Ask me no questions

Like MamaMPJ says, its the lies.

I've been down lately, and I've realized that part of it is I'm still not over being lied to.

Trust is not an easy thing to build or rebuild. I believe it's possible. But rebuilding 19 years of trust is going to take time I suppose.

And it's not that I don't trust him now. It's that I'm so angry at him for lying that I don't know if I'll ever get over it.

And I know I'll have to find a way if I want to stay in my relationship. Which I do.

He's a good man, a better man now.

But I can think of few things worse you can do to someone than betray their trust.

I've also been wrestling with self esteem issues that have been exacerbated by this betrayal. My great unspoken fear is that when it comes down to it I'm not good enough. Knowing that husband had sex with prostitutes he picked out of an online catalogue who were 15 - 20 years younger than me solidifies these self-doubts in my crazy head. I know these fears are mine to overcome, but they loom larger after all of this.

And after realizing that my business partner really regards me as an employee, I'm struggling with self worth issues around that, too. We've been splitting the income from our work (with him getting 10% off the top for business expenses and 20% more than me of the remaining share.) Last week he told me that I'm making more than I should be given my contribution to the business. Not in those exact words, but very close. Another fear, the fear of accidentally overvaluing myself and then being found out, reinforced. I disagree with him, but I have all those feelings of not wanting to cause conflict, wanting to be reasonable, and there's also the fact that he's incredible at what he does (strategy and business development) and my role (account director) supports that. But it hurts to be told you're not worth what you're being paid. It probably hurts even if it's true, which in my case it isn't.

I'm done with this kind of partnership. I'm looking for a job.

So I'm an unworthy fraud this week. I skipped my 12-step meeting (bad idea) but all I wanted to do was go to bed. Sometimes I wonder if the trauma of discovering Husband's addiction has caused me to slump into depressions. I don't remember having these lows before. I wonder if medication would help, but I don't want to take medication.

Right now I feel alone and isolated and confused. I don't know why I feel disconnected and joyless, but I do. "Fake it 'til you make it" the saying goes. But I don't want to fake it. I want to find it. I want to find the good, find the joy. But it feels like there are too many motions to go through, and not enough time to just be present. Are these the problems of the over fed, over examined, and over privileged?

Could this be an opportunity to surrender to whatever it is that I am? Oh, yay!

Where did all this self loathing come from? I really wish I knew. Because then I could grab the end of that thread and untangle it from the rest of my life.

I wish you get get self esteem from eating ice cream.

Force fields up, phasers set to vaporize

I'm feeling more stable now that my walls are firmly in place.

I'm still connecting with my feelings, but I have decided to take off the wife and lover hats, as Sophie wrote to me explaining how she handles trust in her marriage to an addict.

I had to deliver something to a client today, and ended up parking right in front of the Oriental Massage place where Husband got his first taste of prostitution. Massage with happy ending.

We lived right around the corner from that place at the time he started visiting it. I always wondered when I passed it what kind of a place it was. I'd heard about "oriental massage" from a friend whose husband had experienced the happy ending at a posh hotel in Hong Kong.

I decided that it was time to face this head on. I'd been avoiding driving by the place, and getting anxious every time I knew I'd be near it. So I got out of the car, walked up and opened the door.

It opened right into a dingy, white space that was 3x8 with a counter running the length of it. A sign read "No one under 21 allowed." I glanced around the small space, wondering what Husband was thinking when he opened that same door for the first time. He knew why he was there...I'm sure of that now.

A bell had rung as I entered and Asian woman came out after a moment in response. She muttered something indecipherable.

"This is where my husband first got introduced to prostitution, so I just wanted to see it," I said. I glanced around, looked at her as she muttered something else, and then I shut the door.

My heart was pounding. I felt like I'd looked into the mouth of a beast. But I also felt strength, having faced something that had become such a symbol in my mind.

I continued to the next building to visit my client, heart still pounding as I rode the elevator up and waited in the lobby. Pounding as I talked to the cheerful woman who greeted me. But eventually my chest calmed, and my mind moved into the present moment.

When I returned to my car, a final glance at that door confirmed that I'd vanquished something. Although I could feel my heart pounding again. I took a deep breath, switched on NPR, and pulled into traffic repeating a favorite mantra under my breath. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay..." In the present it's okay.

