How far I've come

Last night I was looking at some phrases I've kept on a piece of paper beside the bed to remind me about what I've learned from discovering Husband's sex addiction.

• I can find peace and freedom in surrender and gratitude
• I'm powerless. Just admit it and surrender (over and over and over again)
• One day at a time.
• My most important relationship is with my higher power, which I am an expression of
• My most important actions are to use my life and my abilities to be of service as an expression of love, compassion and non-duality, and to celebrate everything I have.
• If I listen for it I will always hear the voice of higher power.
• Pain, fear and all kinds of adversity are opportunity. I can allow both the good and the bad to be gifts.
• What am I resisting?
• I can always choose the most empowering context.
• Surrendering to the moment at hand is usually the most powerful response.
• Have fun!
• If I forget all of this, remembering is the next part of my journey

As I looked at that list, I realized how much of this has become who I am. I don't need this piece of paper as much as I used to, because much of what I've learned has become fundamentally integrated into my approach to the world.

It made me happy to realize that I've really grown and changed in some very potent ways.

I'm proud of myself, because it wasn't an easy road, and it could have gone many different ways.

I'm still growing and developing, but now I have these new tools that have become part of me that make me stronger in the world. Stronger for myself.

There have been a lot of challenging things happening in my life lately. An unanticipated hysterectomy, discovering Husband had been looking at Sports Illustrated swimsuit models online again, the loss of my 14 year-old dog to cancer, the loss of a business partnership, job interviews for big jobs, and falling behind on the mortgage.

Through all of this, I've used the new tools I've learned - turning things over to higher power, new levels of confidence, speaking up for myself without worrying about being "reasonable," operating as if I deserve all good things that come to me, surrendering, praying, listening for higher power, choosing a context that empowers me, and not running from fear, pain or adversity...

I can feel my own strength in ways I never have before. I can feel a relationship with myself that I never had before.

I feel ready for the world, ready for any challenge, ready to make the most of every opportunity. All this is new, and thanks to the work I've done.

It's been worth it.

What to do with the things I can't change

When I met Husband in 1988, Mom and I were renting an apartment together. After Husband and I became a couple, he moved in with us and we three have lived together ever since, through 22 years, 2 more apartments and a house.

If Husband is my greatest teacher in the spiritual sense, my mother is his. This translates into a very difficult relationship between them. Not very pleasant for me, but, especially over the last 3 years, I've tried to stay out of it.

Husband had told me that he felt trapped, because he knows I'd never be able to ask my mom to move out. I empathize with him, but he's right. It's a cost to me to have her here, but the cost to me of asking her to leave would be greater. And Husband has been compassionate in not asking me to make that choice. But it's important to him that I know how stressful it is for him, that I know his feelings.

The other day as I listened to Husband complain about mom, I could see clearly how he could relieve a lot of the pressure himself.

My mother isn't malicious. At her worst she's passive aggressive, but many times she's just doing her codependent best to be helpful. Mom doesn't have a good set of tools for self-expression, and she's not aware of what an absolutist she is. She rejects anything that starts to feel like an authority figure (even her own decisions) and frequently undermines us as parents by siding with my son on subjects such as bedtime, consumption of sweets and treats, second helpings, etc... She generally focuses on the worst that could possibly happen. And she is very self-righteous, while at the same time vehemently declaring her disdain for self-righteous people. In short, mom lacks self-awareness on many levels. But she tries to be helpful, and she does the best she can. (I'm really trying to cultivate compassion in my relationship with her, to let go of what I think she should be and appreciate the best of who she is. I have varying degrees of success.)

If one gets frustrated with a cat for meowing instead of mooing, who is causing the problem?

I understand many of Husband's problems with my mother. I share some of them, and I also have my own. But something I know that both Husband and I recognize is that there is little if any chance that the things that bother us about mom will change. For all intents and purposes, my mother is an immobile object.

As I listen to his complaints, I see all the things he could do from his own side to alleviate his suffering - for example, not taking her behavior personally, not expecting her to put our son to bed on time when she babysits, not getting upset when she draws our attention to the latest child kidnapping or tragic death, etc. (I don't tell him any of this, of course, because thanks to therapy I'm trying to practice listening without offering solutions.)

"It's like there's this thing in my life that I really, really wish wasn't there, but there's nothing I can do about it," he said. "You know what I mean?"

I felt like a light switch flipped on in my brain.

"Yes! Yes I do!" I said to both of us. "I know exactly what you're talking about."

I realized in that moment that this was how Husband could begin to understand how I feel about his lies and infidelity.

And in the next moment I began to wonder if all the clarity I had about how he could alleviate his own suffering could be applied to me when something triggers me into thinking about the past, or when I have uninvited thoughts and images come into my head.

Husband patted my leg. "I know you do," he said. "I know what you're talking about."

