Is everything a lie?

The message in this post was hard for me to put in words, and I'm still not satisfied with it, but I pray that you will understand what I am trying to say.

I've heard this sentiment expressed by many women: once they find out about their husband's addiction and lies, they feel like their entire relationship was built on lies. That everything was fake. That he never loved her. That she was stupid to have ever believed in him. That it was all a lie.

It's not true.

I can say this, because I have come to know this. I know what it's like to wonder if your husband is lying to you about everything. I do not claim to know what it is like to have my husband cheat on me, but I do know what it is like to have him lie to my face and to look back and wonder how many times he lied to me. So, please, open your heart for a minute to what I am about to say.

My husband's addiction does not invalidate everything else about our relationship.

He married me because he loved me. Has he made some bad decisions since then? Sure. Does that mean he didn't actually love me when he married me? No, it does not.

We have laughed together millions of times since we have been together. Has he looked at pornography behind my back and lied about it? Yes. Does that mean he faked all the laughs he shared with me? No, it does not.

People make mistakes. They make bad decisions. They even fall out of love. But that does not mean that everything that came before or the life they led with you was fake or a lie? No, it does not. Am I excusing their lying and cheating? No. Not at all. But please remember that the lying and cheating does not automatically mean that everything else about your relationship was a lie.

In fact, many times an addict is afraid to tell their loved ones about the addiction for fear of abandonment. Think about that for a little while. They are afraid to tell you for fear that they will lose you. They know what they are doing is wrong, but that doesn't mean they want to lose you. I know it is selfish and flawed thinking on their part, but it means that their feelings for you were real even as they were making bad decisions.

It is your decision whether you stay with this person or not (and often a very difficult decision at that), but whether you end up staying together or going your separate ways, please PLEASE do not convince yourself that everything in your life was a lie.

I am grateful to have gained this perspective now. I hope that if my husband and I ever separate in the future, I can look back on the good times we had and know that they were good times. His joy was real. My joy was real. Our love for our kids was real. Let good memories be good memories. Separate them from the addiction and the lies.

on letting go: need your advice

Source

Last night at our women's support group meeting (which I highly recommend you all attend--see if you have one in your area), we talked about being powerless against our loved ones' addictions. Interestingly, this had been on my mind all week without knowing the upcoming topic of our group meeting.

Only it's not even the pornography that I'm worried about right now. (Note: I am still worried about it and briefly thought my husband was lying to me last night, but it's not my main concern at the moment.) You see, I have been pushing my husband for as long as we have been together. He has commented at times that he probably needed me here pushing him beyond his borders in order to accomplish more than he might have otherwise. But I'm coming to resent it now.

It all started when we were dating. Perhaps I should have seen the signs (of both my and his weaknesses). He didn't have car insurance, and although I kept reminding him, he kept not signing up. So one day I looked up an insurance agency and made an appointment for him and went with him to get it done. I felt such relief.

Then there was the pornography issue. I felt like I was having conversations with myself. I was looking up information online. Trying to find solutions. Asking him to go to group meetings. Reminding him that he should talk to the bishop. Pushing, pushing, pushing. He is doing really well right now, but I still feel the need to push. Last time we relaxed in our efforts, it all came back.

Then there was school. I guess I had assumed that he would really step it up and go gung-ho on school when we got married. You know, once he had the pressure of providing for a family. But that didn't really happen. He didn't grow up in an education-focused family and he never stepped up and took it on himself to push hard for his education. So I pushed him. I made sure he remembered to sign up for classes on the right day. I constantly asked him about his graduation requirements. I was so relieved when he finally finished. Push, push push.

Then there was the job search. By then we had a child and I was pregnant with a second, and he had been laid off from his full-time job a year before his college graduation. I thought for sure having a child would kick him into gear and he would put all his effort into doing well in school and getting a good job. Granted, we're in a terrible economy and jobs are hard to come by (and competition is fierce), but it still didn't happen as I had imagined. I pushed and pushed (and still push). In my mind there is an obvious list of things you should do to increase your chances of finding a position, getting in the door for an interview, acing the interview, and then doing everything else in your power to get the position. And when I don't see him doing these things, I push and I push and I push. I'm not so concerned with the lack of job offers. I'm concerned with the quality of effort being put into the search.

I'm tired. I'm tired of pushing. I'm tired of feeling like I have to manage his life.

And I'm scared to death that if I completely let go of that control, it will never happen. And I know this is something I need to work out in my own mind. As someone who has a history of working hard (and on my own) to get what I want, it's hard for me let go.

