Acknowledging the After Effects of Detachment

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One year ago this October began the end of my Epic Detachment.  I had spent the summer working on emotional independence and had found a safe and easy place in my marriage that didn't require any risk or vulnerability and I liked it there.

But when autumn came Pete had some solid recovery under his belt and I started to feel a draw to engage into a relationship with him.  He wasn't so volatile and I could sense that he wanted to reconnect, and he was learning ways to have empathy and compassion and ownership of his wreckage.

It has been a year of ups and downs, as most years are, but Pete and I have been working to stay connected and I have been making efforts to be vulnerable and take risks.  Opening my heart means it might get hurt again, and that's scary.  I've heard women talk about living with open hearts without getting hurt but I haven't mastered that art yet.  (Suggested readings?)

It's autumn again and I'm finding myself stuck.  Pete has three months of sobriety, which seems to be the new length of his cycle and I'm feeling anxious about an impending relapse.  Is it my gut? Or is it fear?

The truth is- my place of detachment was safe, and I find that it's a daily effort to avoid going there.  I KNOW that risk brings reward, and that a physically and emotionally intimate relationship with my husband is  both risky and rewarding.

It used to be my default to rely on Pete, to NEED him, to long for him and crave his attention and validation.  But detachment, for better or worse, cured me of those feelings and now I find myself defaulting to emotional independence.  I think this applies in all relationships, when we are hurt or betrayed we shut down and withdraw and we do it to protect ourselves.  But then eventually we find that we are surrounded by walls and there is no one that can get in.  I want to let Pete back in, but I'm scared and out of practice. I don't know how to be vulnerable with him, naturally.  I am tired of being suspicious and jaded, I almost long for the naivete that I had when I married him and gave myself so willingly and wholeheartedly.  

I love seasons. I love watching the physiological and scientific processes of the earth unfold. I got to thinking about what the purposes are for each season when I discovered that the seasons don't fulfill a purpose so much as they make the best of the circumstances.  For example, winter wasn't necessarily designed to accomplish something, it is the effect of the earth's position in regard to the sun, and earth has simply accommodated.

Summer has become the season of growth, fall the season of shedding, and spring offers rebirth. I love fall- it is such a great reminder to me that change can be beautiful.

I've been naive, and that was okay. I've been vulnerable and it was lovely. Until it wasn't.  I've been detached and it was a season of peace.  It was the way I accommodated to my circumstances.  Until it was time for a new season.

I'm not sure what new hybrid of vulnerability and detachment awaits me - but something is coming and I am sure it will be just the change the earth of my spirit needs to continue onward, surviving, reinventing, thriving and then starting over.

Flashbacks

Last night Pete and I were lying in bed and discussing the past.  Specifically I was telling him about the times when his cycle was so predictable I would almost just wish he would look at the damn porn and then get on with it.  Because after the relapse was always the honeymoon phase of the humble and repentant husband.  

But right before the relapse, that was when he was cruel and irrational and would criticize and blame me. 

Last night I was telling him how difficult those times were, the fear I lived in and the hurt and the frustration at the predictability of his addiction.  I sighed and said

“It was so hard.”

“Yeah” he said “2013 was hell.”

I thought about that for a minute and responded “2013 was hard for sure, but in a different way.  In 2013 I was the master of detachment and I at least knew how to keep myself safe and removed from your cycle.  It was lonely, but it wasn’t nearly as frightening or hurtful or confusing.  It was the years before that, those were hell.”

In the darkness it was quiet for a moment and Pete said  “If you were hurting you didn’t show it.”

I laughed a kind of half-hearted, ironic laugh.  “No. You just didn’t notice it.”

Then my mind took me back and painful memories started to play out in my mind, like flashbacks.  It wasn’t like a trigger, where the pain and feelings come rushing in whether you want them or not.  It was more deliberate and I let myself go there, to that place in the dark recesses of my memory.  Then I started to cry. 

Pete could tell my mood had shifted and said “Years? You make it sound like…”

But I interrupted him.  This was my moment to open his eyes to my memory.  Because all of the sudden it occurred to me that he really didn’t notice my grief during all that time. He was totally living in his own head, devoid of empathy as most addicts are. 

“It was just a couple years.  It started that weekend we were at your grandparents house when you had your new smartphone and you looked at porn in the bathroom and then told me about.  [Our baby] was only a few weeks old and that night I slept, but mostly cried, on a recliner in the basement with [baby] in my arms.”

