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eve
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| Joined: | Wed Sep 19th, 2007 |
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Posted: Wed Oct 10th, 2007 06:12 pm |
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Hello, I am new to this and I lost the letter I just wrote, Not very good on a computer so I will have to start over. My husband and I will be married for 34 years this saturday. We are in our early 50's. We are both Christians. My husband was introduced to pornograpy at a young age in his home thru magazines and videos. I have not trusted my husband for years. Not that he would have an affair but that he would look at stuff he shouldnt while I was away. I set up a trap with a mirror in the living room that I could see from my bedroom to see what he was watching when I went to bed. By this time we had gotten rid of all the movie channels though so there was slim pickens. But what I saw him do was he would use the remote and rewind certain women that were dressed skimpy or in different poses and use slo-motion on them. Never new he did this. I dont think I wanted to know any thing that he has done all these years but I would always have that nagging feeling about stuff.. He used to shut my bedroom door and watch tv when I would go to bed {Maybe 2 times a month} and the tv would be turned down and I just knew something was taking place. I just cant trust him. Thats what it keeps coming back to. Not to mention now since I have confronted him I found out about all the lusting that went on in our marriage. He told me he would lust after friends or anybody, not all the time but alot. This is truly why I am here. My husband is a new man. I beleive that he is doing very well but I am not. As I look over the past 33 years all my memories are tainted. It all has the flavor of lust. I cant even go to town without seeing all these women dressed provacitivly and wondering where my husbands thoughts were all these years on all our outings. It just sickens me therfore I would like to never look at any of our picture albums again. I feel like I am scarred for life and i really dont know if men really do ever get over this stuff. I cant heal cause the women are a reminder of what destroyed our marriage. Eve
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TimM
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| Joined: | Thu Jul 5th, 2007 |
| Location: | Rural Midwest, USA |
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Posted: Wed Oct 10th, 2007 10:45 pm |
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Eve,
Can I reply just quickly? My wife and I are similar ages to you and your husband, and we've been married for similar lengths of time. I, too, have struggled with this issue at least my whole adult life.
I can really relate to your sense that the whole of your marriage is now under a cloud. My wife has had very much the same feeling. There's a lot I have to atone for.
One thing that might (or might not) give you a way to recapture some of the good things that were part of your marriage is to have a little sense of what the experience of the addict is like from inside. In pursuing our addictions, we are hiding not only from you, but from ourselves. I really perceive this almost as being two separate people; I think this is a common experience of addicts. When I was with my wife, I really cared about her and was thinking of her. What we shared was real. There was also a hidden side of myself, whose existence, of course, can't at all be overlooked. This hidden side of the addict, though, can horrify us as much as it horrifies you. Addicts commit suicide, when we do, as a final act of homicide against a part of ourselves that we cannot escape from and cannot endure, a part of ourselves so painful that we can become willing to die in order to be free of it.
This experience of being multiple people is, I think, common. We are not acting with rational calculation; both the caring image we project and the indifferent and isolated monster are real parts of ourselves. There's a piece of the good memories that does reflect reality.
Now, of course it's more complicated than that. On another level, we are always hiding and always holding back. We're not open emotionally, not transparent, not intimate on any deep level. Our addictive isolation really does change the character of our souls.
There still is a piece of us that sees that fact, and that feels that pain, and that struggles to make real connection. Perhaps that is something positive to celebrate. Perhaps at least the pain that is always there in our lives even if we can't admit it to ourselves is a sign of our continuing humanity.
I hope this makes some sort of vague sense. It's hard to describe an irrational, emotionally ill state to someone who hasn't been there.
I don't for a moment mean to imply that we are not responsible for our actions, or that our pain and illness excuses what we have done. Absolutely it does not. I just offer one way of thinking about what it feels like inside as we are sinning and betraying and abusing that might give nuance to our existence and suggest that there still is some sort of love and care present in us, as well as some divine spart from which healing can grow.
Can we recover? I sure hope so. It's not an easy process. I spent at least 40 years learning how to live wrong. I'm not going to learn how to live right after 1 year, or 2 years, or 10 years, but I'm really convinced a new life is possible for all of us. I've been sexually sober not quite 2 years now. I know people with 10, 15, 20 years. It's hard work, like recovering from any addiction. I know a lot of multiply addicted people, and I think all of them feel SA is harder to recover from than alcoholism or cocaine addiction. We need support and counseling and prayer and a commitment to recover at all costs. Those who can do that and hit bottom and make recovery the central task in their lives, though, are finding freedom and joy every day. I certainly still have much work to do, but the past 30 months or so of my recovery have been without question the most blessed time of my life. For those who really want out, there is enormous hope.
Just a few thoughts. I hope some bit of them might mean something. Welcome, and do well, in any case.
Tim M.
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eve
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Posted: Thu Oct 11th, 2007 12:47 am |
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| Thank you so much for replying. Alot of this is just as you say. My husband is so different now. God got a hold of him about 1 year ago and it was with the 10 commandments that He did it with. He saw that he was not living totally for the Lord, only what came easy did he hand over. There is quite a bit that has lead up to this that I will probably share later {wish I could type faster} I love the fact that we are heading into winter, but come summer I am afraid of crashing like I did this year. I was on guard eveywhere we went. Never was I like this are whole life. You think I would have thought he looked at other women cause of the insecurity I felt, but this to was not all brought to light till the last 3 years I would have to say as to when it all started to unravel and what a mess. Its like ther is not one inch left in me for him to make a mistake. I would agree that SA is really harder than most addictions.If I wasnt concerned about it before you would think I could get ther again, but it is like when Adam and Eve sinned then their eyes were opened and it was never the same...........Eve
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