LU- thank you for your visit
I'll address your thoughts later, as I really don't have the energy right now. But they are good ones, and I do want to explore them. Thank you. *hugs*
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A letter I'm writing to my H, in response to a very long, very hard discussion we had last night. He admitted that only about half the time does he even want to quit. He admited that he is still (recently) occassionally actively looking for that "fix", but thinks he has "progressed" becuase he's choosing to get that fix from a picture, instead of a real woman, and actually using that fix to lessen his desire to think things about the women he sees, so that (in his mind) is reversing his addiction progression...he says the days he chooses to "not care" or "not want" recovery are days when he's angry (mostly at or about me).
I don't think I care much about what he says about his PA right now, but that's ok...I will later I'm sure.
The letter:
You say that me asking questions and expecting answers *now* is selfish. I say that you not being willing to give the answers I want or need is selfish. I think, in some ways, we are both right. Selfish = self-serving, wanting something that will benefit you, just for the purpose of benefiting you. I want the answers so that I know exactly the extent of what it is you are dealing with, so I know whether or not I feel comfortable continuing this relationship. For example, if I found out my husband had murdered someone in cold blood, I would no longer be comfortable being his wife, even if we had children, even if we had been married forever, even if I loved him. Obviously, you haven’t killed anyone, but that’s kind of what I mean. There are things I *can* deal with, and things I *can’t*, or don’t want to, deal with. If you were into child porn, I’d have no choice but to leave, but I’d have the right to know & to make an informed decision. (I’m not saying you are into that, so please don’t read it that way.) I want to be able to decide that I am going to continue being your wife, feeling secure that ghosts of the past will not come back to haunt me later, when I least expect them. I have this overwhelming need to know everything so I can stop worrying about what I don’t know. I’m uncomfortable with what you told me last night, but I tried very hard not to judge you based on that disclosure. I appreciated you telling me something that personal. It does scare me and makes me wonder what other things there are that are left unsaid, but to be honest, I already thought that might have been something you had done in the past. I wasn’t totally shocked to hear it.
I understand that talking about things in your past (whether it be a week ago, or 10 years ago) may bring up pain for you, may be uncomfortable, may make you fear getting re-rejected by me. And there’s obviously details I don’t need to know, even if I wanted to…and details you probably couldn’t give me even if you wanted to (for example, how many times you mb to pictures, movies, etc…obviously I know you don’t know the exact number, I don’t expect you to know.) But things (like the stuff you told me last night about the calendar, the panty-stealing, etc) are basic “things” that I have the right to know.
The things you are beginning to write down… yes, they are personal. Do I have the “right” to read them? No. I know that, and I won’t push in that direction again. I’m sorry I did last night. I think what upsets me about this is that I wish you wanted to share those things with me. I wish you wanted that level of closeness with me. I wish you wanted to open the window of your mind to me instead of me trying to sneak a peek in through the slats in the blinds, so to speak. You don’t want any of those things, at least right now, and that hurts me. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, I’m just telling you how it makes me feel. I do not want to be your “sponsor” or your “accountability partner”, but I want to be involved. I want to be informed. I want to see the progress or lack thereof. If I’m being forced to just believe you are “in recovery” but am not allowed to see what that recovery looks like, I’m once again an outsider trying to get in. It makes me feel invisible, as if I don’t matter in this. If I’m forced to be the outsider, I can’t begin to trust you, can’t “let go”, can’t possible understand what it is you are “doing” if I am not allowed to see it. Maybe that’s why I wanted to read what you were writing….because you don’t want to talk to me about what you are feeling, and I so badly want to know your thoughts…and not just the bad ones. I don’t *want* to know what your specific thoughts were about that girl that just walked by. I want to know what the thought process was when you were able (or not able) to let her walk by without a second thought. Maybe if you were successful, I’d like to celebrate that victory with you, encourage you (and myself ) that you are heading in a healthier direction. Maybe if you are struggling, and I know pieces of what the struggle is, I can help you. Maybe not. At this point, I don’t think you want my help, and that’s ok. Again, it sucks for me, but it’s ok, and I have to accept it.
