Back to basics

Getting back to practices, facing outward and connecting, focusing on the present, taking care of myself - working all these things is grounding me and getting me back to a peaceful place.

It's like the fog suddenly comes in and settles, and then lifts just as unexpectedly.

Was life like this before? I don't remember.

I was asking Husband if he remembered how things were before all of this. I think I idealize the before time, which I know is not healthy.

Maybe this is the difference between being conscious and oblivious.

All things point to surrender (again)

What I'm left with after reading and church this week is that I can find peace and freedom in surrender and gratitude.

Notes to self (again):

Step one: I'm powerless. Just admit it and surrender (over and over and over again!)

One day at a time.

My most important relationship is with my higher power, which I am an expression of.

My most important actions are to use my life and my abilities to be of service as an expression of love, compassion and non-duality, and to celebrate everything I have.

If I listen for it I will always hear the voice of higher power.

Pain, fear and all kinds of adversity are opportunities. I can allow both good and bad to be gifts.

What am I resisting?

I can always choose the most empowering context.

Surrendering to the moment at hand is usually the most powerful response.

Have fun!

If I forget all of this, remembering is the next part of my journey.

No "fuck you"

Because I have decided to try to work on my relationship with Husband, I've never had that final fuck-you moment. I've never been able to declare myself completely free of his influence and power over me.

Instead I have said, "Yes, I gave you power over me - I gave you my trust. You betrayed that trust. And instead of withdrawing I'm choosing to trust you again. I'm giving you the power to hurt and betray me again."

We are two different people now, so there is no going back to what we had before. We have no choice but to create something new.

So maybe it's not as crazy as it feels sometimes.

But sometimes I have doubts. Sometimes I imagine doing to him what he's done to me. Except if I consider it for any length of time the cost always seems too great.

Tonight he said to me in mock exasperation, "I love you so much I can't stand it!" I used to feel that way about him. But now I don't know that I'll ever be able to feel that way again. Maybe that's the trade-off for the gains I've made. I give up that child-like, carefree, unfettered kind of love in exchange for learning how to live in the world as an adult woman, responsible for my own happiness and well being.

Do grown-up women love their partners so much they can't stand it?

I wish I could feel that kind of enthusiasm for Husband again. He's a great partner, great father, a good, kind, intelligent person. But since I've never been able to declare myself no longer vulnerable to him, will I always be protecting myself in some way, thereby forsaking any possibility of the depth of intimacy I used to feel?

I've said that being betrayed by Husband made me feel like I'd been shot by the fellow soldier I was sharing a fox hole with. Now, after the work we've done individually and as a couple, I feel confident that Husband is still a good fox hole partner. I think he'd always have my back. But there's also a part of me that is poised for anything to happen. Not because of him, but because of me. Something to do with not being able to let go of the past. Maybe it's resentment, maybe it's realizing who I'm really married to and being less enamored of that man than the man I thought I'd married. I try to focus on gratitude, because there is a lot to be grateful for in the man that Husband is. But sometimes I can't overcome my fear and confusion. Even when I feel firmly in the present, not wanting a different past, not worrying about the future...I still don't feel the same free, deep, joyful love for him that I used to. Maybe this is just the process of getting to know the person he really is and falling in love with that person. It took 20 years to get to where we were before, so maybe it just takes time (more time than I thought) to rebuild that level of vulnerability and trust.

Sometimes I feel so good on my path, and sometimes I feel so lost and stuck.

So how do you cultivate self esteem?

On the Pat Morrison radio show yesterday, Rabbi Harold Kushner said "I would make a distinction between curing, making a problem go away, and healing, which is giving a person the emotional, spiritual resources to cope with a problem that isn't going away."

I think this is an insightful way to describe the process I've been going through since I discovered Husband's sex addiction.

There is no making my past go away. But I've been gaining the emotional, spiritual,and psychological resources to cope with the reality of life. I've been healing.

One area that remains unclear for me is building my self esteem. In June 2008 I declared a Year of Self Definition and yet 16 months later I still feel a bit stumped about how to cultivate a strong relationship with myself.

I have glimmers of it. I've gained a lot of tools and insight from therapy, support groups and reading. But I also have a lot of persistent patterns that originate in self-loathing.

I felt a flash of clarity in the reading I did today in Pema Chodron's The Wisdom of No Escape. In the chapter called Satisfaction she said that "one of the major obstacles to what is traditionally called enlightenment is resentment, feeling cheated, holding a grudge about who you are, where you are, what you are."