Then I started to cry more and couldn’t stop or talk. 

I wish I could go back to that night, and hug and hold the me of those years.  This is what I would say.

Dear dear Jane.  I’m so sorry for your pain. I wish I could take away the breathtaking fear and the debilitating hurt.  But there are things in store for you.  You are going to learn.  So much.  People: therapists, experts, friends and strangers are going to come into your life and teach you just what you need to cope and thrive.  You will become more familiar with your own character and inadequacies but also your potential and worth.  You are going to become stronger and more confident.  You are going to practice bravery and courage.  You are going to make and nurture amazing friendships; that will make your heart GROW with new levels of love and compassion.  You are going to change.  And you are going to look back at how far you’ve come, even in the face of what is still ahead of you, and feel proud and grateful.  

More of the Same

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Last Sunday, one week ago, I sat in a bathroom, in a new home, in a new country, and cried the same tears I've cried around the world in my old bathroom.

The feelings were exactly the same.  So much had changed and yet an old familiar pain and discouragement overcame me.  No airplane could take me away from that pain.  No distance could quell it.  No ocean could separate me from it.

Pete had relapsed, which I had handled well enough I suppose, but something inside me was demanding that I withdraw and so I told him that I didn't feel safe and I couldn't be emotionally connected without trust.  He didn't appreciate that and I triggered into my old feelings of being unheard and misunderstood.

The thing is- this stuff doesn't go away for Pete and me. I'm not sure why. I had big dreams of starting a new life here, and although I didn't have any real evidence that all of the sudden Pete would quit relapsing, of course I longed for it.

But the other things is- I'm going to be okay. This is my load.  It gives me spiritual traction, it brings humility and compassion. Pete is going to be okay.  His load is changing him too, as he recovers we are learning healthier ways to communicate and love.

"There is no physical pain, no spiritual wound, no anguish of soul or heartache, no infirmity or weakness you or I ever confront in mortality that the Savior did not experience first. In a moment of weakness we may cry out, “No one knows what it is like. No one understands.” But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He has felt and borne our individual burdens. And because of His infinite and eternal sacrifice, He has perfect empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy. He can reach out, touch, succor, heal, and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do." - David A. Bednar

Dear C-

WHOA! Two months.  What happened to me?

Well, we moved to another country.  It's been too many things to begin to describe it, but it's a net positive.

I'd like to come back and write again, I am still working out my internet and a million other details of my life, but in the meantime I just wanted to respond to an email I received three days ago.  I tried to reply and the email was returned, the address no longer exists.

So Dear C-

If you are reading, I would love to be your friend.  I understand how heavy of a burden this secret can be.  I haven't even told my own parents because sometimes I want to and sometimes I don't. Hang in there.

Jane

It Really IS All About Love

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For reasons that I’m sure stem back to my family of origin, I used to be a sinner-phobe.  I became wildly uncomfortable with friendships that involved people who didn't see exactly as I saw, or who made choices I couldn't understand.  I surrounded myself with people who were practically just like me; good Mormon friends who never talked about anything REAL.  And in the meantime I was completely denying myself any opportunity to understand what it really meant to love someone who wasn't a family member.

Then a friend of mine had an affair.   There was a distinct moment when I was sitting in my car outside her house prepared to go inside and COMPEL her back to being just like me, when I had a strong impression to NOT do that. 

Then my husband spiraled into his pornography addiction and I had to learn how to live with, be married to, and love a sinner. *Gasp*

Before actually having any people in my life who made spiritually debilitating decisions, it was so easy to sit in church and rattle off platitudes about “hate the sin, love the sinner.”  Whereas in reality I found myself incapable of setting aside my fears, insecurities and self-righteousness to truly love "sinners" (read: people who aren't just like me).  And I’m not just talking about adulterers and sex addicts.  This naive and pious goody-goody had trouble accepting people and feeling genuine charity toward much less grievous offenders.

Then one weekend I met up with a group of women who were everything I was afraid of.  They cussed and they used phrases like “blow-jobs.”  They weren't virgins before marriage or they weren't sure they had testimonies at all.  They turned my world upside down because they were the best friends I had ever had.  Without any deliberate effort, my heart changed.  Immediately I could love them, which opened my eyes to the possibility that I had never really known how to love.   

