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| Feline family feast |
Before my mother became an addict, she was a really great mom. And one of the things she insisted upon was family dinner. No television, no radio. Just four people sitting around a table eating and sharing our day. My brother and I, of course, did everything we could to make my mother abandon her commitment to family dinner. Farting noises, outlandish stories, complaints about what was on our plates. She was steadfast. Family dinner proceeded and my brother and I eventually gave up our protests.
And – whattaya know – it's something I insisted upon when I had children of my own. For years, when my husband was cheating on me and I hadn't a clue (I believed him when he said he was "working" and, some nights, he actually was), I would sit down with my three young children. I enjoyed the ritual. The setting of the table, the preparing of food (sometime enlisting small hands to help me), the sharing of our day.
Not long before D-Day, my husband asked me if the kids missed him at dinner. "No," I told him. "Their memory of you will be an empty chair at the dinner table." After D-Day, I demanded that my he start joining us for dinner. He did and has continued to for 12 years.
My eldest, now 20, is back at home again after returning to university in our city, and routinely tells me how grateful she is for our family dinners.
The only thing that our family dinner is serving that's truly of value is attention. For roughly an hour each day, we pay attention to each other. (And it's not every day. There are things that get in the way – night school classes, hockey practices, volunteering – but most nights we are gathered around our table.)
I'm grateful to my mom for setting that standard. Because many of kids friends who've joined us for our meals tell us they never sit down with their families for dinner. What my brother and I considered punitive, these kids relish.
It's not easy to find time in a day to pay attention to each other. For a whole lot of us, unless there's a crisis (hello infidelity!) or drama (hello teenagers!), many of us remain focussed on just getting through. It's enough to put food on the table, or pay the bills, or, at the end of our day, to relax in front of the television. We check in with each other – "how was your day?" to which we hope to hear "fine". Job done, we can turn on Netflix or crack open a novel.
Our 24/7 world is constantly pulling our attention somewhere. Fires in California! Another election! Parent-teacher night! Black Friday sales! Book club! Yoga class! Weekend conference for work! The list, as we all know, is endless.
And, trust me, I'm as guilty as the next mom for just wanting some quiet a lot of the time. What's more, plenty of our dinner conversations lately (god help me, teenagers!!!) are about sex vs gender, drugs, misogyny, the economy... Gone are the days when we talked about something funny that happened on a school trip, or shared facts about sharks or dinosaurs. The stakes are high right now.
But, I absolutely know that the single best thing I can be doing right now is paying attention. Listening. (I'm working hard at learning to listen more and talk less. Not easy!)
What I'm even guiltier of lately is ignoring my husband. When he retreats to our basement to watch his favorite shows, I never follow him. I tell him it's because the basement is freezing (it is!) or that I have to bake cookies for a cookie exchange (I do!). But it's also because I'm often exhausted by that point. I have little attention left.
Which is dangerous.
He invited me to lunch the other day. I had mentioned that I was craving a particular meal from a particular take-out place that's a block from where he works. I hadn't made a big deal about it, just noted in passing that I had a craving.
The next day he called me to suggest we meet for lunch at this place.
And the most amazing part of that wasn't the meal itself.
It was that he had noticed. He'd been paying attention.
I am definitely in just get through mode. This is a hard time of year for me for many reasons (as you all can relate) and add in the latest drama over money and emotional bs from my ex and i'm just allowing myself to be in survival mode. Everything feels like lifting boulders. So. I try to be choosy about the boulders I'm lifting. Trying to be there for my daughter who is (as noted above) a lot of drama, but also seems to have relentless health issues (hello legacy of ptsd) but also just plain old pink eye right now. So she feels sad and shame about not looking lovely. Talk her through but feel guilty that I am not there at home with her, since I opted to go away for some of the thanksgiving break. Even though I brought in take out last night, I made sure to sit with my son while we both ate our food. Had a little convo. I need to do this more.
ReplyDeleteBu this latest hurdle or flatness or whatever it is, is sabotaging my ability to be completely present in my new relationship, and I'm not sure its fair. Something is not clicking for me, but I'm not sure if that's "real" or just my emotional state right now. Maybe I'm the one who is emotionally unavailable right now. So I am trying to just be in the moment when we spend time together. We had a nice weekend away. (And it underlines and bolds for me something that LLP said to me recently - that maybe being in this house is not so good for me. I'm living in the shell of my old life, in some what prolonging the pain of ending?) It was nice to be some large physical distance away from my ex and things that reminded me of him. His latest moves have him playing in my head so much lately. I feel like I'm back to constantly labeling and interrupting my thoughts again. It's hard and frustrating to be back here when I felt like I had come so far.
