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.
I'm sorry. :( but I do have to admit to chuckling at viewing an MRI with green XXXs....
ReplyDeleteAre you coming to the Togetherness Conference???
I talk to invisible people in my head too :) they also offer me cinnamon rolls.
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, though, I really like this post. You hit something I think we all have felt. Sometimes we are a little petty and self absorbed, and that is okay because we are suffering. What you wrote in thr end reminds me of a time when this lady whose husband had passed away told me I was so lucky and that she would take her husband back, with a porn addiction, in a heartbeat. Gotta love that perspective,
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