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| How does someone's relapse affect you? |
It was my husband's relapse that made me decide I wanted to write down what was going on in my life. We have a program installed on my husband's computer called "XXX Watch." Every questionable site he visits is sent to my email and, in a sense, I became his accountability partner in the very beginning of his "recovery." (I put it into quotes because he hadn't started his real recovery when we installed the program a few years ago.) Almost every time he's looked at something questionable this is how I've found out. Over the years my reaction escalated until he finally went into a recovery program.
His relapse came in October of this year.
I received the email with the questionable sites listed. I didn't need to go to those sites. I just had to read the titles to know what he'd been doing. And I was more hurt than I'd ever been.
But why was this time so much more painful when there were fewer sites visited than many of his other jaunts into porn-land?
Because this time around I'd been there by his side, encouraging his recovery, saying I knew he could do this thing, going to recovery meetings with him, and respecting his need to tell others in his own time.
All along he'd been lying to me.
And I was tired of the lies. So tired.
Then the you-know-what hit the fan at work, because he'd done something very much against the rules and that landed him smack into a large pot of boiling water.
And now we wait to see what the results will be. A firing? Probation? Unpaid leave? Will we have to uproot our family and move elsewhere? I don't know, and the uncertainty is very rough on our family at the moment.
His relapse means my sadness, no matter how many times he apologizes.
What does relapse mean to you?
Hi Honey,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind response on the JWC. Its a steep learning curve, ain't it? I came in from the side door and then the back door, before I finally found the front door and it was all locked up with enough hard drive disk space to power half of the eastern seaboard!!!
until one day, when I needed to make a copy of a drawing for a client, I noticed an email preview-- OPEN... now...
what do we have here???
oh my, oh my... he came home an hour later, absolutely frothing at the mouth...
I wish you much strength in your life... I cannot live with a liar and a cheater and its not just intimacy that he cheated me out of. He didn't work for a few years and when he did, the salary was sh*t... and yet, the way he found to make himself to "feel" like a man was to charm as many women who weren't me to first cyber with and some meet up with. And then he had a confidant, an ex-lover who he gloated about his conquests with!
And this is the LAST person on this good earth that anyone would expect this kind of behavior from.
Its not you. And standing by him, isn't going to help. He needs to be able to do it all on his own. He became an addict without you, and he can become sober without you. his choice. However, if he's doing it JUST to keep you, that won't work either. He has to do it for himself, whether you are there or not.
No one can tell another whether to stay or go... it is a disgusting choice to have to make. I loved my husband so deeply. I never could've even begun to imagine 10 years ago, that this day would EVER come! I have a knot in my stomach right now, as I'm typing, but I was an abused child and no man is going to treat me with such abject disrespect and humiliate me in this way and get away with it; its abuse. That's what it is. abuse.
Please protect yourself. You may want recovery for him, and he may SAY that he wants recovery, but that doesn't necessarily mean its true. Now, you know... and you also know the possible consequences of his addiction and it could be devastating to you and your children. Do you work? Can you? If you had to, could you support yourself and your children? All very important questions, because the realities of this addiction are difficult to face, but must be.
One of my life goals is to help women to know that they do not need a man and need to know that they have a way out, if it becomes necessary. Just like we learned in driving school.
Honey, I know that you "feel" fragile; so do i... very, very scared, but I'm even more scared of continuing an extremely limited, precarious life with someone who is not going to change. Oh, he may stop looking at porn, but it is ALL still in his head and sexy images are everywhere, and he can find ways of looking that I will never ever know about.
I am choosing life. I've seen enough and heard enough to understand that he is not going to change.
Why, he never even once has told me that he loves me and cherishes me.
nope.
not me.
so sad, but I'm so done being hurt by this man that I once loved so very dearly.
all my best,
Lexie
PS: I see that you recommend SOS. Are you on there? Its a great site!
Lexie,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your encouraging words. I'm glad you came by and it's good see that I'm not alone in all of this. Hearing from others that know the pain and anger helps.
My husband's choice to go through recovery was just that -- his choice. All I said to him is that I can't help him. I never will be able to. He decided to seek out his recovery group and sponsor, and although there has been a slight relapse, he plugged in even deeper to recovery after the fallout.
I've read many posts where the spouse of the addict claims the addict will never change. Personally, I find that a little sad. Anyone and everyone can change if he/she really wants to. But, and it's a big but, they have to want to change. No one can do it for them. I have a sister I would also say is an SA, but she refuses to believe it. She's most definitely in denial and it breaks my heart. I see a major difference between her and my husband. He owns up to his addiction, she does not. Denial is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to recovery.
As to SOS, I've been by there and visited different posts, but no, as of yet have not signed up. I'm seriously thinking of doing so, though.
I'm too friggin hurt. I'm devastated. In my case its layers upon layers of betrayals that he left for me to find... and lies when I asked him what he had been doing? Years of this.
ReplyDeleteHe makes a crappy living. Some years he hasn't had a job at all and he left me to support the family. And instead of figuring out a viable option, for himself, he was too busy with his "hobby" to figure that out. And now, the proverbial chickens have come home to roost.
he threw me away. he dumped me, only he forgot to tell me,or himself. he would show up here, but he wasn't really here... My neighbor commented that he was like a dead horse in the road. How nice it is to come home to that!
i used to love him so much, but all that's left is a broken heart and much pain and fear too.