This passage really caught my eye because I recognized myself in it, and I began to start thinking about how I could re-orient my thinking and feeling about what I lack and focus instead on everything I have, everything I am. Gratitude for my life, and loving-kindness toward myself.

How would I treat myself, regard myself, be with myself if I were someone I loved? Certainly much different than I do now. I think exploring this question is on the path of developing / creating a relationship with myself that supports health and peace.

I am my own white night

At my S-Anon meeting this week we talked about some of the surprising things we'd learned about ourselves in the recovery process.

One of the big things I've learned is how much power I'd given over to Husband. I'm not a person who becomes intimate with many people, and at the time Husband and I met, I didn't trust people easily either. But in Husband I found someone I thought I could trust 100% and I entered into a relationship completely without boundaries. I trusted Husband, I think, more than I trusted myself. And, though I never depended on Husband financially, I put the responsibility for my emotional and psychological well-being and my happiness with him.

Out of this experience I've learned that as a grown woman I am responsible for taking care of myself. Not even the most well-meaning husband, and I think mine was, can offer me the kind of safety I thought I had in my marriage. That kind of safety only comes from shuffling off delusions such as if you love someone you won't hurt them. That kind of safety can only come from surrendering to human imperfection, to suffering, to pain, knowing that all things shall pass.

The balancing act now is learning to have boundaries and make sure I'm taking care of myself without going through life on the defensive. Now that I'm aware of this dynamic in my life, this absolutist tendency of mine to trust without boundaries or not at all, I'm getting better at thinking about my own needs and wants as an important part of every equation. I'm learning to trust appropriately, and to trust in the face of human frailty and the knowledge that nothing can be known for sure. I'm learning to find peace in the face of my inability to completely shield myself from pain.

Metaphors, puns and rambling out of the fog

My son was in tears the other day because he accidentally erased his profile on his Nintendo DS game Lego Battles. He explained to my mother, who couldn't understand the problem this presented, that it meant that everything he'd accomplished, done, overcome, figured out, and scored over the past month of playing this game was gone and he had to start over with a blank slate.

"Exactly!" I thought as I listened to his wailing.

My slate feels so blank sometimes, because I've gone from believing that there were a very few things that I could absolutely count on to believing that impermanence is possibly the only thing I can count on and that despite all indications there is no way to have any certainty about the future at all. This perspective, while feeling less delusional than past certainties, also sends me into a bit of an existential freak-out. It feels too big and scary and lonely for it to be just me and my higher power. I admit it: I want something to cling to. I want to know something for sure. "I want to be able to count on something," I told my therapist.

She gently suggested that the Buddhist perspective on this (because she knows I swing that way) might be along the lines of finding gratitude for the present moment, and I realized (again) that this is where peace is for me. Since I believe that impermanence is the only constant and the future is unknowable, peace has no other place to wait for me aside from the present moment. Little comfort as I sat in my therapist's office, but my brain could grasp it and begin to make sense of the world again. Okay, so as my mind swished down the toilet of past pain and fear about the future, I had forgotten about staying in the present. But now I was remembering again. The cold fingers of my dark confusion began to loosen their grip.

The bumper sticker I get out of this experience: There is nothing good at the bottom of the toilet.

I don't feel completely alone, actually. I have girlfriends whom I still believe I can count on to be who I think they are. But in my relationship I don't have that sense of security any more. I can count on Husband 99.9% when it comes to our son. But when it comes to me...when it comes to counting on him to take me into consideration when he does something...that's where I'm afraid. I believed in this 100% before and got burned.

I told my therapist that sometimes it feels like Husband is a hot stove that I'm afraid to touch again. As we talked I realized that my subconscious assumption has been that the stove would burn me again if I touched it. But my conscious mind doesn't think that. I'm not afraid that Husband would be able to betray me again the way he did before. I have training about stoves that I didn't have before! So it was a good opening for me to realize that I'm not trying to touch a hot stove again. I'm just trying to touch the stove to see what it feels like now, and I'm not reaching out unprotected. More importantly, I need to remind myself (again) what I realized more than a year ago: Because he's in recovery, Husband probably isn't a stove anymore.

I've been caught up (again) trying to make sense of things. (Perhaps this cycle of "agains" is something I just have to surrender to.) I want things to make sense. But the lying Husband did is something that will never make sense to me. How do you so deeply betray someone you love? I can fantasize about it, but when it comes down to it, I could never go through with it. I'd have to hate him in order to lie to him the way he did to me. That's how I'm built. And he is built differently. And now we're both working on our defective parts, rebuilding our engines. They will always be different engines, but hopefully they will work better than they did before and we'll be able to finish out this road trip together.

