I felt a tremor in the universe yesterday as I learned from a recovery friend what she had just learned. Her allegedly years-sober husband has been lying and acting out......again. I have such empathy for the kind of searing emotional pain she is in, that I swear I can physically feel it. It feels something like I imagine phantom-limb pain may feel for amputees.
I know she has tools and knowledge and faith and friends and a sponsor and a level head, but first, she has to climb out from the devastation left by his disclosure, and this will take a good long while.
I caught a headline about the earthquake in Nepal a few days ago. After seven days of being trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, a 101-yr old man was found alive. After eight days two women were found under a destroyed mud house and one man under a mudslide. Hope surged that others may still be found. I have never known this kind of destruction, and my heart goes out to these people.
It may take my friend more than a few days to surface, but she will. It may not be pretty. She may be tear-stained and caked with trauma and resentment and self-doubt, but she will come through. I know this, because I have seen other women emerge from the ruin of broken promises and demolished marriages and because I am one of them.
Day after day we wake up and we breathe in and out and we live that day. We stumble trying to take care of our kids and ourselves, and we do the work that it requires to combat the real fear of abandonment in our marriages. With the help of other women who have gone before us, we adjust to a new life where God, not the guy we married, is at the center.
This process of rebuilding goes far slower and takes far longer, than I ever imagined. I need breaks and timeouts along the way, so I take them. Sometimes I feel like the marriage I am building is more beautiful than anything I had before and sometimes I want to throw it in the trash and start over with someone new. The aftershocks of sexual addiction can continue for a long time, I've discovered.
Why does news of someone's relapse shake me so?
Can an addict sustain recovery long term?
Is "addiction recovery" just another lie?
Since yesterday I have been beating back a snake-like voice in my brain telling me that addicts, especially my husband and son, don't stand a long-term chance against addiction. That addiction is so powerful that no one in its grasp can truly be free--ever. The evidence seems heavily weighted to support these fears.
I hope this is a lie, but my hope is on shaky ground right now.
Yeah, those slips/relapses can really bring us down. I used to think it was my fault and then my recovery would plummet. Now, I listen to my hubby then move along with my own work. Hugs to your friend.
ReplyDeleteI kind of have come to my own reality on this pain from their relapse thing ; the level of intimacy or closeness I thought we had , or were at least attempting to gain , is in relation to my degree of pain from his slip or relapse . Following a funeral of a family member someone said to me , "" It wouldn't hurt so much if we didn't love them so much . "
ReplyDeleteSo hard to hurt with friends , sharing pain is as much our connection to humanity we love , as sharing joy is . And connections heal hearts , so good your friend has your connection :)
You are so right , the rebuilding is slow and a process . A really, really painfully slow one , one tiny step at a time . If you find out "" addiction recovery " is for sure not a lie let me know Okay ? Ha . Thinking of starting a blog / poll for men , question is " Are you planning to relapse today ? If not what are doing to prevent it ? " Ha , we shall see ..
Thanks for posting , even hard ones are still good .