Constant pain and anger

The last time this happened, back in 2007 -  Round One, as I've been calling it -  my son was 5 1/2. Because of this, I took a pause and thought about what my desired outcome was. And I realized I really  wanted to heal my relationship so that we could provide a home for son. The Addict was a great dad and, in many respects, a good partner. And  all the therapists seemed optimistic that we could accomplish this healing and rebuilding if we were committed to it. And I believed the Addict was, and maybe he believed it too. Who knows. So, in dealing with my feelings, I was careful not to break the Addict's spirit. Our family needed him to have a chance to  recover.

This time is different. Son is away at college, so I don't have any agenda except self-preservation. I still don't want to break the Addict, because Son still needs a dad, but I've been much more forthright about my anger and pain. 

In June 2007, texting wasn't a thing. But now, I can get my thoughts and feelings out in a coherent, written form and still keep a distance, and it has been helping me. 

Me: Some thing that really hurts me is I wonder why did you want to have sex with these other women? Why didn’t you want to do it with me instead? And I wonder, with all this recovery work you’re doing, if you’re looking at why you feel entitled to put your dick in other women’s mouths and vaginas when it is soul-crushing to your wife who loved you. Are you looking at that in your recovery?

After witnessing all the pain and anguish and existential chaos I went through, how could you choose to again do the very thing that hurt me the most? That level of disregard for someone you have already put through such torment is sociopathic.

I go to sleep crying and I wake up crying because it hurts so much.

He read this and texed back that I was in crisis, and that I should call my therapist immediately. 

But I've been through this before, and I learned a lot. I know how to take care of myself, how to call friends, read 12-step literature, write, not drink too much, attend meetings, all the things. I won't be self-destructive, because that's  just allowing him to take even more from me. And I  still have Son's well-being to consider. I know what crisis feels like, because I've felt that, too.

Me:  I am not in crisis, I am in pain. It’s a searing pain that does not go away. I have respites but it is always there. It is like a full body burn. All the damage is done and all that is left is to feel the pain through the long healing process. Last time I was in crisis. Last time it was an existential explosion. This time it’s all just pain and anguish. And I just have to feel it. No way through but through.

And that's really how it feels. The emotional and spiritual pain is constant. Sometimes it is more, sometimes it is less, but every moment I'm feeling loss and grief to some degree. And there is nothing to be done but feel it. There is no going back in time. There is no fixing  it. I  just have to feel it all and get  support.  

It has always  bothered me that the Addict will never fully understand the impact his decisions have had on me. There is no way he can know the existential pain, because for him, there are no gaps  in the story of his life and everything was how he wanted it. He made all the choices. But it left me with no choice. I could not take any steps to protect myself. I could not decide for myself whether or not I wanted to be married to someone who was fucking prostitutes because I did not know, because  he lied and lied and lied and lied. To my face, without batting an eyelash. And he stole tens of thousands of dollars of our money to support his addiction. His lies took away my agency, which is a soul-damaging thing. 

I had no say in the decisions he made, which have torpedoed my life. Yes, I'm choosing separation, but the alternative is to continue  to stay in what is essentially an abusive relationship and that's where the learnings from last time come in. Fuck no to that.

Today's stream of consciousness

I wake up in the morning and lie in bed alone. This will likely be the rest of my life - waking up alone. It makes me sad and angry to have to be getting accustomed to a life I never envisioned.

Husband posted his need for a place to live on FACEBOOK. "I'm sorry to say that I need a place to live, just me. Blah blah blah."

I found out about this when a mutual friend of ours texted me. "I don't know what's going on, but I saw Husband's post on Facebook." Offering all her love and support, nice, but WHAT THE FUCK??? 

"I just posed it to my friends," he says. He has 1200 friends on FB, including most of my family. So now god knows who knows about this very personal, painful experience that I'm going through. 

So, in that moment, I formulated my response to those who contact me about this: We have been dealing with significant issues around Husband's addiction, lying and infidelity for 15 years. I have recently discovered that he has been unable to stop those behaviors, so we have decided that separation is best at this point. It's a very painful time, and I appreciate your concern.

For family and inner-circle friends, I add "infidelity with prostitutes" because I'm done helping him maintain his cool-guy, fun-guy, smart-guy, awesome-guy persona. He's a lot of great things, and he's also shitty, I-fuck-prostitutes-and-FOR-DECADES-betray-my-wife-who-loves-me guy. We deserve the full picture, don't we?

