Triggered by Get Him to the Greek?

I usually like movies like this because I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy. Slapstick, poop jokes - funny stuff to me. But there is a scene of the guys in a Las Vegas strip club and as soon as that came onto the screen I got nauseous and my heart started racing. I haven't really seen lap dancing before, although I've imagined it since learning that Husband received this service regularly throughout our marriage, and even before.

Seeing a room full of barely clothed women mingling and rubbing up against men as other women swiveled around poles while groups of men gawked and talked instantly brought images of Husband in that situation into my mind. And they've been hard to shake. I went through our computer history last night and checked his email for anything suspicious - found nothing.

But it really repulses me that he participated in this. I think some of my current lack of interest in sex has to do with my being unable to separate the person in him that can objectify women that way from the person he is in our relationship. (I know that repulsive objectifier is still in there with the person I knew. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of that aspect of him for the first 19 years of our relationship.) I've never felt objectified by him. But for a long time now I get a queasy feeling when I think of doing any type of fantasy activity (dressing up in sexy lingerie for example) and I think that's because it feels like it would be part of that ugly fantasy world that also included lap dances and prostitutes.

I wish I had the opportunity to grow and change without having to think about our relationship at the same time. I know sex is part of a healthy relationship, and we've had good sex off and on since his sex addiction became known to me. But a lot of times I just have too much going on in my head to be present. And if I'm not present - well that's just not the kind of sex I want to have with anyone. I'd rather just not. But I know for him my lack of interest in sex feels like rejection. So I worry. Will this perceived rejection cause him to give up on our relationship? Because I'm not ready to do that. But I'm not ready to be vulnerable either.

I'm in a little bit of a freak-out still, although I know I have the tools to keep this from spiraling out of control. But I also feel that I have a lot of work to do to get some things out that are still inside me. Anger, fear, grief. Things that are keeping me from being present.

I don't know how to access these things. A friend from my recovery group is going to a funeral and I said to her that she should really take the opportunity to grieve, not just the loss of the one who passed, but other losses as well, because we get so few opportunities to do that. I think I was speaking in part to myself. I have this image of scraping out from inside me the things I've been unable to express, like scraping out the inside of a pumpkin, so I don't get snagged by the past over and over again, so I can authentically both acknowledge what has happened and internalize that this is a new and different moment. So I can feel peace, instead of fear and anxiety.

I don't feel that peace now. Just queasy, anxious and closed off. I can intellectualize myself back to peace using the tools I have, but I want to use my tools to work through this, not to fly above it. I want to stay with these feelings instead of going to my "enlightened" place about why I don't have to have them. Maybe these feelings and the resulting conversations will drag me through what is here for me to learn so that I can get closer to free.

Even with sobriety, there are ups and downs

Even though Husband has over a year of sobriety and is doing everything he can to work his program, deal with his issues and get the support he needs, I still have ups and downs. I think this has to do with the fact that I still have a lot of unexpressed feelings.

I loved Ellen Page's performance in the movie Juno and wanted to see more of her work so I watched the movie Hard Candy. I only vaguely knew what the movie was about, but as I watched it I found myself identifying with the feeling of wanting power over men. I got satisfaction out of seeing her in control and detached. Men: A group of people who will always let you down when given the opportunity.

But as I became aware of my feelings, I got very disturbed, and started to feel sick to my stomach. I began thinking about my son, and how I didn't want to have feelings about "men" because my son will be a man some day, and I'd never want him to pick up on those kinds of feelings from me. I grew sadder over the course of the evening, and ended up lying in bed with Husband, crying as he did his best to comfort me.

I woke up the next day feeling better, but still pretty down. We had couples therapy that day, so I was able to talk about my feelings there. But at the end of the session I was still disturbed and confused by my strong pull toward that feeling of detachment.

After being deeply betrayed by my father when I was twelve, I'd sworn off ever being completely vulnerable to any man. I'd be like Angelina Jolie in Wanted (a movie I hated) - mysterious, alluring, totally self-sufficient, desirable, and most of all unattainable. When Husband and I got together, I told him at some point that I wanted him to know that I didn't need him. That stayed with him, even as my need to withhold myself diminished as we built trust over the years. By the time I found out about his betrayal, any defenses I'd had against being hurt by him were long dissolved.

The next day I watched the second half of the movie. I don't know why exactly. I think I still had more feelings and the movie was an access point. I got very present to the wall that I put between Husband and me. Sometimes its feet thick, and sometimes it's just a piece of saran wrap, but it's there and it never, ever was before. I grieve the loss of that trust and openness a lot.

I went to an Alanon meeting, because I felt like I was really hitting a low point and needed to get more serious about my own recovery. I still don't have a sponsor and haven't started working the steps, but that will be part of this Year of Self Definition I think.

I realized that my fear of getting close to Husband is like being afraid to touch a hot stove after you've been burned by it. That's a crazy thing to do. But as someone in my therapy group said, Husband is a different person now that he's in recovery.

So I guess recovery makes Husband a fridge or something instead of a stove. He's a different appliance. He's a fridge that could become a stove again (a stove or a stove in recovery, right?) But I'm also a different appliance. I'm a blender that can recognize unhealthy, stove-like behaviors in a fridge. And I know if the fridge is going to meetings, therapy and otherwise getting support. And I'm developing my own blender-self, reading my manual, finding all the great features I didn't know about or pay attention to. I'm a blender who is educated about addiction and co-dependency. So chances are much better that I'll know something is wrong if I open the fridge door and see an oven.

Finally, to flog the metaphor completely to death, I can look at this as a new relationship between full-featured blender and fridge rather than trying to fix the old relationship between the unexamined blender and the stove.

This two-week journey is what I got out of watching Hard Candy.

Opportunities for growth pop up in the oddest places.