I understand your addiction is yours. I understand I can’t “fix” it. I understand I don’t know everything about this addiction, about your feelings, the way you “work”. I understand (or at least am led to believe by what I’ve read) that at some point of your recovery, should you choose to recover, you will come to a place where you *want* to disclose, where it will be like a burden lifted off your shoulders once you do. You will *want* to make me feel safe again, you will want to begin the trust-rebuilding process. I understand you are not there yet. It sucks, for me, because I feel unimportant, again. I feel like you are valuing your own needs (comfort) and wants (not being “looked down on” or rejected, keeping your stuff “secret”, etc) before my needs and wants. The reason this angers me so much is that I feel that’s all you’ve ever done. That is the basis of this addiction in our lives. It has always come before me, you’ve always “chosen” it over me when push came to shove.
The other thing I wanted to address was honesty vs. dishonesty. There are many (if not most) women who will tell you it’s not the porn addiction that ultimately ruined their marriage, it was the lies. The saying goes “Porn hurts, but lies kill.”
You get angry because I don’t believe you when you promise you are telling the truth. And I don’t. That is just fact…it is what it is. Like I said last night, you could be totally sober for 10 years, never look at another woman, be the perfect husband in every way, but if the secrets, lies & omissions are still there, our situation will NOT have improved at all. You have to get to a place where you “own” the fact that you have destroyed my trust, that I now have an instinct to not believe you. That is something you will have to work on fixing if this relationship will ever work. I do not have the responsibility of “trying to trust” you. I am not going to make myself anymore vulnerable then I need to be, and blindly accepting what you say as truth feels very dangerous to me right now. I hope the day comes where I don’t feel that way. But, for today, I do. As I said last night, when the facts support what you say, I can believe you, and it feels very good. But when my internal lie detector starts going haywire, and what you are saying contradicts logic & basic provable facts, I refuse to accept you are being truthful. It is YOUR responsibility to accept it, stop being angry at me for protecting myself, and do everything in YOUR power to reverse it, to show me, through love & openness, that it’s safe to trust you, that I won’t be hurt by believing you. It’s going to take work on your part. You will have to take a proactive approach (answering what you *know* I will ask, before I even ask. Giving me information on your own free will, instead of me having to pry it out of you. Being willing to get yourself “into trouble” if need be to show me your commitment to no more secrets, no more lies. Actively affirming to me that you *know* I don’t trust you, but that you are trying to make me feel safe.) It’s going to take you understanding that leaving out even the tiniest detail when answering a question is a lie, telling me you think something you don’t really think is a lie. Not telling me something because you’ll get “in trouble” or I’ll be hurt is a lie. Choosing your words to make something seem not “as bad” as it is in reality (minimizing) is also a lie. And as a side note, when you are being honest, and I start feeling “safe” in trusting you, and then you tell one little lie, it totally tears down the trust building you had begun. It brings me right back to square one. I feel so worthless that I don’t even deserve the truth. I feel like an object. I feel like you honestly believe I’m stupid, stupid enough to fall for whatever you want to hand out. I feel sad that you don’t value me enough to be truthful.
I *get* that convincing you of the importance of truth, honesty and transparency isn’t really something I can do. I’ve been trying to beat it into your head for years, and it hasn’t worked. It’s going to be something that one day (I hope) just clicks in your mind, and you can see a lie, or a secret, or an omission, for what they are….dishonest ways of undermining a relationship, a sure way to seal the grave on something that is almost dead already, and a way to derail any progress being made.
I believe that a lot of what I’m “expecting” of you is probably too much right now. I’m guessing that even someone who’s been in active recovery for awhile may still struggle with these things (honesty, intimacy, “true” disclosure, etc). I wish I could snap my fingers and have you really truly hear what I’m saying and believe it to be fact and act on it. I can’t. The hardest thing about this whole situation is having to sit back and watch you make or break this, having no control whatsoever over what you do, if you do it, how you do it, why you do it and when you do it. I apologize from the bottom of my heart for making you feel pushed. I’m not meaning to do that. I’m trying to explain to you the way I see things, such as lies, disclosure, etc, and in explaining them, I’m saying to you, this is what I need. I need full disclosure. I need transparency. I need honesty. I need intimacy. You have every right to say, “well what I need and what you need are so different that I can’t/choose not to meet your needs.” (I’ve heard this is your words before… “I’m not going to tell you because I don’t want to.”) You also have every right to say “I need those things to, but I don’t know how to bring them into life right now.” (I’ve heard this, in a much quieter way, in your words too.)