When I confronted him about the Facebook post he texted, without any sense of irony, "Didn't think of ramifications for you."

I go back and forth about what I want. My love for him pulls me toward wanting to work it out (again). But my self-preservation instincts are screaming for me to get the fuck away from him. I mean, he's been lying to me over and over again since at least 2012 about drinking. I kept trying to accept that perfection isn't possible and to hold a space for hime to change. I never thought to check our bank accounts  for missing cash because he witnessed my agony in 2007 and we spent years in intense therapy and 12-step programs. So I thought that at least fucking prostitutes was in the rearview mirror of our lives. I was so happy each time I realized how many years had passed since he'd fucked another woman. Now - it's been two months. So disgusting.

And I feel defiled by it. I feel disgusted and disgusting. I need to go for an STD test. AGAIN. 

Husband is a MONSTER - not all of him, but part of him. That part can never love and care for and protect and honor me. And that is what I have to learn to accept.

God, PLEASE grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Life after us

I really don't know how I'm going to do this. How can I never see Husband again? How can I live my life separate from his. I had envisioned our lives together, growing old, holding hands. I am heartbroken.

I'm an adult woman, so I know my life can go on. I have a job, I know how to take care of myself. My life is not going to fall apart. 

But my heart is the thing that is having a hard time. Husband was my good place. The happy place for my heart. I loved the sound of the door when he came home from being out because I knew I'd see him. I looked forward to spending time with him, talking to him, going to the movies, traveling, reading his writing, playing tennis with friends, walking the dogs, going to the beach and endless other mundane to amazing things we do together. 

Knowing that things can never be that way again causes me so much anguish. 

So much of him loved me and I miss that love, that presence of love and intimacy and connection in my life. But there was a part of him that didn't love me - that couldn't love me. And that's the dangerous part. That's the part that throws away every promise, commitment, vow, concern and care and does what he wants. Why? Why does he have to have that part? Why can't he be the person I thought he was without that awful, dangerous part that is willing to hurt me in so many ways??? Why??? Why is there no answer to this question????

I don't want this life I have to have without him. But there is no other life. My life after us. I know there will be a lot of good there. But right now it just hurts so much it's hard to imagine.

Dealing with normal when nothing is

The pain comes in waves as a sudden hollowness in the middle of my body as I try to look normal in Zoom meetings for work. I suddenly become present to all the loss and grief. I take a deep breath as my body processes the feelings and try to pay attention to the meeting. I am distracted. I can't remember what day it is. I forget what I'm doing. 

It still hurts

Last night, I asked Husband to leave and today he is gone. Lying alone in the dark I feel a painful gaping hole in me, like something was ripped out of my chest. I don't have words for the grief and sadness feel. So much that was foundational to my life has been taken from me. Why did I trust him again? I fooled myself because I loved him and I felt loved by him. I am lonely because my most intimate relationship is gone. I have great friends, but it's not the same. A piece of me is gone and it hurts so much. I am overcome with grief. 

This time is different

I am hurting—deeply—but I’m not hollow and annihilated. My heart aches with sadness and grief, but the world is not devoid of color and purpose the way it was the first time. I do not wake up dreading that I am still alive. 

And for the first time in nine years, I have the freedom to choose again, with full knowledge of what it is I’m choosing. Because I did NOT choose to be betrayed again. I did NOT choose to have sex with Husband after he fucked prostitutes (during COVID with high-risk people in our household, including me). I did NOT choose to stay with a liar. I chose someone in recovery, someone who had chosen honesty as his principle, someone who had seen me destroyed as a result of his actions, seen me in the deepest anguish, and who had worked hard to get well and be able to be in a healthy  relationship. THAT’S what I chose—or thought I chose. 

But Husband has a part of him that feels entitled, that feels he deserves to do what he wants despite the deep betrayal and the many times I’ve asked, begged for honesty and monogamy (in my mind, monogamy goes without saying because we’re married, but I did say it.) 

That entitlement is where his humanity ends. 

And that is why he treats me this way. He says he loves me, but he was not loving. Any loving acts he did were only covering up the lies he was living and forcing me to live. 

I don’t see how he could ever do do enough heal the pain and anguish that I am feeling.

The truth about being married to a sex addict

Husband confessed tonight that, since 2013, he has been to massage parlors 11 times and had hand jobs and blow jobs and that three of those times he had sex with the prostitute, including most recently on November 8 of 2021. 

I am done.