I think a lot of this circling back is because there's anger and resentment I haven't fully expressed and it's surfacing and that's a good thing. Those things are hard for me because I never learned about openly expressing those feelings as a child. But now's my chance.

My friend recently wrote on her blog about a palm tree outside her window that was cut down, and how it took only minutes to destroy something that had taken years to grow. I told Husband this is how I feel about our relationship, and why I think it's sometimes such a struggle. The tree that was my understanding of the world has been cut down and there's no putting it back. He nodded and put his arms around me.

Replant. Give water and light. (Perhaps some therapy and the love and support of friends.) Wait. And don't lose faith that a big tree can grow from a little nut.

Later I asked him if there was anything we needed to talk about from the arguments and discussions we'd had over the past few days. "I'm afraid to tell you this, because I don't want you to feel responsible for my feelings, but when you say you can't count on anything I feel terrible. I know that you can't know anything absolutely for sure, but I'm going to do my best to be someone you can count on for the rest of my life."

Just when I need it most, my higher power chimes in. I'm both surprised and not surprised at all.

Stuck...again

After two years of gigantic personal growth spurts, newly discovered spirituality, and tons of therapy, it would seem like everything would be on the up and up, yes?

Well of course not! The whole "journey, not a destination" rigmarole seems to be proving true once again. (This is why it gets on mugs and magnets I suppose. They rival bumper stickers as a source for all of life's deepest truths.)

I've spent the last couple weeks caught in a downward spiral. I'm in one of those places where I'm finding it hard to feel anything, mostly where Husband is concerned.

Yesterday afternoon we snuck away together to see Julie & Julia. I watched with a little sadness because that's the relationship I thought we had in many ways - loving, connected and close but independent, respectful, supportive - and the relationship I thought I would have as we grew old together. (I'm sure I've idealized things, and that's something I need to keep in mind.) But now I have doubts I will ever feel that easy deep connection with him again, and that makes me very sad.

Husband does everything right. He has worked his 12-step program diligently since day one; he's gone to therapy; he ACTS differently; he's grown tremendously; and he's probably much more the man I thought I was married to than ever before. He's a different person than he was in 2007.

But despite all his work and all his progress (not to mention my own work and progress,) I have sunk into this low place where my relationship is concerned. I talked with my therapist about it, and she summed up our session saying that I seem to have two choices: Wait it out and let my openness to deep intimacy grow as Husband proves himself over time; or take the risk and jump in with my heart open as wide as possible. Both are fine choices she said.

I want to do the latter, because I think a risk like that with someone who has been in active recovery for 2 years is less of a risk than it feels. And I know peace will be more accessible if I can make the shifts within myself that make that kind of openness possible for me again. But I just don't seem to be able to push myself past some undefinable obstacle that has settled in. Sometimes I wonder if I love my husband. I think I do, I have a lot of good reasons to, but sometimes I can't feel it.

When I imagine being with someone else, I certainly don't get any rush of relief. Another man simply represents a different set of challenges and unknowns. There is no Prince Charming (if anything, I believe I'm the only one who can sweep me off my feet.) So I think something in me needs to shift. I think my current numbness has little to do with Husband, and mostly to do with another level of growth that is becoming available to me. I think the root of my funk has something to do with my inability to completely surrender to the bottom line that life is ultimately beyond my control. My Good People/Bad People buckets can't protect me from being hurt and betrayed.

And Husband and I are DIFFERENT. (Something I forget again and again.) But that doesn't make him dangerous (I also forget this.) It just feels that way. Not that I'm absolved from taking care of my own well-being first and foremost. But he can tick differently from me and not be dangerous as long as he's not slipping into delusion, denial and grandiosity. And how do I know that's not happening? Only by his actions - only by the fact that he's working his program, going to meetings, apologizing when he's an asshole, doing things differently from how he used to when he was an unconscious narcissistic addict and I was an unconscious codie.

It does feel like a bit of a tightrope to navigate, but I think any high-stakes situation is going to feel like that.

I met with my step-buddy (I'm still working on writing up my 1st step) and she reminded me that the ups and downs I'm feeling are the landscape of a long-term relationship. I am an absolutist through and through, and another thing I always, ALWAYS forget is that this moment is not how it will be forever.

This too shall pass.

Forgive but can't forget?