I know that what he accomplishes in this life directly affects me, because we are married and we have children. I do not expect him to be rich. In fact, I don't have any desire to be rich. I'd like to stay home with my kids at least part time. I'd like to save up for retirement. I'd like to save up for my kids' education. And I'd like our marriage to survive. No, not just survive. THRIVE.

So I feel like giving up control and letting my husband take the reins on his own is accepting that these things may never happen.

How do you do that? How do you let go? How do you trust in the Lord's will and accept that you can't control everything?

Especially when that means potentially giving up what you want?

I want so badly to have faith in my husband. I want to think, "Well if I would just back off and stop pushing him, it will give him a chance to step up and show what he's capable of." I want to badly to believe that that will happen. And maybe it will. But I'm scared to let go and take that chance.

(Not to mention it SUCKS to come to the realization that you're a control freak and probably making your husband feel terrible and worthless and incapable in the process.)

How do you do it?

I don't owe you anything

Source

Tonight was a struggle for me. I've been thinking a lot about the women who fought this battle for years only to have it get worse and end in divorce. I'll be honest--this scares me. I'm realistic enough to know that we could end up in the same boat if things take a turn for the worse. While we seem to be doing really well right now, it still is quite sobering to remember this possibility.

While I tried to fight it, these thoughts crept into my mind and put me in quite the somber mood.

At one point in the evening, my husband was joking around about something and said, "Well, you know you owe me." I was quiet for a minute and said, "I don't owe you anything." And for a few minutes, I meant it. I owe him? It should be the other way around. I have endured a lot because of his actions. I've supported him. I've pushed him through school. I've worked full time to support our family. I've written and re-written countless resumes and cover letters for him. I've grown kids inside me and my body is forever changed as a result. I've forgiven him time and time again for seeking sexual pleasure in porn and for lying to me. I gave myself to him and only him and have never lied to him.

So, yes, I meant it when I said, "I don't owe you anything."

I felt this anger inside me, and it was ugly. It lingers in me hours later, and it's still ugly.

I know my husband is a good person. I know he loves me. He does way more to contribute at home and with our kids than most men I know. He always tells me how attractive and kind I am. He hugs me. He wants to support our family so I can stay home and is working hard to find the right opportunity. He is consciously working to change his attitude and be a happier and more dedicated person. Through those ugly thoughts I convince myself that I am the only one contributing in this relationship, and that I owe him nothing and he owes me everything. In reality, that's no the case. He contributes as much as I do. We just contribute in different ways.

Neither of us owes the other anything. I know he was joking, but it struck a very sensitive chord in me. Just another thing I need to work through in order to leave the resentment behind.

Do you have these same kinds of thoughts?

first group meeting

Last night I attended my first women's support group meeting. It is run by our church and is for women who need to heal from addiction (either from their own or from the effects of a loved one's addiction). We haven't had a group like this in our area before, so it is a pilot group. On the way there it felt so strange. How in the world was I on my way to this meeting? I never thought I'd be someone who would need to go to such a meeting. I was worried I was going to be the only one to show up. Or maybe one of a few.

There were 20 women there. Twenty.

It was amazing. Just being in a room with so many strong women was hard to describe. We all had different stories. Some shared, some didn't. Many of us cried. I was worried that it would be heart wrenching and difficult to take in since I feel like my husband and I are doing quite well right now. But the most amazing thing was that no matter what the circumstances of each woman who shared, I found myself nodding with tears in my eyes, because I understood. The words coming out of their mouths could have come out of mine. We understood each other. I no longer thought about how I became someone who "needed to go to such a meeting." I felt like a regular person. I beautiful strong woman who is living her life just like everyone else. And happy to be there.

I am looking forward to going back next week, and I am looking forward to working through my own healing and growth.

 

Also, please remember that Shamed only has just over a week left to get enough pledges to move forward with production. If you have not yet offered your help, please visit the web site and pledge your donation. http://shamedthemovie.com

 

What I've Learned: Part 6

I've learned that we often use our marriages and spouses as scapegoats. And this doesn't just apply to people who are dealing with pornography addictions. I mean in general. When things aren't right in our lives, it's often a natural tendency to start focusing on all the things that are wrong with our marriages and our spouses.

I've thought a lot about why this is, and I think it boils down to this: we chose our partner and we chose to get married. We had control over that. So it's a little too easy to look at those choices in hard times and wonder if maybe we made the wrong choice. Blame the marriage. Blame the spouse. Second guess our decision to marry that person. Wonder what our lives would have been. Wonder what our lives might be if we were no longer together...


The grass over on the other side seems to get brighter and brighter as our trials pile up. And the marriage and partner standing right in front of us pales in comparison. And the criticism gets easier and easier. Especially when we feel like our spouse isn't living up to his/her side of the bargain. "I didn't sign up for this." How many times has that phrase crossed your mind (or your lips)?