And so since I am responsible for my own well being these days, I need to pay attention to the ways in which I am not taking care of myself. Taking on too much or expecting myself to be handling things "better." what even is that? I just know I'm hurting right now.
I told new guy some of my story with my ex, about his cheating and he hasn't chickened out and run away like the last guy. It was a lot to get through. At some point when I have the juice and if things get serious enough, I plan to tell him about my side of that coin too. Not because there's any risk of me acting that way again, I just need, for my own sake, to not have any dark secrets or skeletons hidden from him. Urg. That's my current mood.
Hi ladies, I've posted here once before recently, anonymously. I recently discovered my husband and father of our 2 small daughters, is a sex addict and has been cheating on me since I met him about 10 years ago. I received trickle truths from July til September this year. He is in counselling, doing well, very remorseful and basically doing all the right things now. I just started seeing a psychologist but due to high demand it's hard to see her as often as I need. I've decided to stay for now at least. At first I was numb with shock and disbelief then furious and well and truly on the emotional rollercoaster. Lately i'm really struggling with how blindsided I was by this and the implications of that. I struggle with panic and fear...terror even that I could have missed other things. It occurred to me (I think it was due to a plotline in some show I was watching) that my husband could have hurt the children. When I consider this, I feel like I'm holding on to the edge of a cliff about to free fall. I have literally no evidence that would suggest this as a real possibility and this fear is not like that instinctual gut knowing such as I felt before in the lead up to discovering evidence of his addiction. He is a good father. In the past he was very distant and fairly uninterested in them, I had to ask him to spend time with them but it's clear to see he loves them and they love him. Before, his addiction just made him very distant and cut off from everyone. He is working hard to be a better father to them now. HeHonly ever cheated on me with women, almost always older women (about middle age) at that so it's not like he has any known disturbing preferences. Somehow when I am with my hudband, I still feel safe with him. That tends to trigger these freak outs because if I let myself feel safe with him like I felt safe before, what more terrible things could happen? All to say, I realise in my rational mind that this fear has no rational basis of any kind andI yetis likely a trauma response to being massively betrayed and deceived by the closest person to me ..and yet I feel that intense fear as if it COULD be true therefore I cannot let the idea go for fear that my children will get hurt if I let my guard down and assume he is safe. To ease my anxiety he has agreed to sleep in the spare room which is easily locked off from the rest of the apartment. He is sad that I am having these thoughts and of course has reassured me he has never even thought of hurting them especially as he experienced an incident of sexual abuse as a child and wouldn't wish it anyone...but he understands how much this whole thing has messed with my mind so he is just accepting that set up. It was scaring me that he could get up at night and I wouldn't necessarily know. It's not only him I don't trust in that way with my kids. Ive always been very protective and scared of that but now I have seen that you can never even know or trust your own husband so how can I trust anyone enough to let them have unsupervised access to my kids? I used to feel like even if the larger world could be scary n dark at times, that MY world was a safe place, that my home was a safe place but I've lost that now and the possibilities of what kind of sick things could be happening that I'm unaware of just kill me. Im planning to speak to my psychologist about this but til then, has anyone else experienced this? I find this all so incredibly disturbing.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else experienced this? Honestly, expatwife, I could have written this entire comment, word for exact word.
DeleteI discovered after 10 years and it had been going on our entire relationship. I too worried that he had potentially hurt children. I too felt unsafe and unbalanced and fearful of my future and wondered who in the world could I ever trust again.
But re. your husband: Most sex addicts never ever do anything to hurt children. (There was a guy in my husband's SAA group who admitted to pedophilia and my husband was enraged and disgusted, as were the others.) The only way through this is...through this. You're going to feel this way for awhile. Your husband is going to have to show you, day by day, hour by hour, that he is working on his addiction issues. Slowly, if he keeps doing the work, he will earn your trust.
In the meantime, your job is to help yourself heal from this. It sounds, not surprisingly, as if you're experiencing post-trauma stuff. I did EMDR which helped me a ton. I also saw a therapist regularly. It sucks that you can't see yours as often as you'd like but something is better than nothing.
