Gobstoppers and Lust

Another tough conversation happened in bed late last night.  My husband was sharing some insights into some of his disturbing addict behaviors, and I did not like what I was hearing.  Something inside of me snapped.  

Why, why, why?   Of all the things in the world to talk about, why does it have to be THIS?  The conversation screeched to a halt when I turned my face the wall and hissed, "Please don't ever bring up this topic again.  I can't handle it.  I CANNOT handle it!"  I threw in a few sarcastic, shaming comments to drive the point home.

I turned on the lamp and read something mindless.  That is what I do when my peace is destroyed, my heart is racing, and it's time to sleep.   Books remind me that the world is bigger than the world of the gut-wrenching words I have just heard.

Tough conversations are a gigantic part of recovery.  It's hard for me to accept, that in order for me to heal, I have to hear very difficult things.  It's counterintuitive that the healing process is fraught with more emotional pain.  What's that all about, I ask you?

Coleen Harrison writes about this in her book, From Heartache To Healing. (She was married to a sex addict for 20+ yrs, then divorced.  She remarried a recovering sex addict, and they are working on their marriage one day at a time.)

"They [the addict and their loved one] both have to be willing to go through the painful experience of telling their truth and listening to their spouse's truth.  Otherwise, what they are experiencing with each other might be many things, but it will not be a genuine marriage, a genuine coming together of souls.

As Phil [her second husband] was going through those first slippery years of recovery, I had to accept the unavoidable truth that if either of us refused to hear the other's honest sharing, we weren't really experiencing a true marriage.  How could I say something so extreme?  Because a genuine marriage is based on revealing ourselves--our whole selves, imperfections and all--to each other.  Without such honesty, there is no true intimacy."



I thought about her words all day.  True intimacy is what I have wanted from the beginning.  It's what I still want, more than a dishwasher, or 400-thread count sheets, or a trip to Europe.   

My husband is revealing himself to me layer by layer as he uncovers it himself.  It's like a Gobstopper: as soon as he sucks off one color there is another waiting underneath it.  

Some layers are so raw and have lay buried so long, that he cries like a little boy in the dark.  Some layers are so ugly, I wonder how I ended up with this guy.  Some layers are answers to the questions we have both been asking about him.  I think he is brave.  


I've been feeling for a while that it was time for me to open up another crack of myself to him.  That it was worth a try.  That even though I had fear, the actual emotional risk for me was lower than it had ever been in my marriage.  

My husband's capacity to love me is greater than it has ever been, due to his changing heart and healing brain.  If only my heart hadn't been broken in the process, we would both be on the same page.  Oh well......  

Inspired by Alicia's post yesterday, I girded up the old loins and told him that there were times in our marriage when I had been so dissatisfied, that I had looked at certain men we know and thought, "I want that."  "I bet he would never cheat on his wife.  I wish I had that."  And I told him who they were.  Isn't that a type of lust?  It is definitely coveting.

The latest one was recently when I heard a sex addiction therapist speak.  I found myself thinking, "I wish I was married to him."   In my situation, a compassionate, validating therapist saying exactly what I wanted to hear about my trauma and betrayal was extremely attractive.  Isn't that a type of lust?

This was a tough conversation, and it was my stuff this time.  We both survived, and ya know what?  I felt rigorously honest, and I felt more open to love.  

I can do this, one conversation at a time.