Post by geoff on May 21, 2006 23:04:19 GMT -5
I'm sorry its taken me so long to get back to this but I've had a virus (affecting the human, not the computer ) and I've also had a hard time really putting this part together in my head clearly.
I'm still not sure I have it all together yet, but I'll start typing here, and we'll see what comes out.
When my wife went (very rightfully) ballistic on me on D-day (number 2.... ), it was the first time I really opened my eyes and looked at myself for who I was and decided to change. Prior to that I had disliked things about myself - maybe even hated them - but I felt no
compelling desire to change... maybe I didn't think I COULD change... maybe I felt I was "just who I was". D-day changed that. I decided that I could no longer be that person who was hurting my wife, being a sh!tty excuse for a father to my children, being an underachiever at work, and wasting my life.
I decided that no matter how much it hurt, I was going to change. I'm not where I want to be yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I've made progress. I think I've made very good progress in the realm of my relationship with my wife. I think I've made some
progress with my children, but nowhere near enough. The rest of my life has kind of taken a backseat, but little bits and pieces of improvement are seeping in.
Let me back up for just a minute. Why did I have to re-learn, or learn for the first time for some things how to be a good man? Why did I have to learn how to be a husband after 17 years or so of supposedly being one?
Alot of what I really was thinking of when I was mentioning relearning is my ideas of what sexuality is about (though that's not all of it). It finally dawned on me the other day that I created my sexuality inadvertently, and it was a very "broken" thing. But because I never knew anything else, I didn't realize how broken it was until several months into my recovery. I obviously never intended to be a porn addict (or at least I hope that would be obvious). Over the course of my formative years though I developed the personal paradigm that sex was about looking and self gratification, rather than being something between loving adults.
I learned to masturbate very young.... about 4 years old. Prior to puberty (though I'm not positive when) I was using the women's underwear pictures in the sears catalog to arouse me. I was a compulsive masturbator as a teenager and beyond. I never really
bought much true porn, even as an adult, but got my jollies from a variety of visuals nonetheless. Prior to the internet, there were a few pictures passed around on floppy disks, and a fairly crude (in all senses of the word) program on the Mac's at my employer when I was a co-op student in college. For whatever reason, and I'm not exactly sure when, but it was early on.... I got to where masturbation was a self-comforting tool at some point, and an escapist one as well. Despite knowing the "mechanics" of sexuality, and sort of understanding the concept of loving a partner, I think my early "training" in sexuality as a solitary activity where one gets off to a fantasy had very deeply affected me, and it helped prevent me from being a good loving partner.
So I get married. I honestly believed (and still believe) I loved my wife when we got married. I think I did in my own way, but my flawed understanding led me to not see the human, the partner, the lover, the confidant... In looking back I think I saw the friend who got me off. In my misguided mindset, I believed this was how things were supposed to be. I didn't know anything different, and what's even worse, I didn't know anything was wrong with how the relationship was going. I thought it was typical, and even normal, that we should somewhat grow apart, become friends who pecked each other a kiss when coming or going, and have sex once in a great while. I didn't understand that this is not the way it was supposed to be. I didn't grasp the concept of giving my heart to someone.
D-day2... she's had enough (again). She can't take any more of this. Her impassioned efforts to get me to understand actually worked. I felt her pain. I felt my own pain at understanding what I had done. I saw how torn up she was inside by the continual betrayal, how her heart and her soul were so broken. I don't know how but it got me to start feeling. I knew somehow that I could either stand and accept the pain and feel it and do something with it, or alternatively I could push it all back to her and force it back into
her.... which quite literally could have been the death of her.
So I decided to accept the pain. My normal response would be to try to one-up her and show her my pain was worse, "so take care of me instead". But this time I couldn't do that - maybe because she told me not to - but I still had to do something different than what I had done before. And that's where the concept of major change comes in. As I was starting my journey of recovery I knew I wasn't who I wanted to be. I knew I had to change. I knew I had to change very thoroughly in order to be a better me. I decided I had to consider tearing myself down to the bare foundation if necessary. I decided I had to bear the pain for the promise of a better life down the road.