I do not regret the past. I grew tremendously and gained a Self that I didn't have before because of everything I went through circa 2007. And we provided a loving home for Son as he was growing up.

Ninety-five percent of Husband is amazing. He is funny, talented, smart, creative and loving. But five percent of him chooses to betray his wife, knowing full well how much pain and anguish this has caused me in the past because he thinks he deserves it and he can get away with it. I can't live with that part.

I'm heartbroken because I'm losing my Person; my soulmate, my confidant, my harbor, my most intimate best friend who gets me and loves me and appreciates me and who is an amazing father and a great partner whom I loved and admired and respected. 

But there is a part of him that feels entitled to have what he wants, despite the fact that he is betraying me, hurting me, leaving me feeling worthless to the most important person in my life. He thinks he deserves it and that he can get away with it. 

I will not live with that.

I wanted things to be different because I loved him deeply. But I am done, because I deserve better.

I asked him to move out tomorrow.

It's quiet

 And I wake up on the first day of the new year alone.

Boundaries: A Users Guide, Chapter I

Today is not what I would have hoped for, nor what I imagined as recently as this past Thanksgiving. Husband and I are separating. He’s moving out after son returns to college at the end of winter break. 

I found out on Nov 29 that Husband was drinking and lying to me about it. It has been going on for months. I noticed a few times that liquor was missing but he said it wasn’t him. (He is a recovering alcoholic, but I still drink alcohol and we have it in the house.) I thought I'd smelled liquor on his breath a few times, but he denied it. I noticed gum and mouthwash, but didn't put two and two together (although somewhere deep inside I must have). But I discovered a bottle of vodka in the trunk of Husband's car after he asked me to open the trunk because he thought he'd locked his keys in there. When I opened the trunk, there was a bottle of vodka, one-third full. Of course, he denied that it was his. “I haven’t had a drink in 5 years.” 

"Then how did it get here?" I asked. 

"I don't know," he lied. 

I asked point blank if he was drinking and lying about it and he denied it. But I knew something wasn't right, and I kept digging for the evidence and he kept denying. Some of the hard-earned lessons I've learned are to trust myself and to believe that I have the right to ask and dig when thinks don't seem right to me until I'm satisfied with the answers. No more giving the benefit of the doubt, no matter how much he loves me or I love him. 

"The bottle was in a holiday grocery bag, just like the other groceries you brought home today. Why is that? It doesn't make sense if you didn't buy it today." 

"I don't know," he lied.

I knew he was lying and he knew he was lying. After about two hours of me giving him openings to tell the truth--while I continued to look for other explanations for the answers he was giving that didn't feel right, searching the trunk, asking more questions--he asked me what I was trying to find with all this searching. "I don't believe what you're saying, so I'm looking for a receipt." He pulled out his wallet, looked inside, and turned out his pockets. Nothing. And so I went back out to the car one last time. As he sat beside me while I looked at receipts that I picked up from the floor of his car, he said nothing. Even when I found the receipt from the day's grocery shopping that listed the bottle of vodka I'd found in the trunk, he said nothing. 

"I hope it was worth it," I said as I wadded up the receipt and threw it at him. I felt cold, detached and devoid of love for him. 

We had out of town guests coming to stay with us in a few days and then our son coming home from college for winter break, so we decided to white-knuckle the holidays and deal with this after Son returned to school, so as not to ruin his Christmas.

The Addict has relapsed with alcohol many times over the past years, each time but I had never thought to look at what he was doing online. This time, on Dec 28, I checked his computer and I found that, in addition to regularly buying alcohol and secretly consuming it, he has been looking at porn again for years, and that he had visited AshleyMadison where married people look for affairs and also the escort website he’d previously used to hire prostitutes. He also has looked for erotic massage, and I believe he actually had one in November because I could see his searches on the computer and withdrawals of cash near the massage parlor he was searching for. He denies that he's had any sexual contact with others. He claims that he did look for a place and did get out the cash and did go, but that he didn’t go through with it. I’ve heard that one before. 

Everything I'd tried to put behind me to give him the chance change and grow, to be the person he's said he wants to be and has worked hard to be--all of the pain of betrayal came rolling back over me. I fell into a couple of days of doing lots of investigating and cross checking of website activity and bank statements and anything else I could get my hands on. I wanted to know. I wanted the truth. I can't believe what Husband says, so I was looking for supporting evidence that when he told me he hasn't has any sexual contact with anyone else over the past 14 years that at least that was true. 

