.  That is recovery. 

I want recovery more than I want my husband sleeping next to me the night before I go on a trip.  And the great thing is, he does too.

When it comes to boundaries, I have to sweat the small stuff.

Acceptanceland

When my husband disclosed that he was addicted to porn and masturbation, that he hadn't stopped in 1998 like he had insisted for 14 years; I knew in that moment two things.

1.  That my life would never be the same.

2.  That at some point,  for me to feel consistently peaceful and happy,  I would need to forgive him.

Those two things would stand whether or not I left the marriage.

It would be months before I knew the extent of his betrayal to me.  It was porn and masturbation and beyond.  His addiction had raged for almost 3 decades, and his brain was as sick as a dog.  His behavior had escalated to inappropriate relationships with women, some fantasy and some not.  He had lied his way to some pretty impressive church callings.  He had played dumb when our son's addiction became apparent.  He had manipulated me with lies since I had known him.

Before his disclosure, my old life was no picnic.  But it was my life, and I was used to it.  My husband has had chronic depression since childhood.  After his first disclosure of sex addiction and quick "recovery" in 1998, which I wholeheartedly believed, I chalked up all the addict behaviors to mental illness.  So he was withdrawn, disconnected, resentful and unpredictable, but hey, wasn't everyone like that?  I was no picnic of a wife, either.

Despite all of that, I still carry grief about my life never being the same.  I am working my way to acceptance, but sometimes I show up in a black dress at the grave of my old life.  I mourn my carefreeness and my easy laughter.  I mourn the loss of love and respect for my husband.  I mourn my old brain.  My thoughts were free to wander as they pleased, unsupervised.   Now my whole recovery and life revolve around God and me keeping a clamp on my wild and horrible thoughts.

Every day I teeter between rage, depression and acceptance.  I have been playing the game of Candyland for years with my kids.  I picture that in my recovery, I am playing a similar game called Acceptanceland.  The destination is a peaceful place with fluffy clouds, a green meadow and a few wildflowers :).

I wake up some mornings and I am there.  I think accepting thoughts like, "You are going to be OK.  This is the life you have, and it's OK.  This is not want you wanted, but God has not left you alone in this.  Trust that He will be with you all the way.  You can have a better life than before.  You can be happy again.  You can do this today."

When I am in Acceptanceland I taste peace and I want more.  I feel a new and full love from my husband, regardless of what emotion or affection I choose to share.  There is a calm and spirit in our home that has never been there before.  I feel gratitude for the life I have.

Acceptanceland is my own creation, so I sort through the cards.  I take out the rage and depression cards and put them at the bottom of the stack.

Mama Of All Traumas

It is no exaggeration to say that I was blindsided by my husband's disclosure of his sex addiction in March 2012.

Imagine if someone poked out both of your eyes, blindfolded you, shoved you into the deepest cave on earth, and then threw you into a black hole.  That is how in the dark I was about what my husband had been doing our entire marriage.  I was clueless.  So when a figurative boulder dropped out of that darkness, it flattened me.  I never saw it coming.

That was trauma.  Trauma (via Webster's) is a psychological shock or severe distress from experiencing a disastrous event outside the range of usual experience.  

When the mama of all traumas struck me I had all the symptoms of PTSD.  My sense of safety and trust was shattered.  I felt helpless, disconnected, crazy, numb, obsessive.  I had nightmares and horrible screaming outbursts.  My heart thumped out of my chest for weeks, and I was nauseous.  Pounds melted off without any effort.  I wanted to sleep more than anything, and yet I could not sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time.  My mind was foggy and concentrating was impossible.  I felt so much emotional pain, that I understood, for the first time ever, why one would think about checking out through drugs or suicide.

I do not feel these trauma symptoms on a daily basis anymore.  However, I can feel that my brain is not healed.  The wound isn't fresh, but it's close to the surface.  I don't feel resilient.

Yesterday I was in the city, and I felt the tug of trauma pulling at me.  It was a normal Saturday filled with errands, ball games, some work and some fun.  But, I was fighting my thoughts.

It has to do with me feeling safe when I am in public with my husband.  It has to do with betrayal and infidelity.  I have lots of anxiety about my husband compulsively lusting after other real women.  It doesn't matter that I have good reason to feel this way.  I know this is about my recovery now, not his.

I was repeatedly triggered, and it reminded my brain of all the previous trauma.  I found myself involuntarily scanning for the next boulder to drop out of the darkness.   My shoulders tightened up and my mood took a dive.  I allowed fear to take root.

Help me, God.  Help me replace fear with faith.  Help me see what is and not what was.  You are the only One who can.

Be ground. Be crumbled.

I had no idea who Rumi was.  I found out that he was a Persian poet in the 13th century.  His poetry is compared to the Psalms, in that he wrote a lot about how we separate ourselves from God.

Today I feel jagged.  I feel disconnected and sad.  Can I be ground?  Can I be crumbled?  Can something beautiful come out of all this?