A good article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32387125/ns/today-today_relationships/

I've been struggling with this issue of getting past the past lately. Don't know why it's coming up now, more than two years out. But healing from sex addiction and betrayal has its own timeline, and while I can work hard, and I can watch Husband working hard, I've learned I can't put a date on when I'll be "healed."

Bringing spiritual practices into my life

I've come quite a long way from my former fear and suspicion of any concept of a higher power. I've found that spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga and prayer to the god of my understanding result in peace and serenity in the face of that which is unknown and uncontrollable in life.

I've also found that if I allow the most important relationship in my life to be with the god of my understanding, and I define that god in a way that lifts me up and empowers me, then I can keep the focus on myself more easily.

Spiritual practices form a structure that helps me stay present to my relationship with the God. Since I am not a monk, these practices have to fit into my already full life, so it's an ongoing challenge. But every new moment presents a new opportunity, and accepting less than perfect is another good spiritual practice for me.

One new practice I'm incorporating is a weekly 1-day fast. I use the lemonade recipe from the Master Cleanse (for no reason other than I don't really think it's healthy to go completely without calories/nourishment if one has a choice.)

I find that feeling hungry does two things: It gives me the chance to have feelings and not use food as a distraction or pacifier. And it reminds me of how grateful I am for everything I do have.

I am fasting today, and I am clear that life at this moment is good and that I am exactly where I need to be, and have everything I need to have, and that this has always been true even when I didn't know it.

Peace.

Digging deeper on my side of the street

Husband and I were beginning to make love one night last week, and I was wrestling with being trapped in my head.

Earlier in the evening as I was washing dishes somehow my mind went to thinking about how husband could have been spending his time with prostitutes while I was going about my daily life doing mundane things like washing dishes and not realizing what unimaginable physical intimacies he was sharing with other women. After that, all evening long my thoughts strayed down this path of invasive pictures forming in head.

I was going back and forth about whether or not to say anything to Husband, but I decided that this was my opportunity to get practice at getting myself back to the present while I was on a downward spiral. So I continued wrestling while trying to engage in making love with Husband at the same time.

The struggle in my head intensified as I was giving Husband a massage, because this was how the whole prostitution thing took off (massage parlors) and was a part of most of his sessions with prostitutes. Things were getting worse and worse, with every touch leading down some dark path of images. My heart was racing, and I realized that I was feeling a lot of anxiety and fear. As we continued kissing and caressing part of me was thinking very hard about what it was that I was afraid of.

I reached down and found that he'd lost his erection. He's middle aged, so that's not completely unusual, although I always have that little voice in the back of my mind that makes me consider the possibility that he is bored with me. Suddenly, he pulled away.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why, but I'm really in my head right now," he said.

A rush of relief flowed through me as I laughed and told him all about how I was so in my head, too. I confessed that I'd been struggling with a PTSD spiral of invasive images all evening, and that I'd been trying to figure out how to pull myself into the present without bringing him into it. We talked about it, and he said, "When in doubt, it's probably always best to talk about things. You're not responsible for my feelings or my reaction."

He has grown tremendously, so much that he's really able to support me when I'm feeling vulnerable and anxious. It was an amazing experience to be "seen" by him when I thought I was doing such a great job of concealing my struggle to get fully into the moment.

So I took all this to therapy last weekend (I would have forgotten, but Husband firmly encouraged me to write it down, so I wrote "Fear of - I don't know what. Fear of things that have happened in the past. Not afraid that it will happen again. But just have fear.")

Well...SURPRISE (to me, at least)! I thought I was trying to do the evolved thing and get myself back into the present. But what I didn't see was that I was using my old ways of handling things myself, trying to control Husband's experience (I didn't want him to feel bad about things that seem like they should be resolved for me by now,) and withholding myself to avoid being out of control (talking about what's going on while not knowing how Husband might respond.) In hindsight I could see that I was already feeling so out of control and in the grips of fear and anxiety in my spiral of thoughts and images, that the way I was trying to regain some sense of stability was to clamp down and get back "in control" by taking care of my feelings all by myself.

So I've told Husband that I'm going to try to talk about my feelings, and face my fear of things being messy and out of my control. I want intimacy, not a secret island of safety where I know I won't be hurt because I'm completely in control and alone.

I don't exactly know how to do this, because "handling it myself" is like water to a fish for me. It's really hard for me to distinguish when I'm doing this because it's deeply integrated into who I am in the world. But I know that the other side of discomfort and pain can be freedom if I stay with those things long enough to get present to the fact that all things change, and to my willingness to have faith that I have everything I need, and that my higher power answers before I ask.