I'm scared sh*tless... but that's not stopping me. I've been running scared in so many ways, for much of my life.
i need to get away from him. he's toxic.
and yes, its very, very sad, but I did my best.
I hope and pray that your husband will be one of the few to prove me wrong.
I know too much about all of this... I had a glimpse of the beast from its underbelly-- I was lead there unwittingly... (my husband suggested that I date, a few years ago-- now I know why, but that is when it happened, and it was an experience that it feels like I will never recover from)
well... please, we would love to have you on SOS. We're a great bunch. Its very, very different from the JWC. Quite frankly, I feel that their rules are a bit draconian, but that is their prerogative. JoAnn, is much more liberal and ironically, what I've found, is that we are very open and honest, and sometimes honesty isn't pretty and all sugar coated, and formed in *I* phrases, but it is always said with kindness, respect and most of all-- love.
That is how we learn. That is how we recover. By owning and accepting the realities of our lives and not making them something we desperately want them to be, but in actuality it is not so.
This is very tough stuff.
Sometimes, though... we have to choose between two things that we don't really want. And I guess the point is to make it work.
make it work for US and not make HIS issues our issues. I tried for 5 + years after the first discovery, (he left his cyber smut OPEN on MY laptop!!! oh yeah... and he's a geek too!)
I can't do it anymore; I cannot and will not let him hurt me any longer, and he still does. The other night... oh... it doesn't matter. you get it. I don't care if I spend the rest of my days alone. I'm f***ing alone right now!!! so alas... its onward!
my best,
Lexie
forgive me, I think i repeated myself. obviously, i'm nuts and sleep deprived and besides myself.
ReplyDeletei'm all alone. i have nobody.
i lost my best friend.
i thought he was my friend.
what kind of monster would do that to their only friend?
good night
Lexie,
ReplyDeleteDon't feel you are alone. I've been through some pretty dark times myself, times when I've questioned what the point of this life really is. It is during those times I've cried the most, been depressed like never before, and prayed. That's all I could do. I didn't have the strength to do much else. This time is just like those times. All I can do is pray. Sometimes I'm so worn out from all the crap swirling in my life. Your story breaks my heart, but know, without a doubt, that you are never alone.
Losing your best friend would be the hardest thing to go through.You are always welcome over here, so don't feel like a stranger or that I could care less about what you have to say. Everything you have to say is important.
T.F.T.
Fragile,
ReplyDeleteThis scares me more than anything. Since D-Day my partner has been seriously committed to his recovery and as far as I know he has not had a "relapse" but he has had a "slip." I recently heard them described as very different events. What are your views on this? Do you consider a relapse anything your H does that is related to his addiction? Is a slip just a naive way of denying the truth? For example, my partner picked up an erotic book, read a few lines, felt tremendous shame, came to get me to admit it and then threw the book out. Is this a relapse?
I've actually never heard it referred to as a "slip," but that might be a good way of putting it. What happened with your partner sounds like he was truly ashamed right away (conviction) and immediately told you about it. Since my husband has always struggled with a strong porn addiction, his relapse consisted of him looking at things (briefly but consciously doing so), not telling me and then having me find out on my own (I'll post sometime about the measures we have in place so that I know exactly what he's looking at and when). It occurred on one day in the space of five minutes, but it was done. The other half of his relapse deals with actions at work. Where he works, they have very strict rules about website viewing and they monitor everything that is viewed by the employee. He got a call one day that he said he'd been waiting for and the you-know-what hit the fan both at work and at home. I couldn't believe he would jeopardize his job in such a way. We are waiting for his "hearing" to take place in January and that is when we'll know the consequences of his actions.To be quite honest, I had a few days where I strongly considered leaving him. Since his relapse, he has been strongly committed to speaking with his sponsor whenever he needs to. He's plugged into his recovery group and a couple groups at our church. This is where the addict has to learn to replace the bad with the good. Addicts have a hole they constantly need to fill, so they have to figure out the best way to fill that hole. Some break one addiction but take up another (i.e. I know the story of one woman who was an overeater. She overcame that addiction, but then turned to alcohol because the hole needed to be filled somehow.) It all depends on the addict and how they go about his/her recovery.
ReplyDeleteI hope I helped SH!
I agree with lexie...whether u call them slips or relapses they will always occur.
ReplyDeleteI also firmly believe that there can't be only porn viewing..it will spill into real life..it's only that we don't find out.
And yes the SA when found out admits to the porn coz it's the least offensive of al the things they may have done.plus the men just don't get it ..how we women feel about porn..they don't consider it as cheating and hence they admit to it.
There just can't be only porn addiction.
Allmost all porn sites have live chats chat rooms webcam chats etc.
With years of porn site visits it's just not possible that they have remained passive watchers only
Anon,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the slippery slope of porn addiction. I've met many different porn addicts and it's startling how similar their stories are. It always starts with something small, like a dirty magazine, and then ten years later it's progressed into something much more uncontrollable and all-consuming.
Thanks for stopping by!