So I've been thinking it through. When there is something in my path that is beyond my control, the thing I can do is decide how I respond. I can get angry with the cat or feel hurt because it doesn't moo, I can feel disrespected when I ask the cat to moo and it meows, or I can say "That is a cat, and it meows." In other words, here is something that I don't have the power to change, and there is nothing for me to gain by wishing it to be anything other that what it is.

Or very specifically, the events of my past are what they are. Triggers and invasive thoughts are an opportunity for me to practice bringing myself back into the present moment, where I do have the power to have an impact.

What is going on in the present moment? Is Husband treating me the way I want and need to be treated? Is something bothering me that I need to address or express?

If things are good in the present moment, I can take a deep breath, surrender to the past that I have that will never be any other way, and enjoy the happiness of the present moment.

I think if one wants to try to change something that can't be changed (like the past) or that doesn't think it needs to be changed (like my mom) one must consider whether the cost of trying to change that thing (or wishing one could) is worth it, or if there is a more productive action that could be taken. I think there is a lot of truth to the saying "What you resist persists."

The trick is to figure out how to grow so that I'm not stopped by immobile objects in my path. Maybe it's finding compassion, maybe it's having a difficult conversation, maybe it's surrendering to my lack of control over something, or maybe it's something else.

I believe it's possible to progress without resisting that which I have no power to change.

It was a nice opening for me. I could feel the space created by seeing this parallel between Husband's situation and my own, and I could feel the peace that came with my willingness to surrender.

Esteemable act for this week

This has been a big week. I had a planned hysterectomy on Monday to solve a problem of severe bleeding due to fibroids. And Tuesday Husband got some big news that equals a big step forward with his project. So the time for esteemable acts is now, because I can feel the sea of self-doubt churning.

At 46 my chances of bearing a healthy child were questionable at best, but now it's a definite no. As the date for the operation drew near I was very busy with work, so didn't have time to dwell on the sadness that came up from time to time. Which was a good thing I think. (And thankfully I've been able to talk to Husband, close friends and my therapist about it.)

We both realized we wanted another child almost the moment our son was born, but it didn't work out that way. We never went to extreme measures, I had one miscarriage at 15 weeks when I was 40, and despite lots of ovulation kits and pretty consistent trying, I didn't get pregnant. Even after I found out about Husband's sex addiction, I diligently kept going to the acupuncturist for fertility treatments, but I think I was under too much stress to get pregnant for the next couple years. Then Husband had medical issues of his own that made sex challenging. And then at the beginning of this year I had the period that wouldn't stop. I thought I was miscarrying because we'd been trying and my period was late, but after a month I ended up in the hospital with dangerously low hemoglobin levels. I was, as usual, busy with work and attributed my shortness of breath and exhaustion to allergies and not enough sleep. But no, actually I was slowly bleeding do death. (Kind of dramatic, but not an exaggeration.) The fact that it took me so long to notice brought up issues that I'm addressing. But that's not what this is about.

What this is about is Who am I if I'm no longer the wife who can bear children? I'm no longer young, I'm no longer in possession of a uterus, I'm not thin, I don't look like a model, I'm not the wide-eyed adoring girl he met 22 years ago, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not...blah blah blah...Who am I if I'm not an object of attraction to Husband?

I need to answer that question more than ever now, so it feels good to be working on it.

I've been thinking about my esteemable acts as things that I can do, actions that I can take without depending on someone else, actions that leave me with a sense of personal accomplishment, with the feeling that I'm doing what I was put on earth to do, with the feeling that if I died today, I'd have been doing something with my life that was meaningful to me and fulfilling in the moment.

All big things start with small steps, so the small steps I took this week all had to do with self-care. I took the week off of work and have been focusing on resting, spending time with my family, and reading two books: The 4-Hour Workweek, which focuses on freeing up more time; and Zen and the Art of Making a Living, which focuses on "creative career design."

Oddly, taking this kind of time for myself feels indulgent, so I'm counting it as an esteemable act, because I'm declaring by my actions that I am worthy of the time to consider and plan my future, that I don't have to be working every moment to be worthy and valuable - that I can declare my value and not have to prove it by working when I should be resting.

Like I said, it's a baby step.

Being loved used to be enough

Went to see my therapist today. I've been feeling better, not so heavy and sad, but I know I still have work to do on my self esteem issues so I was looking forward to getting back to it.

We talked about my anxiety over the prospect of Husband's success, and my fear that he'll get all caught up in his success and meanwhile I'll disappear. And that when he has success, that will make him attractive to hot young women who will look at him adoringly and giggle and make him feel smart and cool and sexy. My crazy head says to me, "If someone can have something better, then why wouldn't they want that? And what do I have to offer that would trump a hot young body, a gorgeous face and pie-eyed admiration? Isn't that much more attractive to a man than a 46 year old, nice looking but chunky woman who is sometimes distant, sometimes sad, and highly suspicious of you?"

