Are You Sick, Addicted or Depressed?

Right now I want to make a ballot with three possible boxes for my husband to check:

Are you physically sick? _______

Are you depressed? ______

Are you in your addiction?______

Because sometimes it is hard for me to tell.  All three look basically the same around here.

I could ask him, of course, as in have a conversation, but when he's in a state like this, his answers stir up more questions than they answer.  Such as "Do I believe him?" or "I wonder what the real truth is?"


Rebuilding a marriage out of the wreckage of sexual addiction is hands-down the most difficult task I have ever attempted, and today that task is beating me to a pulp.

A close recovery friend often reminds me that, "We are learning a new dance in our marriages, and we are bound to step on each other in the process."   I say AMEN.  We are figuratively stepping all over each other.

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.

I Missed Him More When He Was A Jerk

My husband is out of town for a few days.  It has taken me a while to pinpoint how I feel about that and why.  Here it is:

I don't miss him.

I don't have negative feelings toward him right now, which is huge.  I have mostly indifference, with a slight positive lean.  I feel peace and relief that he is several states away.  And I do not miss him.  I missed him more when he was a jerk active addict.  (I did not know about sex addiction until his disclosure.  He allowed me to blame it all on depression.)

I recognize some buried expectations inside me:  that I should feel warmer and more loving toward him than I do.   Recovery is changing him into a really nice guy, who seems to genuinely appreciate who I am.  I am grateful he is different, and that he has been consistently different for some time now.  (I feel like if I come out and say exactly how long, it will invoke some sort of curse and kill the whole thing.)

I can also hear the voices of invisible people, including my own mom, saying, "Look how well he is doing, Wildflower!  It's been a while, and you need to get over it."  I will point out that my mom has NOT actually said that, but I feel her general opinions embedded in my psyche.  I know it's not fair to script her like that.

So he is doing well, and it has been a while, and I am grateful to God for making it happen.  When I think about it, I really am so grateful.  But, living with a recovering addict is like learning to live in a foreign country.  It takes time and patience and tolerance.  There is still pain, both old and new.

I am taking my own sweet time in recovery.  I have decided not to shame myself for that.  God doesn't  expect me to run faster than I have strength, in this, as well as in other aspects of my life.

My counselor talks about the analogy of the World Trade Center.  It's like I was in the bombing on 9/11.  Now my office is rebuilt, and I am being asked to go back to work.  But, I can't seem to cross the threshold.  I am looking through the window, and the new decor looks like it could be my style.  I like the colors and the plants are thriving, but I turn around decide to work from home a little longer.

It takes as long as it takes.  Did that come from Rhyll's book?  It takes as long as it takes.

In the book, Out of The Ashes - An LDS Guide To Helping A Betrayed Spouse Heal In The Aftermath Of Sexual Sin, Ruth Davidson says this, "The damage done to innocent parties is far-reaching and is often passed down intergenerationally.  It is a sin difficult to overcome, encompassing a life-changing process that takes years.  Mark Butler [a counselor and author] feels that, in his experience, it takes an average of ten years to heal relationships marred by sexual sin."

There is no fast track to healing from this.  There are no shortcuts.  I am where I am.  I is what I is. :)