While at storytime at the local library with my 2-year-old this morning, I realized I was once again scanning the room looking at all the moms and wondering if pornography was ever or is currently an issue in their marriage. In my twisted little imagination, I imagine us all getting locked in the storytime room, all the kids going to sleep, and me taking a poll of the mommies there. Asking them questions like, "To your knowledge, has your hubby ever viewed online porn?, etc." I hear statistics all the time about how prevalent porn use is, and I would love to be able to do my own unofficial polling. Weird I know, but nonetheless, I think about these like that.
Of course, you cannot tell by outward appearance. There are times however that I feel I am thinking so loudly that surely the people around me know what's going on in my head. On days I feel good and secure, I think about it in the way I described above, as a reaching-out, I'm here-to-help-you kind of way. On days I feel this fight is hopeless, it is different. For example, if I had found out yesterday that my hubby viewed porn that day, my storytime thoughts would have been like this, "Hubby would find her hot." "She is so much prettier than me." "I am such a slob in these jeans." "Which one of these would hubby go for?" And it goes on and on.
After over a year of recovery, I have gotten better at not letting these thoughts control me. I can't say I never think them, but I have gotten to the point where they do not consume me. The irony is that this makes me more sympathetic to hubby when he talks about struggling with his thought life i.e., lust. It is VERY HARD! He struggles with lust, I struggle with obsessing about his struggle with lust. Exhausting.
The bottom line is this. The Bible says we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. God can do this if we allow him to. It is a minute-by-minute transformation. And it is exhausting. But the Bible also says to come to Him you are weary and burdened. And I don't know a spouse of any addict who would not fit that category.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
I hope my readers, if I have any, are patient people. This is my first post on my first blog. So I guess you could say I am a novice at this. I have enjoyed learning more about the blogging process, but I have a whole lot more to learn. Like our lives, this is definitely a work in progress.
I had never even read a blog before November of 2006. Didn't really have a reason too I guess. I suppose I had heard of them but had assumed they were for people who knew more about computers than I do. But in a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone, who knew what I was going through, I stumbled into the world of blogging. I found out that I was definitely not the only one struggling with a husband struggling with porn use. In fact, there are whole communities out there in "cyberspace" dedicated to the careful and oh-so-important recovery of us wives. Yes, we need recovery too. You are important. Your husband's addiction is not your fault. It actually has nothing to do with you. And he would still look at porn no matter if you were a supermodel yourself. These statements are easy to say, hard to believe.
Reading and creating blogs has not been the only change in my life since November 2006. There have been many, and most not near that creative. I guess the most common sense discovery I made that keeps coming back to me is this: Addicts lie. I hate to think of my hubby as a liar, but he perfected this trait with many, many years of practice. Now we are rebuilding. Rebuilding trust is very hard to do, sometimes I think it impossible. But we are giving it our best try, and my hubby is really trying.
After discovering my hubby's addiction, I was thrust into a world I never knew existed. I like to call it the underworld of sexual addiction. I am almost envious for those innocent days when I did not know terms such as "the addictive cycle," "the rollercoaster," "codependent," "acting out," "sexual anorexia," and "triggers." However, if I had not lived through this, my marriage would not be as strong as it is today. In a strange way, my hubby's porn addiction is the best thing that has happened to our marriage. Now we are real. Good or bad, we are real. Does he still have slip-ups? Yes. Do I still feel like throwing in the towel and kicking his butt to the curb? Yes. We have by no means figured this whole thing out, I don't think you ever really do, but we are definitely farther along than we were this time last year.
This blog is about living with a recovering porn addict. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
I had never even read a blog before November of 2006. Didn't really have a reason too I guess. I suppose I had heard of them but had assumed they were for people who knew more about computers than I do. But in a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone, who knew what I was going through, I stumbled into the world of blogging. I found out that I was definitely not the only one struggling with a husband struggling with porn use. In fact, there are whole communities out there in "cyberspace" dedicated to the careful and oh-so-important recovery of us wives. Yes, we need recovery too. You are important. Your husband's addiction is not your fault. It actually has nothing to do with you. And he would still look at porn no matter if you were a supermodel yourself. These statements are easy to say, hard to believe.
Reading and creating blogs has not been the only change in my life since November 2006. There have been many, and most not near that creative. I guess the most common sense discovery I made that keeps coming back to me is this: Addicts lie. I hate to think of my hubby as a liar, but he perfected this trait with many, many years of practice. Now we are rebuilding. Rebuilding trust is very hard to do, sometimes I think it impossible. But we are giving it our best try, and my hubby is really trying.
After discovering my hubby's addiction, I was thrust into a world I never knew existed. I like to call it the underworld of sexual addiction. I am almost envious for those innocent days when I did not know terms such as "the addictive cycle," "the rollercoaster," "codependent," "acting out," "sexual anorexia," and "triggers." However, if I had not lived through this, my marriage would not be as strong as it is today. In a strange way, my hubby's porn addiction is the best thing that has happened to our marriage. Now we are real. Good or bad, we are real. Does he still have slip-ups? Yes. Do I still feel like throwing in the towel and kicking his butt to the curb? Yes. We have by no means figured this whole thing out, I don't think you ever really do, but we are definitely farther along than we were this time last year.
This blog is about living with a recovering porn addict. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