And then it happened again, and again.  At camps and events and through emails.  My heart began brimming over with what I really believe is charity, for all different types of people.  And it has been the most fulfilling experience of my life.

I recently finished the book The God Who Weeps.  It was the second time I’d read the first four chapters, and they were a spiritual journey for me.  But it was the first time I had read the fifth and final chapter.  I finished it on an airplane, flying through the skies on my way to New York, and when I closed the book I wiped away tears of gratitude and insight. 

T. and F. Givens laid out with perfect clarity why my relationships with my WOPA friends have changed my life.  We are relational creatures.  Our greatest happiness comes from meaningful friendships.  When we are most loving, we make ourselves vulnerable to pain.  Our faith is nothing when it doesn't motivate us to consider our obligations to our fellow humans. 

“However rapturous or imperfect, fulsome or shattered, our knowledge of love has been, we sense it is the very basis and purpose of our existence.

What we may have thought was our private pathway to salvation, was intended all along as a collaborative enterprise, though we often miss the point.

When we find we have attained our authentic stature, and only in such authenticity, will we be free to engage in relationships with authentic others.  As we engage in those relationships, we find once again that the perfect community of love enhances, rather than diminishes our differences. Love is what occurs in the face of difference, not sameness…

The divine nature of man, and the divine nature of God, are shown to be the same – they are rooted in the will to love, at the price of pain, but the certainty of joy.” 

Part II - Needs, progress, etc.

Pete got really sick on Saturday, and I was mostly keeping a safe distance from him.   At one point I went into our bedroom where he was crashed out on the bed, vulnerable, humble and physically and emotionally broken.  He sobbed as he told me that he was defeated.  He knew he had to surrender the embarrassment he felt when I told people about the reality of our life.  He said that he knew God wanted him to really be humble, but he had no idea how to BE humble.  He said he only had one option, and that was to overcome this, but right now it felt too hard.  He said he knew he was still holding on to control but he didn’t know HOW to let go.

My anger started to soften as he offered a little bit of his soul to me. And I told him about the gaps in my life that I could see had closed.  The chasm from where I once had been to where I was now. And I didn’t know HOW they had closed, just that they had.  And that there were still gaps I needed to close.  I still see an improved version of myself on the next ridge ahead. 

But I believe that he will cross that canyon too.  Someday he will look back at that day in the bed, about the conversations with me, about his fears and shame, and he will see that he isn’t that person anymore.   He might not be able to say when or what changed, but that he is different.

I feel differently about needs now.  I think of them as the tools I use to get from here to there.  I’m careful to define my needs in terms of things I can control.  I can pick them up, and set them down. I can trade them in for new ones.   And hopefully sooner rather than later, I can grow from being told which tools to use, to being capable of managing my own belt. 

I need to have people who are on the inside of my reality. I need to feel loved and accepted. I need support and kindness. I need quality time with people who I can be honest with. I need independence to make decisions without being manipulated.  I need therapy. I need validation.  I need to be SEEN and HEARD.  I need to read about recovery. I need to talk about recovery. I need someone in my family to be gentle with me.  I need friends to go to when I need space from my husband.  I need community.

Discovering Needs and Closing Gaps Part I

This post is hopelessly long and disconnected.  Sorry.

******************

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I’ve seen and heard a lot about “needs” and “non-negotiables.” I never made a list of my own.  I think it might have been out of fear. What if I write out a list of my needs, and then they aren’t met? What if my list gets trampled on or ignored?  What are my options then? Divorce or insanity?

And I’ve always been a firm believer that it really takes very little to make a soul free and content. 

On Tuesday I opened up to my older brother, who is the most compassionate and gentle member of my family. I’ve wanted to share with him for years and haven’t, at Pete’s request.  When I told Pete, he was upset.  I could see conflict in his furrowed brow as anger, shame and pain overcame him.  He muttered a couple weak remarks and I did my best to listen with empathy. 

The next day he acted out. He fell apart. He isolated and stewed and it caught up to him.  But by some miracle when he confessed to me on Thursday morning about his relapse I was moved with compassion and love for him, and I was able to hear his confession without personalization or grief. 

I thought about that quite a bit, about the space between how I used to respond and how I responded this time.  Somehow, somewhere, some way, I closed that gap. I changed.  I don’t know when exactly it happened or what exactly changed me. But I’m different.