On a similar note, we treat the pornography as the scapegoat, too. While we didn't choose this necessarily, it's an easy target. We tend to blame everything on it. "If the pornography problem weren't a part of our lives, then X, Y, and Z wouldn't be issues in our marriage." Lately I've been trying to concentrate less on the pornography and more on the X, Y, and Z. Tackling it all from the opposite direction. Strengthen our marriage from the bottom up and use that strength to battle the pornography problem. Not the other way around.

I know this is hard to do since we see the pornography as the only problem. In my marriage, I think it's communication, honesty, self-doubt, selfishness, and not seeing eye to eye (or rather just not understanding what the other person needs) that are underlying problems as well. And those things aren't pointed at my husband. We both have our weaknesses. Sure, I can blame my trust issues on his lack of honesty regarding the pornography, but just throwing around blame isn't doing any good unless we are also concentrating on why he doesn't feel comfortable coming to me and being honest with me. Pornography has not ruined the communication in our marriage. It has actually strengthened it as we've gone out of our comfort zones and worked together on this. Pornography is one of the problems in our marriage, but not necessarily the source of all our problems. My focus now is on what we can do to strengthen our relationship regardless of the pornography. I am convinced that will lead us in the right direction.


I understand that there are plenty of husbands out there who have a long way to go with the pornography addiction. Who don't think they have a problem. Who can't see that their actions affect their wives. Who aren't willing to put in the effort to overcome the temptation. Who blame their wives. Who blame everything but themselves. Yes. There is a long road ahead. If you have decided to stay in your marriage, then it is up to you and your husband to stop blaming your marriage or the pornography or each other and start strengthening your marriage. Maybe make an agreement to only talk about the pornography problem once a week and spend the rest of the week concentrating on serving each other, spending time together, serving others together, going on dates. Strengthening our marriages from the bottom up.

What do we do if our husbands aren't willing to put in any effort in any aspect of our marriages? I'm not sure. I wish I had an answer, but I don't. How long do you work on a marriage by yourself with no reciprocation? I don't know. I guess that's something each of us has to decide on our own. If any of you have insight on this, please do share.

On masturbation

My opinions on this topic have been all over the board in my life. I've become quite accustomed to being "all over the board" on a lot of topics as I work through things. I've decided that's just fine and probably healthy.

When I was young I stumbled upon masturbation somewhat by accident, as I'm sure many young people do. I had an understanding that it wasn't right and I avoided it for the most part, but still did it every once in a while. I never really felt like it was a terrible thing, but I also didn't feel great about it. I'm sure this stems from the idea of sexual purity as taught in my religion. As I've gotten older, I've realized that I am actually glad I had those experiences when I was younger. I have heard my fair share of stories from women who don't love sex in part because they don't usually get much pleasure from it. I would hate sex, too, if that were the case. However, I learned quite young how to please myself, so unless I'm just having a really bad day, I normally climax during sex. This may sound like way too much information for you, but my point is this--I think that knowing our own bodies is important and okay and healthy. In fact, I think young married women who have not explored this should get to know their bodies in order to enhance their intimacy with their husbands. People tend to like sex more when it's something they enjoy. It's hard to enjoy it if you aren't ever getting pleasure out of it.

Now let's venture to the other end of the spectrum. I also have an intense "hate" relationship with masturbation because I associate it with pornography and dishonesty. I want to acknowledge that I use the words "masturbation" and "self pleasure," but you will never see me refer to it as "Mr. M." (If you read Maurice Harker's blog--in my side bar--you will see that some of his patients use this term in therapy sessions, likely because they are not yet comfortable using the word "masturbation.") I have a dear friend who went through chemotherapy for breast cancer. She told me that she refused to call it "chemo." She said, "We are not friends. It's not cute. It does not deserve a nickname." This is how I felt about masturbation. It did not deserve a nickname. If I was going to talk about it, I was going to face it for the ugly thing it was in all its horrific glory. It made me mad. It was a dirty word.

Then one day I had a great conversation with some friends during a girls' weekend. One of my friends mentioned that she and her husband are totally okay with self pleasure. If she or her husband found themselves aroused when the other was not around, he or she would go ahead and please him/herself and send a text to the other with something short and sweet like, "Just had myself a good time! ;)"

At that moment, the light bulb went on in my head.

This is what a healthy sexual relationship between a husband and wife looked like. Open. Honest. Trusting. Playful.