In reality, this is all about choices. Unfortunately, my choices are somewhat based on yours. I’m feeling like you are making a choice not to choose, if that makes sense. That leaves me feeling unwanted, unimportant, alone, used, thrown away, abandoned, unloved. I think in the bottom of your heart, you know I haven’t left you yet. I think you know that I might leave you. I think you know that this (your recovery, the mending of our relationship, both from the addiction and from other things unrelated) is going to be hard as hell. I think you don’t know if you want to bother. In fact, you’ve said that, so I know you think that. So, I feel like the choices you have made are…”Go to SA, maybe I’ll learn something. Tell the wife I’m in recovery, so leave me alone now. On good days, I’ll do my best to be sober. On bad days, I’ll say, the hell with it. I’m not going to be 100% honest about things, big things or little things. I don’t need to be. I’m going to do this alone. I’m not going to make any promises, or even set any goals or expectations for myself because I’m not choosing to commit to quitting this for good.” There’s more, but I’ll leave it at that.
Because I need to, I’m going to list some of what I would ask you if I could, if I knew you’d be honest, if you were willing to tell me. I don’t expect the answers, as we’ve already discussed that you are unwilling to give them right now. Honestly, if you were to answer these right now, I don’t think I *could* believe I was getting truth from you, even if I wanted to. I think I would still question it…I thought it might be good for you to see what kinds of things I’m wishing to ask. Of course, I’m sure more then what I list here would come up in the course of things, but here is what’s on my mind most heavily right now. I’m sorry if these anger or hurt you. That is not my intention. I’m sure you’ll probably think, “what the hell is she thinking?” on some of these, and that’s ok. I can TOTALLY understand how answering some of these may be the hardest thing you’ve ever done (depending on the answers, and depending on your ability/willingness to be “real” and truthful 100%). I can understand if they make you angry at me for asking..like how could she ever think that way about me? But if you had read what I have read about the ways this escalates for some people, you’d understand my fears. Like I said, I’m not expecting answers, at least not now. I just wanted to give you a glimpse of what I meant when I said “not telling me what, but telling me there are things that would be “the last straw” leave me feeling very scared of what those things may be.”
Were you honest with me about your sexual history? What IS your sexual history? Are you willing to retell it? (how many partners you’ve had, etc)
Have you ever had homosexual thoughts, urges or desires? If yes, have you ever acted on them, either in porn use, or in real life?
Are you attracted to girls (who are or appear to be under 18)?
Have you ever done something illegal to get your “fix” (besides the panty-stealing)?
Have you given any thought to the erectile dysfunction you had when we first began having sex? Do you have any ideas on what that may have been caused by?
Have you ever been a “peeping tom”?
Have you ever had sexual encounters with a prostitute? Have you gone looking for one, and chickened out last minute?
What other fetishes do you have beside the one I know about?
Have you searched online for anyone local to “connect” with since we’ve been together via chatrooms, personal ads, craig’s list, etc. ?
Have you had cybersex with anyone since you met me? Phone sex? Real sexual contact (not just the actual act)?
I’m going to leave this letter now. I’ve said a lot, and gotten pretty long-winded. My original intent was to just to try to clarify my thoughts & make clear to you what I’m asking for & from you, so there’s no doubt in your mind. I’ve been trying very hard lately to not continue beating my head into the same brick walls, and this letter is a bit of that I guess. It’s (mostly) nothing I haven’t already said, so I need to end it.
I hope you can read it without anger. I hope that someday you will choose to want recovery. I hope that someday you will choose to make the right choices. I honestly hope I’m still around to see the man you can be….and I hope you start believing you CAN be that man…..the sober, non-objectifying, loving, honest man who’s no longer slave to his thoughts.
end of letter
off to think about my future & what it does/doesn't include