Have You Ever Wished Your Husband Had Cancer? I have.

Tonight I grabbed my journal from 2012 off the shelf.  I was looking for some notes I had taken at a conference.  As I opened the book, my own voice blasted me with angrish.  I was ranting and sobbing in this journal.  I was wishing cancer on my husband.

Before my husband disclosed his significant acting out and life-long sexual addiction, he had had a persistent, pounding headache for about a month.  Exactly one week before his disclosure he got an MRI of his head.

I was nervous that day. I had the thought: this day could change our lives forever.  Maybe he had brain cancer?  I thought of people I knew whose lives were turned upside down in a single moment.  Would that happen to us?


The MRI found nothing.  Wouldn't it be great if MRI's could detect porn addiction?  Maybe their brain could be covered with bright green XXX's, just so it would be obvious and unable to hide?

After the disclosure I told my husband that I would rather deal with stage IV brain cancer than to deal with what he has (I couldn't even say what it was back then).

If he had cancer I wouldn't have to reconcile the thousands of lies that had flown out of his mouth and sunk into my trustful soul.  I would be able tell people, and we would be flooded with sympathy and support and soup.

The shame behind this insidious disease keeps it under wraps. Somewhere behind my
wish for a visible trial like cancer is my desire for validation from those invisible people that seem to live in my mind.  "Oh, Wildflower, how do you do it?  You are a rock, girl.  I have brought you some fresh cinnamon rolls, Honey, because.....whew...you are going through some hard stuff."



After I read that excerpt from my journal, I said a nighttime prayer with my kids.  I prayed for two of our family friends who are dying from cancer.  They are both in their 50's, and they both have kids who still depend heavily on them.

I feel foolish about my wishes for cancer.  Sometimes I am a petty, self-absorbed creature.  Of course I can grieve my circumstance on the way to acceptance, but I want to make it clear, especially to myself, that stage IV cancer is not preferable to sexual addiction.  It never will be.  I would wager that either of our friends with cancer would trade places with me or Mr. W in a heartbeat.

My Love Faileth

This picture somehow makes me want to throw up.

I'm reading about the attachment theory of love.  For several months, I have been bewildered and somewhat ashamed about my lack of loving feelings toward Mr. W.  I mean, I was wholeheartedly in love with the guy when I married him, so why is my love now so conditional?   What about true charity that never faileth?

The attachment theory of love is shedding some light on why I feel the way I do.

Attachment theory views emotional bonds and emotional responsiveness as the basis for love and loving. We have an inborn need for safe emotional connection and when we don't get it, the human brain hits the panic button and all hell breaks loose.

"Distressed partners may use different words but they are always asking the same basic questions, 'Are you there for me?  Do I matter to you?  Will you come when I need you, when I call?'  Love is the best survival mechanism there is, and to feel suddenly emotionally cut off from a partner, disconnected, is terrifying.  We have to reconnect, to speak our needs in a way that moves our partner to respond.  This longing for emotional connection with those nearest us is the emotional priority, overshadowing even the drive for food or sex.  The drama of love is all about this hunger for safe emotional connection, a survival imperative we experience from the cradle to the grave.  Loving connection is the only safety nature ever offers us."  

Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight, pg 47


This resonates with my innards.  If the drama of love is indeed all about this "hunger for safe emotional connection",  then that explains why my love-well for my husband runneth low at times.

For my entire marriage I hungered for this emotional safety.  I had had good attachments as a kid, so I knew what that felt like.  When Mr. W and I were connected, I was able to give and receive love, when we were disconnected,  I COULD NOT DO EITHER.   A sort of panic ensued inside me.

Solid love couldn't  exist when our emotional bonds were fraying and inconsistent.  The addiction cycle kept our love, not just our connection, in a constant state of flux.  As Sue Johnson explains, I was, in all different ways, asking him, "Are you there for me?"  And when he didn't reassure me, my brain careened into primal panic mode, because I, like every human, am wired for connection.


Therefore, what happened to our love when Mr. W dropped his A-bomb in 2012 should not surprise me.  Our flimsy but well-intentioned emotional bonds were instantaneously demolished.   Who am I kidding, I was also pretty much demolished!   When the dust settled, I was holding commitment, responsibility and very little love.  Now I understand why.


