I've been in a weird, bifurcated place lately. On one hand I feel as if I'm growing and on the other as if I am in the pits of hell.
I was able to release some tears last night during an SLAA meeting as I expressed how lonely it feels to be in a committed relationship with someone who often feels very absent from my life. My husband's workaholism is raging and my addict continues to knock at the door and remind me that it's there "to help."
I have always been open to my Higher Power's will in my marriage and continue to be so. I'm also acknowledging that I'll be open to my Higher Power's will in my relationship with my therapist as I meet with her tomorrow and tell her for right now I think it's most important that I focus on my own personal growth rather than on the growth of my marriage. My husband and I are at a place where I'm not sure we're ready to grow and after much prayer and discussion with others, I have to believe that I have to focus on the things I can change, which are within me. I have felt at odds with my therapist over this and skipped a week's session with her to get more clear in my own mind about how I wanted to deal with it.
It is true that my marital relationship could be more fulfilling and that is sometimes triggering to my addict. It is certainly not that I don't think our marriage needs work. It's simply that I know my husband well enough to know that he's living so deeply in his own disease (workaholism) that he will most certainly not be present for any joint work we might attempt right now.
In the meantime, I am reminding myself to live life one day at a time, living in the solution, feeling my feelings, whatever they are. I am reminding myself that medicating painful feelings with the disease means rather than practicing healthy behaviors such as setting boundaries and self care within my marriage, I am using those efforts on a dead-end situation, which can be incredibly painful. I am reminding myself that if I give in to the subtle call of the disease, I'll be caught up in a mental prison that keeps me obsessed with seeking reassurance, checking e-mails and feeling empty when nothing appears, feeling obsessed with a need to hear from and be with the unfortunate bloke who falls into the addictive trap. I am reminded, that while living in the disease, there are never enough emails, phone calls, text messages, dramatic expressions and blow ups. There is never enough face to face time, never enough committment, never enough balance. It's just an empty vat of never enough anything, and suddenly my life is completely unmanageable as I try to make it enough by reading the same e-mails over and over, thinking until it feels as if my head will bleed, and feeling as if my life is completely not worth living.
One day at a time, I am attempting to show myself before a power greater than myself who can restore me to sanity, rather than send me down a very rocky road where the lessons are earned on the edges of jagged rocks.
Maybe I’m Regaining a Religion
6 years ago
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5 comments:
I would imagine it's difficult to be learning how to ask for what you need (and to recognize what those needs are) when your husband is increasingly unavailable.
When my husband slides back into working too much, it's really hard for me to ask for the time and attention I need because it feels like I'm being too needy. I try to remember to ask and then let go of the outcome, but it's hard to do that when I'm already starting to fall back in the hole.
Your posts sound so much more accepting, less angry. Maybe that's just how I'm reading them, but you do seem to be experiencing some real growth.
Our addictions are cunning, they choose those moments when we are most vulnerable to rear their ugly heads.
I agree right now working on you seems the most sensible choice. If you're not in the right frame of mind yourself, how can you help work on your marriage? Hopefully your husband will see the strength and courage, the distance you're willing to go to be well. It might inspire him to do the same dear friend. (Hugs)Indigo
I went through a period of almost a year in early sobriety when I thought I might want to chuck my marriage out the window. Instead, I focused on myself and my recovery, not our marriage and how I thought we could be better together. Then after awhile, I realized I wasn't really dissatisfied with my relationship. I really couldn't explain the evolution, except that it was me that became better. And I think to some degree, my husband responded to my growth.
it definitely feels like i'm falling among the jagged rocks at times. of course, then i realize that i put myself there and He can bring me out of it.
what you say is so honest and open. i've committed myself to not get into a relationship until i feel that i have overcome my addiction to sexuality. your post really gave me some motivation to put behind that. i don't want to bring my baggage into a relationship, or marriage for that matter. i'm starting to look at my sexual addiction as selfish, which is a light i've yet to see it in. thank you for that!
Rae, I applaud you so much for putting your needs out there first. I get the call of disease, very much so. In reading your post, I remember those feelings of anticipation oh so well and also of feeling lower than I could possibly feel. Healing is such a diffiuclt process, but it begins by taking care of yourself first. Thank you for sharing yourself so honestly.
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