I met with my new therapist that day. He is a CSAT.  (Get one!)  We talked about how it was OKAY that I had shared with my brother.  I needed to do what I needed to do to heal.  And my healing was in the best interest of my recovery, Pete’s recovery and the recovery of our marriage.  He told me to stand up for myself. He told me that when I learned to have confidence in MY needs, I wouldn’t be manipulated by Pete or anyone else.  He asked me to email him a list of my needs. I couldn’t get my head around that.  What do I need to live? Water. Food.  Sleep.  He clarified for me, and suggested that I write what I need for my recovery. 

Ahh yes.  Okay.  I need to be real with people I trust. 

That night Pete and I went to the mattresses about my need to be vulnerable and open with safe people.  I need to share my reality with people who will love and support me.   When he started to throw out words like “inappropriate” I collapsed into an old me.  That me that triggers when he sends any blame my direction. And I was angry.  Why can’t I stand up for myself?

My dear Scabs sent me this message the next day as I was trying to process. 

“[Pete] has been living pretty comfortably as a recovering addict.  He goes to meetings, connects with his guys, connects with you and the kids, and he has you pretty much living and responding to his addiction the way he feels most comfortable.  It seems like its only when you step outside of his prescribed boundary that he freaks out---out of his comfort zone and acts out.  Maybe this is an indication that he has controlled the situation more than you realize. “

She nailed it.  And as I thought about that it made me more angry.  He HAS controlled me in this. He HAS manipulated me in this.  My closest WOPA friends know that this has been a struggle from the get-go for me.  Maybe they remember that first weekend we met when I sobbed about how desperately I needed to open up and Pete had me on a leash.

I was so angry on Friday that I have done so much work to leave Pete and his addiction and his recovery to him, I don’t question or judge or criticize his life anymore.  Which is another gap I’ve closed from how I used to be and where I am.  His addiction AND recovery obviously come at a personal cost to me, I make personal sacrifices.  I’m not saying this to make myself look good, I just realized this week that I really wanted that same respect from him.  If I am capable of doing it, he should be too. 

And tell me, WHY was I able to hear him tell me that he had looked at porn and masturbated without flinching but the minute he tells me how I should or shouldn’t reach out to people, I fall to pieces?

Oh The Places You'll Go!

I think one of the most popular graduation gifts has to be that Dr. Seuss book, Oh the Places You'll Go.  I wish someone would have given me a book when I got married, or when I discovered I was married to a porn addict about the places I would go.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Dark Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own.  And you know what you know.
And YOU are the girl who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets.  Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you'll learn when you go down a not-so-good street.

And when things start to happen,
don't worry.  Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.
You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don't
Because, sometimes, you won't.

I'm sorry to say so
but, sadly, it's true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.

You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...

I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.

******************

What places have I been? I've been in the place of denial. Where I was sure what had just happened would never happen again. Relapse wasn't in my vocabulary because neither was addiction.

And I've been in a place where I sobbed and suffered.  Where I feared relapse with fervent dread.  A place where I was quite sure another relapse would be the end of my marriage or the end of my sanity.

Then I went to a place where I didn't care about relapse. He could act out today or tomorrow and I didn't care. He could never act out again or act out in two years and it made no difference to me. I was my own woman, free from any attachment to him.

And now I find myself in a new place. A place my friend told me about and invited me to. Dealing with relapses with new emotions.  A degree of acceptance.  Not of his behavior, but of him and his diligent and sincere efforts.

I've heard stories of men who were ripe and ready for recovery.  They drank it up with willing thirst.  They applied it to their lives and they have been sober ever since.  This is not my husband.  Over the years he has resisted recovery and stubbornly refused to apply it's principles to his life.  Until he couldn't resist anymore and he collapsed into the arms of SA.  But his demons seem to be stubborn and resistant too.  His road is different and his places elsewhere.

I'm okay with my place. And I'm okay with the places I've been through to get to my place. I don't discredit anyone else's place either, even if it's a place I never visit.

*************

 And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

Could we have been so mistaken in the men we married?