Attachment theory also explains why addiction in a marriage results in less love in the relationship.  Yeah, lust and love can't coexist, but it's more than that.  Attachment theory would say that addiction and the associated emotional disconnection are what make it impossible for the addict to truly love their family; because the basis of love is emotional connection, not attraction, not loyalty, not commitment, but emotional connection.

So, that's as far as I am in the book.  Good stuff.  Thank you, Dr. Sue Johnson, this has been my least expensive therapy session ever.

Today sucks.

Whiney Wildflower is out tonight, so be warned.


Today sucks.  I feel like I have been swimming in rough seas for an interminable time, and I am ready for a rescue helicopter to appear and airlift me to a tropical paradise, where addictions and predatory mammals have never set foot.

I feel hopeless about my son's addiction.   I feel depleted from managing my own hair-trigger emotions and trying to allow others theirs.   I'm tired of feeling threatened by any human with breasts and hips.

Today my marriage requires more effort than I want to expend.  This week some members of my husband's family are coming to stay with us.  It's hard to entertain when life is so volatile, and I'm anxious that I can't pull it off warmly and generously.


I know others have it far, far worse.  But, can I please have a tantrum on the kitchen floor anyway?  Imagine me face down with my fists pounding the ground and my legs kicking wildly.   We need to be able to act like two-yr olds sometimes, right?  Wives and moms of addicts don't get that luxury very often.


I don't want to do this anymore.   I want to be done with this crap.

Of course I know that it matters not what I want.  Not really.  I get what I get in this life and I can throw a fit or not, but eventually I have to accept WHAT I HAVE.  Oh well, tonight I am throwing a fit.

More On The Nonexistent Yellow Brick Road To Bliss

In my last post, I confessed I had long operated under this false belief: if I were righteous then I would automatically be happy.  It seemed a reliable formula: my keeping the rules would directly sway the Powers That Be to shield me from life's pitfalls.  Mental illness and sexual addiction in people I love has ripped this untrue notion from my psyche.

Where did this belief of mine originate?

I believe my misunderstanding comes from two sources.

#1    Because The Ideal is largely what is preached in church settings, I was taught and I understood gospel principles in an over-simplified way.

#2    Because The Ideal is largely what is preached in church settings, those whose lives don't fit the Ideal feel alone or unworthy.  I believe this shame led people I knew to hide their hardships, sometimes behind a perfect, cheery facade.  I was naive to the real difficulties good people were facing, and I was content to be ignorant.

Some examples of oversimplified principles:

"If you choose the right (as if there were only one "right"), then you will be happy."
"If you marry in the temple, you've made it.  You will live happily ever after."
"If you marry a returned missionary, you are getting the cream of the crop of worthiness."
"If you don't smoke, you will walk and not be weary and you won't get lung cancer."

While all of the above scenarios could come to pass, they are not automatic if/then situations.  A plus B does not automatically equal C.  Real life does not follow any mathematical formula; real life has a formula all its own.  That formula is mess and chaos and surprise and good and bad all at the same time.


**Maybe we could talk about how we can choose the "right" for ourselves by making prayerful decisions, but that good decisions do not predict an easier earth life.  Unforeseen pain and darkness will most likely still visit us.

Why?  Because of the natural laws of mortality.  We are subject to any number of maladies just by existing.  Our bodies and minds are corruptible and aging.  We are subject to the effects of others' actions.  If someone drinks and drives, for example, we may be the casualty of their decision.

Why?  Because we live in families, we are especially prone to the good and bad consequences of each member's decisions.  It's like Herman Melville wrote, "We cannot live only for ourselves.  A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men."

**Maybe we could talk about how marrying in the temple is not a free pass to a blissful life.  A counselor once told me that while Mormons have lower divorce rates than the national average, in his experience, Mormons do not have better marriages.  He believed that perhaps the temple marriage label acted like a sort of glue to keep a quarreling, unhappily married couple together.

**Maybe we could talk about how tough marriage can be and why.  I remember hearing how important it was to communicate, but not how to do it. We talk far more about the style of wedding dress than we do about the realities of married life.

**Maybe we could talk about how returned missionaries are just guys that may or may not be spiritual or worthy or good husbands.   The RM label can be so bright and glaring, that we fail to ask deeper questions and see incongruencies in their behavior.  My husband hid years of addiction behind his RM image.