Our couples therapy session Tuesday night was good. I expressed a lot of the anger and pain I'd been keeping inside. Husband talked about what the experience of slipping was like for him, from the cigarette and shot to the stupid hair salon to the sneaking money. Our therapist suggested that he do whatever he can to demonstrate that he's trustworthy so I can begin to see over time again that he's actively in recovery and not lying about it.

I told her that I really had no idea what he was doing - going to meetings or lying about it, going to his therapist or lying about it. I had no idea any more about the validity of anything coming out of his mouth. She said that if he was lying on such a massive scale, if he was pulling away from the recovery community like that, he'd demonstrate in other areas of life behavior that would be clearly addict or narcissist behavior, and he'd be oblivious to it. In other words, I'd get some trustworthy flags. That made sense to me. That helped. I may not be able to tell when he's lying to my face, but I know I'd be able to pick up on other addict / narcissist behaviors.

So now, I'm giving it time. Time, time, time. Weeks? Months? Years? I don't know. My priority is me and my son. Right now Husband is my partner in raising our son, managing our finances and the logistics of life. I have the parent hat on. I don't know when the other hats will feel right. The friend, the wife, the lover...

I feel resentment about the fact that I feel alone in the world, without an intimate relationship to trust, without a partner I can feel safe to trust and love freely. I'm pissed about that. But I breathe. I read. I do step work. I work on my relationship with higher power. I try to remember not to do it alone, to reach out to others.

Something that's odd for me is that while I don't want to reach out to Husband, I don't want him to stop reaching out to me. I need to be able to remain detatched, but I also need to feel Husband's love for me. I feel like an animal that's been hit, craving touch but freezing in my tracks so I can detect whether it's going to be a blow or a caress and respond to save my life if I have to. So dramatic, huh?

I don't feel like a victim. But I am disappointed. Disappointed and sad. And angry. But I'm also stronger, more grounded, more in touch with myself, and grateful for the progress I've made with my own issues.

Feeling a lot of fear

Today the overwhelming thing I'm feeling is fear.

I'm afraid to trust Husband. When I can't reach him on the phone, where is he?
I'm afraid that my pulling back is making him so sacred that he's going to slip back into old behaviors and resentment.
I'm afraid that he'll start to pull away from me, and from trying to work things out because of his fear
I'm afraid of losing him
I'm afraid of wanting him
I don't know what I want
I'm afraid of him, afraid to trust anything he says
I'm afraid because I don't know how this will all turn out

He says he wants to keep fighting for our marriage, that he wants to do whatever he can to work things out. I want to believe him, but I just don't know if that's crazy or not anymore.

He had a slip. He lied. He started sneaking money to do...who knows what. He said it wasn't for strip clubs or prostitutes, but I can never know for sure. He didn't tell me about a cigarette he had, about a drink he had (he's not abstaining as part of a program, but he had said he wouldn't drink for a year.) In the context of everything else he's done, these things are minor. But lies, omissions and hiding are the problem.

I feel like I don't know what to trust. My defenses are way up, and I'm pulling away to protect myself. But is that motivated by intuition or fear? I started to feel that trust was possible, and then this happened. So is it just hopeless? If I pull away out of fear, will I lose a real chance at healing and recovery in our marriage?

I guess if Husband is really back on the path of recovery, he will be on that path no matter where I am. Maybe that's where I can look. What does he do when he gets no reassurance from me? Does he continue to use his new tools, or does he give up and fall into the abyss of resentment and self-pity, and swiftly return to old ways of being? How sincere is his recovery? Is this how I can get an idea of that?

Everything looks frightening right now. I want some solid ground.

I know I can continue on my own path of recovery. But I wish I could know what is possible for our relationship. Either way, with him or without him, I can move forward in a healthy way. I'm confident of that. But this not-knowing...that is where all the fear is. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being hurt again, betrayed again.

I think the person I loved and married is there somewhere, and I don't want to give up on that. But neither do I want to sacrifice my self and self-respect if the addict is going to dominate our relationship. I don't know who I'm talking to right now...Husband the-man-I-knew or Husband the Addict. They are different, but they look the same to me.

How things are different, and what I'm planning for the next year

Husband was playing the piano today. A variety of songs, among them Kermit the Frog's "Rainbow Connection." Suddenly he turned to me and said that he wanted me to know that he thinks about how deeply he's hurt me and how he's screwed up so badly all the time. "I really love you," he said.