One of these areas of change involves sex, but its really about love. If I would have been asked about our love life prior to starting recovery, I probably would have said it was pretty good. In reality it was very much lacking. My early learned patterns of self-absorbtion and focus on self-satisfaction were prevalent. We had a formal 2 week abstinence period - and in hindsight we probably should have gone a little longer I think - and we agreed that if I started getting into old patterns, where the porn was running thru my head or I started thinking in the old ways, then we had to stop. And we did. I don't remember how many times, but it definitely occurred. I did not want to associate our sexual and romantic activities with porn or my old habits and thought processes at all. I didn't want porn and all that went with it intruding into that space at all, and the only way I could think of to do that was to stop when it did intrude, and not allow that mode of thinking to be reinforced by continuing on to the "reward". Yes its frustrating to do that. But I believe the benefit is clear, and the longer term benefit is so much more important than just getting off this time.
About 8 months after D-day, I had an epiphany, and it finally dawned on me what "lovemaking" was all about as opposed to "having sex". I've told this story before, but it was such a powerful realization that I felt like continuing on to get my jollies at that time would have ruined the moment. It wasn't anything as simple as "hey look, she can "have fun" too!", because her "having fun" wasn't an uncommon experience. This was a light coming on. A very very bright light.
I consider that proof positive in my mind that I'm on the right track.
In a number of other areas I'm trying to rebuild and relearn as well. As a father, I'm still probably pretty low on the scale, and I haven't put as much effort in as I should, but I'm trying to break my bad habits, trying to listen to criticism, and trying to improve. I'm trying to improve my health some, although that's not going as good as it should. I'm trying to improve my work habits. Frankly I'm very impatient, so my expectations are probably too high, so maybe that's something to work on too
I really don't think I've made the point that I wanted to make very well. I'm actually rather dissatisfied with how this came out... but I'll let it go into the ether anyway.
What I wanted to get across is that I (and maybe all of us did?) spent a long time inadvertently learning to be what I became. There will be pain involved in changing, but that pain is necessary. We can't look at sobriety as just "not looking at porn" and possibly "not masturbating", it means changing the way we live our lives. You've got to take that to heart to really recover I think - no matter what your path... whether its via your God and your religion, 12-steps, acupuncture, or watching nothing but Sesame Street. The path itself doesn't matter as much as the recognition that there is no other choice but to change yourself deeply and significantly. There's much more to recovery than just keeping your hands out of your pants.
That's about all I can write for tonite. Maybe I"ll write more on this as I get it worked out in my head.
take care all,
geoff
I'm still not sure I have it all together yet, but I'll start typing here, and we'll see what comes out.
When my wife went (very rightfully) ballistic on me on D-day (number 2.... ), it was the first time I really opened my eyes and looked at myself for who I was and decided to change. Prior to that I had disliked things about myself - maybe even hated them - but I felt no
compelling desire to change... maybe I didn't think I COULD change... maybe I felt I was "just who I was". D-day changed that. I decided that I could no longer be that person who was hurting my wife, being a sh!tty excuse for a father to my children, being an underachiever at work, and wasting my life.
I decided that no matter how much it hurt, I was going to change. I'm not where I want to be yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I've made progress. I think I've made very good progress in the realm of my relationship with my wife. I think I've made some
progress with my children, but nowhere near enough. The rest of my life has kind of taken a backseat, but little bits and pieces of improvement are seeping in.
Let me back up for just a minute. Why did I have to re-learn, or learn for the first time for some things how to be a good man? Why did I have to learn how to be a husband after 17 years or so of supposedly being one?
Alot of what I really was thinking of when I was mentioning relearning is my ideas of what sexuality is about (though that's not all of it). It finally dawned on me the other day that I created my sexuality inadvertently, and it was a very "broken" thing. But because I never knew anything else, I didn't realize how broken it was until several months into my recovery. I obviously never intended to be a porn addict (or at least I hope that would be obvious). Over the course of my formative years though I developed the personal paradigm that sex was about looking and self gratification, rather than being something between loving adults.
I learned to masturbate very young.... about 4 years old. Prior to puberty (though I'm not positive when) I was using the women's underwear pictures in the sears catalog to arouse me. I was a compulsive masturbator as a teenager and beyond. I never really
bought much true porn, even as an adult, but got my jollies from a variety of visuals nonetheless. Prior to the internet, there were a few pictures passed around on floppy disks, and a fairly crude (in all senses of the word) program on the Mac's at my employer when I was a co-op student in college. For whatever reason, and I'm not exactly sure when, but it was early on.... I got to where masturbation was a self-comforting tool at some point, and an escapist one as well. Despite knowing the "mechanics" of sexuality, and sort of understanding the concept of loving a partner, I think my early "training" in sexuality as a solitary activity where one gets off to a fantasy had very deeply affected me, and it helped prevent me from being a good loving partner.