**Maybe we could talk about how men, who don't go on missions, may be equally kind or loving or close to God.  But they may be struggling with mental illness or any number of factors that prevent them from serving.

**Maybe we could talk about how we can choose not to smoke, but that there are people with lung cancer that have never touched tobacco.  This could happen to any of us.



I wish I had been given a bigger dose of reality in church lessons and talks when I was growing up.  I do wonder if perhaps I did not have the ears to hear this stuff then.  But I'm listening now, and in gospel circles, I'm not hearing much about the nitty gritty trials that I and my loved ones face.  I wish that more people had talked about the tough things in their lives; about how things hadn't worked out as they planned or wanted.

While I understand that we need to see the Ideal as an example and something to aspire to, as near as I can tell, NO ONE HAS THE IDEAL.  Gospel principles cannot be boiled down to a sterile if/then formula.  People and lives are messy, and yet we show up with our masks on and pretend they're not.  We pretend to have The Ideal.





Next post I want to talk more about why, in gospel circles, we tend to keep our troubles hidden deep in our hearts.

And yes, I realize that I am a hypocrite anonymous blogger, wanting more open discussion of difficult things, while simultaneously hiding behind the name of a flower.  Thanks for reading, gentle reader.

Are We Teaching Young Women About A Yellow Brick Road That Does Not Exist?

"Girls, this has been a beautiful program.  I commend the gospel with all of its auxiliaries and the temple to you, but I do not want you to believe for one minute that if you keep all the commandments and live as close to the Lord as you can and do everything right and fight off the entire priests quorum one by one and wait chastely for your missionary to return and pay your tithing and attend your meetings, accept calls from the bishop, and have a temple marriage, I do not want you to believe that bad things will not happen to you. 

And when that happens, I do not want you to say that God was not true.  Or, to say, 'They promised me in Primary, they promised me when I was a Mia Maid, they promised from the pulpit that if I were very, very good, I would be blessed.  But the boy I want doesn't know I exist, or the missionary I've waited for and kept chaste so we both could go to the temple turned out to be a flake,' or far worse things than any of the above.  Sad things—children who are sick or developmentally handicapped, husbands who are not faithful, illnesses that can cripple, or violence, betrayals, hurts, deaths, losses—when those things happen, do not say God is not keeping his promises to me. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not insurance against pain.  It is resource in event of pain, and when that 

pain comes (and it will come because we came here on earth to have pain among other things), when it 

comes, rejoice that you have resource to deal with your pain."

Carlfred Broderick, The Uses of Adversity, Ch.12  




I guess I knew difficulties would come to me at some point, but I didn't really know.  What I really knew, because I was taught it repeatedly, was that if I lived righteously and repented when I messed up, that I would avoid a lot of heartache and be happy.   Wickedness never was happiness, so if I wasn't wicked, then I would be happy, right?

For the first half of my life, my experience was congruent with what I learned in church.  I was fortuitous in my birth family and circumstance.  My actions seemed to directly determine my well-being and happiness.  I was voted Most Likely To Succeed when I was 14, and I believed it was pretty likely I would succeed!  After all, how hard could it be to keep going in a good direction?

I entered my marriage with the belief that my worthiness would insulate me; not from physical ailments, sick children, natural disasters or financial troubles, but certainly from grievous sins and their consequences.  Certainly from infidelity and lies.  Certainly from hideous filth and ensnaring addiction.  

I had made calculated, prayerful decisions about my adult life, including whom to marry.  I didn't worry my parents to tears or elope to a Las Vegas wedding chapel.  From all appearances, I was marrying a squeaky clean graduate student that had a great sense of humor.  

Becca, my close friend and mother of five, is mourning her husband's recent suicide.  I am astounded by her goodness and her pure heart.  And yet, her married life has been filled with heartache and troubles.  Heartache and troubles so deep I cannot fathom her pain. 

We don't remember anyone telling us to watch out: that even if we were righteous and made wise decisions, that our lives could derail like a runaway train.  That the actions of our loved ones could be reckless and destructive enough to render our lives unrecognizable.  

Becca and I wonder why, after absorbing a lifetime of gospel lessons and talks, we weren't better prepared for the reality of such emotional pain?