I've heard many times (from my church leaders and others) that what married couples do in terms of intimacy is totally up to them as long as both partners are comfortable with it. And that makes perfect sense to me. Regardless of what the world thinks about pornography and regardless of what my church preaches about pornography, I do not feel comfortable with it. And if my husband respects that, it does not belong in our relationship. Unfortunately, the self pleasure that was going on in our home was so interconnected with the pornography and the hiding and lying that I viewed it as a terrible thing. And because I've known about the pornography since before we were married, it never occurred to me to explore self pleasure as a positive and useful tool in our relationship.

As soon as I separated the two in my mind, I realized that I was really opposed to one but not the other.

My husband and I have discussed this a few times, but it is still hard for him. He still has trouble separating the two in his mind, but I think it's a work in progress. The bottom line is that I wish I had realized a long time ago that self pleasure can be a healthy part of a healthy sexual relationship.

Jane asked me in my last post how I plan to address this with my own children. To be honest, I have no idea. I would like to be open with them. I'd like to have conversations with them about what is healthy and what is not. I'd like to encourage them to see that "what is healthy and what is not" is driven by how those things will affect their relationships with their future partners. To ask themselves, "Will this be a positive influence in my future?" I'd like to think that exploring and understanding their own sexuality is healthy. I think that masturbating uncontrollably is neither healthy nor productive. I think that gaining a skewed understanding of sexual relationships through pornography is not healthy, especially since pornography tends to be addictive, and being addicted to pornography will not be good for their future relationships. Having a clear understanding of sex as a good thing that should be cultivated in an honest, loving environment is healthy. This is what I hope to teach my children.

Like I said, how I see things is a work in progress. I feel like I'm figuring things out in a way that works for me.

Shamed: and my opinions

I know some of you have seen the posts about the upcoming film project called Shamed, but for any of my readers who have not, I want to share it here. Shamed is a documentary about the hush hush nature of sin in conservative Christian communities, particularly with regard to pornography addiction. I've posted the trailer below. Please read all the way down to the trailer.

I have mixed opinions on this topic, but I don't feel pressured to resolve my mixed opinions any time soon. They will likely just simmer on my mind for years, which is actually okay with me. Here are some of my opinions, even if they contradict each other:

• We need to be more open about sex with our children and teenagers: about the joys of sex, about the dangers of sex, about the realities of sex.
• I believe that sex is sacred, but that it does not need to be secret. By never talking about sex, we are teaching many of our youth to either be afraid of it or ashamed of it or experimental in unhealthy ways.
• I don't think airing our sins before everyone around us is necessary. If this were a perfect world and everyone were accepting and understanding, I think we could talk openly about our vices and weaknesses. Unfortunately, too many of us judge people according to their weaknesses and tend to remember only that about them long after the "sin" has been overcome. Regardless of whether they are part of the conservative Christian community.
• At the same time, I think we should be able to talk about it openly. I'd love to convince myself that I don't care what anyone else thinks.
• I've said this before, but I don't think the naked human body is bad and it bothers me that the exploitation of the human body in addictive pornography makes nude or semi-nude art a problem in our homes.
• I don't actually think masturbation is bad but it crosses a line with addiction that makes it a problem, and I think we need to talk to our youth about this.
• I do think we need to have more open communication with the people we trust and love. I'm afraid to tell my family members (who are my best friends) about my husband's pornography addiction out of fear that the conservative ones will judge him and the liberal ones will try to tell me that porn is no big deal. How sad that this is keeping me from seeking their support in my struggle.
• I think stern warnings against the dangers of pornography addiction from our church leaders are glossed over by most of our youth, so I think what we really need are brave men who will sit down with a group of youth at church on Sunday, look them straight in the eye, and tell them how addiction has ruined their life. I will always remember the sister in our ward who came into our youth class and told us how incredibly difficult it had been for her to give up her baby for adoption as a teenager. Real people sitting in front of you telling real life stories have the most effect.
• I wish I were strong enough to be one of those real people telling my real-life story. Maybe some day I will be.

The people in this documentary are brave enough to tell their real-life story. I think this is an important project that will spur more open communication.

In order for the project to move forward, they have to raise $40,000 in pledges by February 15th. I don't have much money, but I pledged what I could. It's an all or nothing project. If they raise $40,000 in pledges by the 15th, then your credit card will be charged with your pledge amount and the project will move forward. If the $40,000 is not met, your card will not be charged and the documentary will not be completed. Please watch the video below and, if you are able, pledge your support here. People don't know how much of a problem pornography addiction is until they are in the throes of it. Let's help raise awareness before that.



Shamed Teaser - V2 from Girl with a Curl on Vimeo.

What are your thoughts on this project? Is it something you want to support? As Jane put it for those of us who are not yet ready to talk openly about our experiences, are we willing to put our money where our mouths should be so that someone else can?

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