So I get married. I honestly believed (and still believe) I loved my wife when we got married. I think I did in my own way, but my flawed understanding led me to not see the human, the partner, the lover, the confidant... In looking back I think I saw the friend who got me off. In my misguided mindset, I believed this was how things were supposed to be. I didn't know anything different, and what's even worse, I didn't know anything was wrong with how the relationship was going. I thought it was typical, and even normal, that we should somewhat grow apart, become friends who pecked each other a kiss when coming or going, and have sex once in a great while. I didn't understand that this is not the way it was supposed to be. I didn't grasp the concept of giving my heart to someone.
D-day2... she's had enough (again). She can't take any more of this. Her impassioned efforts to get me to understand actually worked. I felt her pain. I felt my own pain at understanding what I had done. I saw how torn up she was inside by the continual betrayal, how her heart and her soul were so broken. I don't know how but it got me to start feeling. I knew somehow that I could either stand and accept the pain and feel it and do something with it, or alternatively I could push it all back to her and force it back into
her.... which quite literally could have been the death of her.
So I decided to accept the pain. My normal response would be to try to one-up her and show her my pain was worse, "so take care of me instead". But this time I couldn't do that - maybe because she told me not to - but I still had to do something different than what I had done before. And that's where the concept of major change comes in. As I was starting my journey of recovery I knew I wasn't who I wanted to be. I knew I had to change. I knew I had to change very thoroughly in order to be a better me. I decided I had to consider tearing myself down to the bare foundation if necessary. I decided I had to bear the pain for the promise of a better life down the road.
One of these areas of change involves sex, but its really about love. If I would have been asked about our love life prior to starting recovery, I probably would have said it was pretty good. In reality it was very much lacking. My early learned patterns of self-absorbtion and focus on self-satisfaction were prevalent. We had a formal 2 week abstinence period - and in hindsight we probably should have gone a little longer I think - and we agreed that if I started getting into old patterns, where the porn was running thru my head or I started thinking in the old ways, then we had to stop. And we did. I don't remember how many times, but it definitely occurred. I did not want to associate our sexual and romantic activities with porn or my old habits and thought processes at all. I didn't want porn and all that went with it intruding into that space at all, and the only way I could think of to do that was to stop when it did intrude, and not allow that mode of thinking to be reinforced by continuing on to the "reward". Yes its frustrating to do that. But I believe the benefit is clear, and the longer term benefit is so much more important than just getting off this time.
About 8 months after D-day, I had an epiphany, and it finally dawned on me what "lovemaking" was all about as opposed to "having sex". I've told this story before, but it was such a powerful realization that I felt like continuing on to get my jollies at that time would have ruined the moment. It wasn't anything as simple as "hey look, she can "have fun" too!", because her "having fun" wasn't an uncommon experience. This was a light coming on. A very very bright light.
I consider that proof positive in my mind that I'm on the right track.
In a number of other areas I'm trying to rebuild and relearn as well. As a father, I'm still probably pretty low on the scale, and I haven't put as much effort in as I should, but I'm trying to break my bad habits, trying to listen to criticism, and trying to improve. I'm trying to improve my health some, although that's not going as good as it should. I'm trying to improve my work habits. Frankly I'm very impatient, so my expectations are probably too high, so maybe that's something to work on too
I really don't think I've made the point that I wanted to make very well. I'm actually rather dissatisfied with how this came out... but I'll let it go into the ether anyway.
What I wanted to get across is that I (and maybe all of us did?) spent a long time inadvertently learning to be what I became. There will be pain involved in changing, but that pain is necessary. We can't look at sobriety as just "not looking at porn" and possibly "not masturbating", it means changing the way we live our lives. You've got to take that to heart to really recover I think - no matter what your path... whether its via your God and your religion, 12-steps, acupuncture, or watching nothing but Sesame Street. The path itself doesn't matter as much as the recognition that there is no other choice but to change yourself deeply and significantly. There's much more to recovery than just keeping your hands out of your pants.
That's about all I can write for tonite. Maybe I"ll write more on this as I get it worked out in my head.
take care all,
geoff