But what I realized is that I'll never know. I'll never know. I can't believe what he says, and there can never be enough evidence. 

I’ve been crystal clear about how much pain his lying causes me and how deeply painful the sexual betrayal has been. I honestly don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. I’m incredibly sad, but, unlike 2007, I’m not annihilated. That's a win for me. I have not lost my Self with this new discovery of betrayal.

Despite everything we've been through with his addictions, after doing years of intense therapy individually and as a couple, I have been open to him being a different person and I have worked hard to put the past in the past. (And it has been hard.) Over the years, trust has grown and he has again become my best friend, the person in whom I seek comfort when I'm down or frustrated, the one I have the most amazing conversations with and the most fun with. He's my biggest supporter, always encouraging me to do the things I love in live. We enjoy many of the same things, we laugh a lot together, we hold hands when we're together, he gets me and appreciates me and loves the good and the bad of me. He makes me breakfast and dinner every day. He is a 50/50 partner in the tasks of life, and he's an amazing father. That's what makes this confusing and so painful. Being with Husband is not all bad, it's not all pain. It's mostly everything I could ask for.

It should be simple. He lied. He cheated. He's out. That was the boundary I set after the last drinking and lying relapse in 2018. But with that decision I lose SO MUCH. I feel grief over the impending loss of love and friendship and family and a future growing old with someone I love and have decades of history with. Not to mention loss of our house if we divorce and have to sell everything to split it up between us.

So much of it feels irreplaceable. I'm 57 now. There is little chance that I'm going to meet an amazing man who loves and supports me the way Husband does and build 35 years of shared history with him--history like making a child together, moving through phases of life from our 20s to our 50s and all that goes with that. Not to mention that it doesn't really feel worth the effort, considering how much effort I've put into this relationship. I feel gripped with anguish.

But that's what boundaries are for. They keep you on the path you want to be on. Sometimes, they demand that you do things that you don't want to do in the moment, when you're hurt and vulnerable and confused. I don't want to lose everything we have together, but I also know I don't want to keep going through this pain. And I don't want to lose my Self by sacrificing my boundaries. 

If you want something different, you have to do  something different. So I told him I want a separation. I'm heartbroken and grief-stricken and lonely. But I want something different, and there is no other way to get that. Where I find myself now is proof of that, to me at least.

Not the new beginning I'd hoped for 2022, as we enter the third year of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

A couple nights ago, after we watched a couple episodes of "Station Eleven," Husband started sleeping in the guest room. I think he thinks that makes me happier. 

The risk of spirituality

I came across a phrase today: "The will of God will never take you where the grace of God cannot keep you."

Substitute Higher Power, The Universe, Love Intelligence, or whatever else you call the power in your life that's greater than you, if indeed you have such a thing. (If not, click here.)

I Googled the phrase, and found this poem, attributed to Anonymous:

The will of God will never take you,
Where the grace of God cannot keep you.
Where the arms of God cannot support you,
Where the riches of God cannot supply your needs,
Where the power of God cannot endow you.

The will of God will never take you,
Where the spirit of God cannot work through you,
Where the wisdom of God cannot teach you,
Where the army of God cannot protect you,
Where the hands of God cannot mold you.

The will of God will never take you,
Where the love of God cannot enfold you,
Where the mercies of God cannot sustain you,
Where the peace of God cannot calm your fears,
Where the authority of God cannot overrule for you.

The will of God will never take you,
Where the comfort of God cannot dry your tears,
Where the Word of God cannot feed you,
Where the miracles of God cannot be done for you,
Where the omnipresence of God cannot find you.

What I appreciate about this poem is that it suggests that even from the worst of situations and during the darkest of times, I need not despair.

During my darkest times, faith (inherently risky in that it requires believing without evidence) has been my biggest opportunity.

When I believe without evidence that all difficulties and challenges in my path are there to benefit me, anger, disappointment and despair can fall away.

When I believe without evidence that I will ultimately get what I need, in fact, that I already have exactly what I need to be happy and to progress as a human being, then forcing, struggling, resisting and hopelessness become unnecessary options.

After hanging on to skepticism for as long as my rational mind would permit, I've come to the conclusion that Faith is not a crutch, it's a shortcut. A shortcut to the surrender that results in peace and serenity.

All that's required is believing without evidence that there is a higher purpose for everything.

What if that's not true?

I don't care. Because from that perspective, my experience of life is better.