That was something I used to know, like the air I breathe. But I realized that I was surprised by that. I think I have a fear that Husband is so damaged that he can't love me the way I thought he did. And I think I still hold in my mind that he had to be so angry and resentful toward me to do the things he did, which I've been told by him and by therapists isn't the case. But the deep parts of me that were hurt are still protecting themselves, protecting me. Instead of assuming the depth of his love, I now assume that I could be hurt, I could be surprised by something I could never imagine at any turn.

So that's a way things are different than they used to be. I hope I can get back to being connected to how deeply he feels for me, and when I finally feel like I can do that, I hope he still does.

Since I just celebrated an anniversary of sorts, I've been thinking about what I want this year to be about, and I've decided that I want it to be my year of self definition.

I'm going to establish myself as distinct from the opinions and reactions of others, and learn to love and know myself as fundamentally okay, whether or not others like me, are disappointed, angry, resentful, hurt, aggressive, disapproving, etc.

I'm going to create and define my self and build a solid relationship with what I create such that I am my own harbor in a storm. I'm going to grow my sense of self such that it can't be destroyed by anyone else. That's my agenda for this year.

Steadily getting better

The trip to Hawaii was amazing. Exceeded our expectations in every way.

One thing Husband and I realized was that in our 19 years together, this was the first vacation we'd taken alone together that didn't involve visiting someone. Because we've lived as room mates with my mother since the very beginning of our relationship, we've had little time comletely alone as a couple. We've always had a lot going on in our lives. And since the arrival of Son in the Fall of 2001, life has just gotten fuller.

When we returned, Husband said he realized the difference between kissing in Maui and kissing at home was that in Maui there was nothing else we should or could be doing at that moment. No son to care for, no work following us home from our jobs, nobody wanting or needing anything from us. It was just us. Alone, together, with nothing to think about and no decisions to make except whether to wake up and go to yoga on the beach, go snorkeling, meditate on the beach, or have a Mai Tai.

On the flight over to Hawaii I was having anxiety about what we were doing. I wasn't clear what we were celebrating, and I didn't want to go through the motions and feel conflicted in my heart. So I brought it up and we talked about it. Husband said he was celebrating our life together, our love for each other, and the happy times that we had, despite his secret life.

I said I could also celebrate our love for each other. But the memories of happy times are tinged with pain for me because I know that the life I thought I had in those happy memories is not the life I was really having. He said he understood, and we left it at that. I felt satisfied that we weren't ignoring any elephants in the living room, and that I had identified something I could authentically celebrate about our 10 years together. There is a lot of good...lots of love, and there were so many good times.

At the airport on our way back to Calfiornia I realized I was feeling sad because there was a part of me that wanted to know that things were going to continue to be as blissful and wonderful as they had been for the past 4 days on Maui. A much bigger part of me knows that there is no knowing anymore, but the desire to feel some assurance in spite of that is still present. I talked with Husband about it, and although there was no solution to that dilemma talking about it helped.

Since our return I've been able to focus and concentrate very well, and I've been spending a great deal of time catching up on work that I haven't been able to focus on for the past 4 months. No blogging from the office since I got back a week ago. And focusing on remaining connected with Husband has kept my attention after work and family stuff have been attended to each day.

In our couples therapy today we realized how differently we've experienced our sex life prior to June 1st. I realized more pointedly how little priority I'd placed on that, even though I knew it was important to Husband. We could go for weeks without having sex and I wouldn't realize it. I really took it for granted that he knew how much I loved him, that I found him desireable, and that I thought he was a great lover. Meanwhile, he was feeling unheard and unimportant to me, and his feelings of hurt and neglect built up over the years.

NOT that a lack of sex is either an explanation or justification for lies and infidelity. It's NOT. But I could see how I hadn't really been present to him in the way that I'd expect him to be present to me. And how his feelings about that, combined with his feelings about other things going on in his life, his inability to express himself, and his lack of conscious awareness of his feelings led to him react by distracting himself with food, sex, shopping, alcohol and other things he felt entitled to because of his pain and anger (which he didn't have the ability to recognize for what they were.)

One of the promises of Twelve Step programs is that you will come to not regret the past. While I wish there was another much less painful way for me to have learned what I'm learning from this, we are experiencing individually and as a couple so much growth from this that I could honestly say that I am beginning to not regret what has transpired. Not that I wouldn't change it if I could, but I can't. And that doesn't seem so awful anymore.