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Our library of recovery books just keeps growing and growing.  I love to read but I can't say that I love to read recovery books.  I follow my gut and read the things that speak to me.  The other night Pete was reading to me from the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and there is a chapter for wives.  I highly recommend it, especially if you are just embarking on this journey.  Ultimately the goal of the chapter is to provide guidance to wives of alcoholics, but the beginning reminded me so much of my own experiences with Pete's pornography addiction, and the experiences I've heard from friends, that I wanted to share it here.

I'm sure we don't relate to all the problems or all the feelings, but I think we can all probably relate to many of them.  What part speaks to you?

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"We have traveled a rocky road, there is no mistake about that. We have had long rendezvous with hurt, pride, frustration, self-pity, misunderstanding and fear. These are not pleasant companions.  We have been driven to maudlin sympathy, to bitter resentment.  Some of us veered from extreme to extreme, ever hoping that one day our loved ones would be themselves once more. 

Our loyalty and the desire that our husbands hold up their heads and be like other men have begotten all sorts of predicaments. We have been unselfish and self-sacrificing.  We have told lies to protect our pride and our husband’s reputations. We have prayed, we have begged, we have been patient. We have struck out viciously. We have run away. We have been hysterical. We have been terror stricken. We have sought sympathy.

Our homes have been battle-grounds many an evening.  In the morning we have kissed and made up.  Our friends have counseled chucking the men and we have done so with finality, only to be back in a little while hoping, always hoping.  Our men have sworn great solemn oaths that they were through [acting out] forever. We have believed them when no else could or would.  Then, in days, weeks or months, a fresh outburst.

We came to live almost alone.

There was never financial security. Positions were always in jeopardy or gone. An armored car could not have brought the pay envelopes home. The checking account melted like snow.

Perhaps at this point we got a divorce and took the children home to father and mother. Then we were severely criticized by our husband’s parents for desertion. Usually we did not leave. We stayed on and on. 

As animals on a treadmill, we have patiently and wearily climbed, falling back in exhaustion after each futile effort to reach solid ground.

Under these conditions we naturally made mistakes. Some of them rose out of ignorance of [addiction]. Sometimes we sensed dimly that we were dealing with sick men.

How could men who loved their wives and children be so unthinking, so callous, so cruel? There could be no love in such persons, we thought.  And just as we were being convinced of their heartlessness, they would surprise us with fresh resolves and new attentions. For awhile they would be their old sweet selves, only to dash the new structure of affection to pieces once more.  It was so baffling, so heartbreaking. Could we have been so mistaken in the men we married? Sometimes they were so inaccessible that it seemed as though  great all had been built around them.

As wives of [addicts] we would like you to feel that we understand as perhaps few can. We want to leave you with the feeling that no situation is too difficult and no unhappiness too great to be overcome.”

Be Kind Be Brave

Another Camp Scabs is in the books.  My cup runneth over with gratitude for the opportunity I have to meet such remarkable women. I really can’t get over that.  I’ve recently started reading Glennon Melton’s book and she talks about how we are truly living when we let our walls down and share honestly with our friends and in our relationships.  Camp has a way of making that feel natural and even though it’s not easy, it’s fulfilling. 

Thank you to all the women who have had courage to take such a risk. 

There is a tsunami coming.  I’m not sure exactly what it will look like, but it’s a wave of knowledge, empowered women, education, bravery and change.

Forgive my clichés, but YOU can be a part of this wave. 

Never in my life have I been so convinced of the power of the individual.  If we have the courage to work from the bottom up, God will work from the top down.  

Years ago, before this was part of my life, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  It’s taken years for me to understand the lies of my husband’s pornography addiction. 

Unfortunately the world is full of people who still believe those lies.  They don’t know what they don’t know.  And if it took me, in my brokenness and desperation, THIS long to start to understand the truth about sexual addiction, it will surely take patience and persistence as we watch those around us learn and understand. 

But we can be the instrument of change.  There is a quote that is often attributed to Ghandi that says “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  But what Ghandi actually said was this-

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.”

If it’s compassion we are looking for from the world, let’s offer more compassion to the world.  If it’s knowledge and understanding, let’s boldly share ours.

I’m not necessarily talking about shouting from the rooftops, although if that feels right to you, go with it.  I’m talking about our private conversations with our therapists, our church leaders, our friends. 

If you don't know where to begin, begin by being willing to begin. Send an email, open up to a friend, trust your gut.  

Let’s not wait to see what others do, let’s follow our hearts and share our truth.