Husband's success brings up fear and anxiety

Husband has spent the better part of the past year working on a big project. The project is now done, and he's handed it over to people who can possibly make something bigger out of it and it's getting good response.

I should be happy. We've been living on just my income so he could do this project. He's also been the primary caregiver for Son during this time - taking him to school, picking him up, taking him to playdates and swimming lessons, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. So for that I'm thankful, although maybe somewhat resentful as well, because when I took time off to pursue a personal project he started hounding me to get a job after 4 months, just as my efforts were starting to come to fruition. I'd be pretty happy pursuing my creative projects and taking care of Son, too.

But I've been choosing to support him because ultimately his success could benefit both of us, so I need to let go of that resentment. Working on that.

My character defects aside, thinking about Husband's potential success has me riddled with fear and anxiety. The crazy thoughts going through my head (in no particular order:)

1. Husband will become infatuated with his own success, and I will no longer be needed or important. (Husband enjoyed success and admiration before I found out about his sex addiction, and he rarely made me feel secondary, so I don't know why I'm afraid of this. Maybe it's related to #2...)

2. I feel like I have nothing to offer. I'm having trouble feeling emotionally connected. I have fear, anger and resentment about the past. I feel like damaged, unpleasant goods. Why would anybody with a choice pick me if they have other attractive, interested women (not hard to find in my hometown) hanging around and singing their praises.

2b. I have no great accomplishments of my own. I'm working as an underpaid consultant. My professional peers have passed by me in titles and salary. I've produced no great works of art or business deals or social change. I'm not known for anything special. I have talents that give me joy, but little or no opportunity to use them. I'm nice. The one thing I've been working hard at all my life. Great.

Right now I feel like a victim. I know that's totally disempowering. But there are things he took from me that I'll never get back, and I'm sad and angry about those things. I never had any choice in the matter. By the time I found out about it, those things were long gone.

I lost 19 years of being with someone who always had my back and who I could trust without doubt. I lost the ability to trust that I'd built up over all those years. I lost the self-confidence I'd grown out of feeling like I was truly enough for him. I lost my most intimate relationship which has now been replaced by my best attempt at it. I won't ever be able to look at him without knowing that he made the choice to lie to me and to have sex with all those other women.

Is that part of staying with someone who has betrayed you? Even if you do all the recovery and the therapy and read all the books and go to church and get all the spiritual growth...is the pain of being lied to always going to be there?

Over and over again the feeling/thought/image that goes through my head is that I disappeared. I didn't exist for him. Why was it so easy to forget about me? Why was it so simple to lie to me? Why did I not matter enough for the truth?

The answer that will always have to be good enough is that Husband was sick. He was a sex addict. He wasn't acting rationally.

So now that he's on the path to healing and recovery, becoming more and more whole and complete, I'm here trying to deal with the discontinuity, the kind of mind-fuck turn my life has taken. The thing that pisses me off is that he always had the full picture. He always knew what was going on. He doesn't have to deal with the crazy making feelings and thoughts that come with finding out you thought you had one life when you really had another.

I've been exercising, and that helps I think, but I'm still struggling with the anxiety and fear. Maybe it's exacerbated by the fact that it's June - the month I discovered it all. But I was fine on June 1. I don't know...I don't know what the source of this is. All I know is that right now I feel anxious, twitchy, nauseous, and really sad.

I'm talking to another SAnon tonight, and I highlighted all the people in my group who are also staying with their SA partners. I have to pick up the phone.