Today a got a text asking simply "How are things going?"
It felt like a loaded question. I guess because it's that time of year where we reflect on the past few months and look forward with new goals, hope, and direction... How are things going?
Good, I think.
Since the Togetherness Project, my life from the outside looks pretty much the same. But on the inside, it feels like a lot in my life has changed.
I came home that night and talked with my husband about everything I learned that day. I talked until he fell asleep. That conversation opened a gate that I hadn't realize was so closed. We'd spent the past couple of years talking about pornography and addiction lightly here and there. I never meant to "not talk about it" but we had stopped getting into the deep parts of it very often.
This conversation lasted over a week. We just kept talking and talking about it.
The best part about all this talking is that I had a couple of beautiful miracles happen. The first was when I realized that I had forgiven him. I have been wondering for years how I would know for sure if I had truly forgiven him. In the middle of all this talking, I just suddenly had a feeling of peace come into my heart and I knew. I knew that I was ready to choose to forgive him. And it was done. As quick as that. Not how I expected, but AWESOME.
The second miracle was the chance for the first time in our marriage to let him know exactly how I felt without any fear. I told him everything I was feeling without worrying about how it would make him feel. HUGE for me! I have spent our marriage tiptoeing around him when it comes to talking about how his addiction was hurting me. {It has nothing to do with me being scared of him or anything like that. He is never mean or violent. He just feels soooo baaaaad. You know how it feels to see a grown man weep? I hate causing that. I don't like the strange feelings that come with it. I want to see him as the big strong loving protector of me, not the guy that I make cry because he is so depressed about how he doesn't know how to handle his depression without hurting me. I was attracted to him because he was a MANLY MAN, not because he was sensitive. It really throws me off to see him that way.} In our first round of therapy as newlyweds, some things about his childhood came up that I was not aware of, so I feel the need to protect him from those lasting feelings of worthlessness and failure. I tell my husband often that I am proud of him. Those words are extremely important for him to hear. On the other side, I hide it the best I can anytime I am disappointed in him because I hate seeing him depressed and I'm afraid that it will only push him back to porn. Does that make sense?
Anyway.
After all this talking and those wonderful breakthroughs and moments... We were like newlyweds again. The way newlyweds are supposed to be. We couldn't stop touching and talking and laughing and feeling positively smitten with each other. We spontaneously went on a short vacation to celebrate the start of a whole new marriage. We just felt like life was pretty perfect.
I also worked on myself and my relationship with my kids.
This really is a whole other post, but I realized after Togetherness that I have almost completely lost who I am in the midst of dealing with being married to a porn addict. My personality and most of my friendships have nearly disappeared. I used to be so funny and adventurous, spontaneous and unique, surrounded by people with several close relationships. When my boat started to sink, I let go of so much of what makes me, me. I was so busy surviving that I stopped thriving. So, I made a plan to work on "finding myself" again.
I also realized that I was so busy trying to be a good mom that I forgot to be a fun mom. I started really playing with my kids again and stopped trying so hard to be perfect.
And then, the magic started to wear off, as these things tend to do when you have to get back to everything else in life. I got sick and it lasted forever. I swear I have had 6 different viruses in the past month. It has been so frustrating. I've always been the type of person that catches everything despite being a germ freak, so I should be used to it by now, but it was really easy to get depressed when I went from feeling on top of the world one day to stuck in my bed or on the couch for the next several weeks. To have this happen over the holidays is just plain depressing. There were so many great plans made and then broken because I didn't have the energy to stand up. Every time I started to feel good, completely new symptoms would hit me like a ton of bricks.
I'm finally feeling better. *knock on wood*. It was a miracle to be feeling good on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Then everyone in my family passed around a stomach bug. But that has finally passed. Time to get back to loving life again!
I've been thinking a lot about this blog and why I started it and why I haven't published anything since October. Besides just being busy and/or sick, I guess I don't quite feel like I belong in the group of women who blog about their life with sex addict husbands. But, I'll try to keep writing anyway. :)
Thank you to those who reach out and email me. You're all so amazing. Let's encourage each other.
Loves