Keep reading here (also my book Encyclopedia for the Betrayed, talks a fair bit about sex addiction since that was part of my story). Read Stefanie Carnes book Mending a Shattered Heart, which is fabulous. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005OTKS90/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)
You will get that sense that you and your home is a safe place again but it will be because you have learned to trust yourself again. It's a process. I felt EXACTLY like you and it was one of the things I was most angry about. After a chaotic childhood, I had built my life on what I thought was a safe rock. I was wrong. And that's really hard to come to terms with.
But expatwife, you will get through this. You are not alone. And, chances are, your husband engaged in vanilla escapades that didn't involve anything illegal. Doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt like hell. But I think you can put that particular fear aside.
Expatwife, So sorry you are hear and for everything you are going through. I think everything you are feeling is totally normal for what you are dealing with. I too felt the same way. I would say definitely consult your psychologist about this for sure. My husband was not a sex addict but I actually had similar worries. In the end I never thought my husband would cheat on me for ten years and lie to my face when asked directly about other women several times. After being betrayed and lied to anything feels possible. I think that is the key factor we have not done anything wrong and they are the ones with the issue. My therapist was emphatic that my husband had to do whatever I needed him to do, it was all my rules and he threw away his freedom when he cheated. You are still early on and the best advice I received was to not feel like I had to make any decisions at that point. Setting boundaries and expectations for everything in great detail was critical. We also scheduled a time to talk once a week. That way we were not talking about it constantly. Daily I would write in a journal. That helped me not to focus on it all the time or worry if I should bring up every little thought to him. I wrote it down, looked at the patterns over the week and then was able to focus when talking with him. Otherwise I could have talked about it all day every day. That was not good for either of us. It took a little while for us to get to this point but this helped us a ton. He became less defensive or feeling like he had to fix everything. I think he was prepared for our talks vs worrying if every time we talked or spent time together if it was going to be about what he did wrong. We spent as much time together as possible the first year. And he demanded 100% authenticity and transparency from himself.
DeleteTake care of yourself and your kids! Be kind to yourself. And continue to seek professional help! You are doing amazing already for all that you have been through. It does get better.
Elle, your response gave me such relief just to know I'm not the only one who has had to sit and think about the most terrifying, sick and unthinkable things imaginable. I felt like such a freak that that is my life.
DeleteI've actually already read your book and as expected I loved it and I gave it a 5 star rating on amazon;) I'll get right onto the Carnes one next, thanks for that recommendation. I'm reading Paula Hall's book for partners of sex addicts right now and I'm finding it very useful and practical although it does contain some hard truths which right now mainly just frighten me (I.e. the risk of relapse, basically addiction as a chronic disease...sounds very depressing) I certainly didn't sign up for this but i'm just gonna keep on keeping on because as I recall you having written before, there's no getting over it, only through it. I'm about to start that university degree I should've got about 10 years ago and we are organising my husband's visa so, in aayear or so, we can move back to my country which we never should've left. This is me getting my ducks in a row as best I can, setting things up so that even if it all goes south at least our kids will have both parents around, I will have child support and be better able to stand on my own two feet. A lot happening but I think the studying will serve me well distraction wise.
Ah, forget to mention my psychologist also happens to specialise in trauma AND is the only practitioner of EMDR in the entire country...crazy bit of luck right there and did I mention because she is provided through my husband's employer we don't have to pay to see her?!
DeleteBravo to you for going back to school. That's awesome.
DeleteAnd great news re. your therapist. Take advantage of every single thing she offers.
Thank you for your response Hopeful 30, your idea about the journalling to process it all so it doesn't dominate communications is a really great tip that I think I will be using
Deleteexpatwife, I just want to say I'm here and sorry for what you are going through. My ex, also molested as a child, was a sex addict and visited massage parlors for five years before I found out, along with his other, more serious affair. I know he would never harm our children. I'm pretty sure he would beat the daylights out of anyone harming a child because it hits so close to him. This stuff has so completely messed up his life and the lives of those around him, me and our kids included. I'm sorry it is having a terrible impact on you and your life too.
ReplyDeleteBut I will tell you that just as Elle says, you will be OK. You will start to trust yourself again. Home will start to feel like home. It is a huge deal that he is abiding by what you have asked for in order to feel safe. Absolutely huge.
I'm sending you a big hug expatwife.
Thank you Stillstanding1, your reassurance and support means a lot
ReplyDelete