One of my close girlfriends who knows what has happened between Husband and me told me that her therapist suggested doing "esteemable acts" as a way to build self esteem. I've been putting off thinking about what these could be for me because I've been so busy with work. (I also put of going to the doctor because of work earlier this year and ended up in the hospital with dangerously low hemoglobin levels because I was slowly bleeding to death, so I guess I don't learn, do I? I'm fully recovered now, and none the wiser apparently.) But I don't want to go along in this same self-esteemless rut and wake up in 5 years to see I've made no progress.

I also talked with my therapist about my sadness over losing the relationship I thought I had with Husband. I don't have any big accomplishments in life. I haven't climbed the Seven Sisters, or become a successful artist, or written a book, or traveled the world, or discovered anything, or cured anything, or become an expert in my field. Nor do I have the material trappings of success: no VP title, no big salary, no fancy car or house, no fantastic wardrobe. Before these things didn't bother me, because I always came back to my relationship. That was what I had. That was what was really important in life, and there I was successful. All that other stuff was icing on the cake - great if it came along, fine if it didn't. I had a loving partnership that was solid and true.

And then I didn't. Instead I had a husband who'd had sex with dozens of other women while we were married, spent tens of thousands of dollars on those prostitutes, and lied to me about all of it, even making me feel wrong and bitchy and crazy when I ever asked about things that I thought were questionable - odd charges on the credit card, for example (which I later realized were for subscriptions to prostitute review and reservation sites.) And I had the pain of feeling like I'd become forgettable to the person I thought loved me most in the world.

So now sometimes I feel I don't have anything. Not the material spoils, not the outward gains, and most important, not the trusted partnership that I valued above all else. I do have my amazing son, but I have to be careful to remember that relationship is ultimately about letting go. He's not my life partner. If he's healthy and if we have a healthy relationship, he'll be separating, not hanging around as I get to be a little old lady the way I envisioned Husband would.

Thinking about it, I realized I ended up in this position because I think that for me, being loved was enough. As long as I knew I was loved, other personal goals and desires became secondary. What could be more important that spending time with the person you love most in the world? Not that I gave up my dreams and interests. I just didn't pursue success or any particular accomplishment, didn't try to climb ladders and get ahead. I had my own life that was busy and full and didn't revolve around Husband. But I didn't have a strong agenda for myself. I didn't need one. I felt deeply loved, and that was enough. I didn't long for anything else.

But now I see that I stopped building my own identity out in the world. I wasn't an appendage to husband at all. But I stopped growing and shaping myself outside of my happy little world of family and close friends.

The best metaphor I can think of is boats. We weren't two boats anchored side by side. We were two boats, but he was the one with the anchor (at least that's how it felt) and I was tied to him with no anchor of my own.

So it's time to begin with esteemable acts, so that I don't disappear from the world if Husband forgets about me. (Not that I really think he will anymore, but the fear of that is hard to get past.) Time to define who I want to be in the world, what I want to do, and take action on those things. That doesn't have to take anything away from my relationship with Husband. And it will help me develop a relationship to myself. I will create my own anchor.

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.

Ebb and flow

The heaviness is lifting. Not gone, but not crushing either.

I need to remember when I get down like this...things change.

But the past doesn't change. And therein lies my struggle. When it comes down to it, I still grieve what I lost, and I still wish for a different June 1st, 2007.

The self-loathing part of myself says I should be past this by now. But the healthy part of myself, which is much stronger from these past 3 years, knows that self-criticism will get me nowhere. I've been doing it for 45 years, and I can see that. Maybe that self-loathing is my addiction. I wonder what would happen if I treat it that way. Will have to think that through and see if it applies.

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.

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.

My year of trusting God

Well, it's 3 days past the 3rd anniversary of my discovery, and I'm starting in on Step 3.

Turn my life and my will over go God.

Wow. Not something I ever imagined I'd consider. Ever.

I'm afraid that means giving up, giving in, being helpless. I know I've endorsed surrender many times, but to surrender my whole self? That just feels wrong.

"It's God's will that I have this job when I really want another job." I don't understand how that sits side by side with creating / causing a job I really want. How do you turn your will over, and still have power in your own life? I don't want to just float along saying, "It must be God's will" as I'm going nowhere fast like a ship without a rudder, a piece of bark spinning helplessly along with the current.

I can't control others and I'm fine with that. But I want to control me! I want to have some kind of say here!

The thought that just flashed across my mind: Maybe it's about taking action and then turning the result over to God. So maybe that's how those things sit side by side. Take action and let the result be what my higher power sets before me as my next catalyst.

I'm thinking maybe I'll make this my Year of Trusting God, kind of like an experiment, and see how it goes.

Frankly, I'm skeptical. I don't know if I can really do this. Ugh! I don't want to turn my will over to anything!

I can tell this is going to require a lot of deep breathing.

A useful distinction

I made a useful distinction today that I don't want to forget: Taking responsibility for others lives leads to pain and frustration, while taking responsibility for one's self is liberating and empowering.

Boy, I wish I'd realized that 40 years ago.