The Letter

So it had been awhile since my husband's last disclosure and things were getting easier over the long stretch of time. I get better at shoving emotions and feelings down over time and pretending that everything is ok. Even though I still think about the addiction everyday and wonder if that will be the day that I find out he has relapsed again, a lot of the sadness, fear, anger, etc. that you feel right after a disclosure calms down a bit over time. At least it does for me anyways. It never goes away, it just changes.

One day my husband had gone into work on a Saturday because he had to meet someone there to give them something that they needed but it didn't come in on time and they had a trip they were going on and it was supposed to be delivered that day. So he went in and was waiting for the delivery and then after the delivery the person would come by to pick it up. He went in before 7 am to wait for the delivery and waited until after 2 but the delivery never came. He had a lot of things he needed to catch up on at work so I figured it was great, he could get it all done, be all caught up at work. How nice that would be for him to not feel the stress of being behind at work anymore. I texted him while he was there asking him to just come home because the delivery was supposed to be there by a certain time, but he stayed much later than that time because he said he wanted to be sure that they weren't just running late. I was so frustrated. This was the day before Mother's Day and he was supposed to be helping me plant my garden for my Mother's Day gift. Instead he was there, waiting for someone who was obviously not going to show up. Awesome. When he got home I asked him what he got done while he was there. He said he did a little cleaning and got 2 notes done. What?! He was there long enough he could have gotten all of his notes done and all of the cleaning and organizing done that he needed to do. I knew at that moment that he had been watching porn the whole time he was there and that's why he stayed later and why he didn't get any work done while he was there. And the great thing is that I didn't get my garden planted that day, we had to wait till the next week because of his selfishness. So that night I confronted him about it and told him what my gut was telling me he was really doing at work that day. Of course he denied it. Of course he said he was doing great, hadn't looked at porn since his last "D Day". I didn't have any proof since his computer was still at work. Just my gut feeling and intuition so then comes where I start to doubt myself and my intuition. I start to think I'm crazy and why do I feel this way? How could I accuse him like that? Of course he came up with just the right excuse of what he was doing at work. So why did I doubt him? This happens every time but yet I want to be able to trust him even though I know I can't. So I doubt myself. I doubt my gut. I start to doubt everything.

My parent's kept my kids overnight one night in June of 2013 and I was so excited to sleep in the next morning. Then I planned to take a warm bath to relax and I had a book I was almost finished with so I was going to read until I finished the book. It was going to be a day to myself to relax and enjoy doing whatever I wanted to do. I was so excited for this day to come. I woke up that morning and my husband had already gone off to work. I got up and went into the kitchen first thing to get a drink before I went onto my relaxing day. On the table was a folded piece of white paper with my name on it in my husband's handwriting. I thought, oh this day is just getting better and better! My husband wrote me a love note! What a way to start off this great day. I couldn't wait to read what he had written to me. I thought it must be something great for him to leave me a special note today when the kids were gone. I could go into his work and have lunch with him, oh what plans I was making.

I opened the note and started reading it and quickly realized that this was definitely no love letter. This was an I have been looking at porn letter and lying straight to your face letter. This day went from amazing to horrific real quick. It was one of those moments you are in disbelief. You are reading it and have to re-read it a few times just so you make sure you fully understand what he is saying. It was baffling. He was trying to make it seem like he was sorry but his addict self was showing through so bad. He said that he did watch porn the day he went into his office to wait for the delivery. Well what do ya know? My gut wasn't so wrong after all. He had also viewed it several other times since his last "D Day". So he wasn't doing so great after all. So all those times I checked in with him and asked how he was doing and if he had been having any issues with porn he had been lying to my face just like he always had. Nothing had changed. Why would I have thought it had? It never had before. How could I ever trust this man? What was it going to take for him to decide to make a real change? Why are my children and I not worth it? What do these women and these sex videos have that is so much more important than we are? I know all the logistics of addiction but honestly if you want it bad enough you can overcome anything. Addiction or not. I don't want excuses, I want honest change. I want to know you love me and our family enough and more than the addiction.

I talked to him that night after putting the kids to bed. When he came in to get into bed he acted really confused as to why I would want to talk. He actually said we didn't need to talk, it was all in the letter. I said, well you might not need to talk, but I sure have a lot to discuss. He didn't want to talk about anything and was very defensive. My husband has a very hard time communicating as it is and his addiction makes it even harder. He really felt like we shouldn't have to discuss anything, everything he wanted to say was in the letter and I should be just fine with reading it and moving on. Oh what a life living with someone with this addiction. Of course I needed to talk about it with him. I think that is one of the hardest parts sometimes as the wife of the addict. As the addict, each time they disclose a relapse they feel so much better and just want to move on and get on with life. They don't think about it much or obsess about it, they just feel a huge sense of relief that the guilt is gone. But when they tell the wife everything is unloaded onto her and she doesn't just let it go and move on.  She does obsess about it and think about it all the time. She worries about so many things surrounding her family and life and the addiction after that. The burden is moved from the husband to the wife and compounded and multiplied. That has been my experience anyways.

And so it all starts over again. All the feelings come back. Some of them stronger each time because they are compounded by how many times this has happened. They say rollercoasters are supposed to be fun. I must say, I have grown to hate them. This rollercoaster is one I am waiting to get off of. Seven and a half years is too long to ride a rollercoaster and frankly it is making me sick. Literally. For a long time I thought I have just been going crazy. I didn't know what was going on with me and why I was feeling the way I am. I just recently found out that I am suffering from what is called Betrayal Trauma. It is a real thing, I am not crazy. What a relief! I have major anxiety issues. I suffer from a lot of stress. I suffer from depression. I suffer from symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For a long time these symptoms and a lot of others that I experience made me think I was literally going crazy. But now that I know I'm not and that I have realized that I need to seek recovery for myself I am in a much better place. I have started the recovery process and reaching out to others in my situation for support and am starting to see a difference.