Divorce... Maybe

When James was less than a year old, I called 911 because Eli had overdosed on over-the-counter cough syrup.  It was something he read about on-line and seemed new and exciting. It was a terrifying day for me. Thankfully the kids didn’t see them roll him away on a stretcher. I put on a video in our bedroom and they remained clueless. I thank God for this every time I remember that day. He came home from the hospital that night and 2 days later did it again. Obviously this was a problem we would have to deal with. We have spent the last 10 years going to support groups, counseling, and rehab to help with this problem. I have also spent a lot of time in prayer.

In addition to overdosing on cough syrup, he looks at pornography to further his high. This hurts me even more deeply. As a woman and as a wife I have had my self-esteem shattered by this habit. He has been seeing a therapist that specializes in this kind of behavior for almost 2 years now. There has been some progress, but I still live a life riddled with lies and deception. There is a double life that he leads that keeps me second-guessing my intuition and sanity. Catching him in the act of using or finding clues that tell me has done it recently make my heart shut down and my mind reel.  I feel like a detective in my own house. I have spent many years working on my issues and trying to be the best wife I can be for him.  I have committed myself to reading God’s word every day and trying to make his addictions about something other than me.  And yet, they feel so personal. Every time. I often remind him that every time I catch him in a lie or high from substances, a little piece of my heart dies and closes off to what we could have as a couple. I long to trust him and share with him, but I feel guarded because of this behavior.

Recently he was caught shoplifting while getting his drug of choice at a Rite-Aid. He is now banned from all Rite-Aid stores and we are paying a fine of $300. I don’t really know that this behavior will ever end.  I know that he has struggled with depression all of the years we’ve been together and I have been supportive as much as I know how. His therapist has also added a severe mood disorder to his diagnosis. This means that I live with extremes all of the time. I am exhausted and heart-broken and I don’t know what else to do. When he lost his job 2 years ago, I had him stay at his parents' for 6 weeks while I let my heart mend. God has been so good to me. He softens my heart every time I feel betrayed and gives me a new love for my husband. It has been truly amazing.

At this point, however, I am not willing to wait for the softening of my heart. I am now 40 years old and starving for a marriage that feels real and honest. I want nothing more than to build a life with someone and share all of me. I don’t think this will ever happen for Eli and me. I still love him. I love him desperately. But I can’t live like this anymore. Please forgive me. Please know that I have tried everything to save this relationship. Please support me and support him and support our children. This road will not be easy. It is truly the last thing I want to do.

Linsey

Sidetracked

This blog needs to be about sex. But, like my life, it has constantly been sidetracked by my addiction.

I live with an emotional abuse and incest survivor. This fact colors every single day of my life. It taints and poisons the most basic and honest of my human impulses – love, affection, intimacy. I need to be growing in patience and love for my wife, learning how to meet her needs and open her heart. I need to be nurturing a place where she can redefine sensuality, in her own time, with someone who loves and cherishes her. This can't happen when she can't trust me.

Shortly after therapy uncovered my wife's abuse, I bought the book Ghosts in the Bedroom, subtitled “A Guide for the Partners of Incest Survivors.” I was desperately looking for help for ME, the guy who felt like a rapist every time he tried to make love to the woman he adored. Instead, one of the first things I read was that most survivors marry people with serious core issues like addiction. The author didn't know me, but he already knew I was an alcoholic.

I was frustrated and angry. I wanted to get to the part that told me how to FIX my wife so she would have sex with me. Instead, I read that our situation could not improve until I took care of my own core issues. I had to deal with my alcoholism before we could learn intimacy.

Here's why this made me mad: because I believed that my drinking problem was her fault. The reason I drank myself to sleep every night on the living room couch was that she was doing her avoidance thing: falling asleep in the kids' rooms, getting a stomach ache, suddenly remembering unfinished paperwork, getting stuck on the phone with a friend. (Her demons were remarkably creative.)

I began the journey of recovery, only to find it much more complex than I'd anticipated. My addiction was “cunning, baffling, powerful.” And it was permanent. I would either be actively working to beat it, or painfully succumbing to it, for the rest of my life. I also learned that it was not Linsey's fault. She could not stop it nor could she cure it. My addiction was, and is, mine.

I never really read beyond chapter three, titled “My Core Issues.” I had a book about supporting an incest survivor, a book that was supposed to help me be the kind of husband who could love her through her hurts and rebuild her understanding of intimacy. But I got hung up on the chapter about MY problems, MY addiction.

And that's what my life feels like. I am angry and disappointed in my marriage. My sexuality and my adoration of my wife feel like heavy, frustrating liabilities. And our progress as a healing couple is repeatedly trashed by my slips.

You might find it really arrogant for me to be complaining. I know I've been the bastard that keeps fucking up. I'd like to stop now. I'd like to allow the books and marriage therapy to work in our lives. There is no shortcut to get there, just a daily choice to stay sober.

[Photo by oba-bobalina under C.C.License]

Unreachable Pie

I'm in that familiar post-relapse conundrum. A poisonous emotional mixture that's usually buried is now very accessible. I know for a fact that these emotions were already bubbling up; my inability to handle them contributed to my relapse in the first place. And once I start using, everything I've been suppressing comes spilling out in an orgy of self-pity and resentment. So it is with the alcoholic. The Big Book nails it on this point.

When I'm healthy and sober, I sometimes find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what I'm angry about. That is not my problem this week.

On the other hand, I'm pretty much in the doghouse, for lack of a better phrase. I screwed up. Right now seems like the absolute least appropriate time to bring up the things in my marriage that I'm mad about. I mean, what kind of a jackass complains about his sex life after relapsing for the umpteenth time?

I broke the trust of someone who has some pretty serious trust issues to begin with: an incest-survivor. For Linsey, the “survivor” part meant becoming a full-fledged adult somewhere around the age of eleven, and building walls that are tall and strong and impenetrable enough that no one would hurt her again, ever. As I've said before, look at us: The untrusting and the untrust-worthy. What a pair.

And yet, here we are. And once she says “I miss you and I want you again,” we get back to work. “Work” is the right word. I used to think about how awesome it would be to go to sex therapy, and come home with sex assignments. That's the kind of homework that you can look forward to, right? Not so much. Turns out it's mind-games, tedious conversations, passionless high-effort encounters, and triggers upon triggers, like walking through a mine-field. And once in a while, if the stars align just so, when we least expect to find nirvana, we stumble into a tenderness that is mutual and full of warmth and excitement. Just often enough to remind us that it's possible, that we're not chasing after a mirage. Just often enough to whet my appetite for more, and to make me realize how truly hungry I am for her.

Restaurants sometimes display your dessert choices using artificial models of apple pie a-la-mode and Boston cream pie behind a glass counter. They know how it works: You might be planning on saving that extra money or avoiding a few calories, but a convincing enough vision of a decadent hot fudge cake just might change your mind. Of course, when you order, you're not served a foam rubber, plastic and spray-paint concoction, but the real thing. At this point, only an actual dessert would satisfy your appetite.

I am married to a woman who is beautiful and charming. She makes me laugh like no one else. I am also married to an incest survivor. I'm tired of staring through the glass at my dessert.

[Photo by DigiDi under C.C.License]
This post also at TheSecondRoad.org

Fate of Our Fathers

Tonight I cuddled with James on our hammock under a spider-man blanket. On a clear night you can see a few stars from my back yard; tonight there was a cloud cover reflecting the lights of the city. In years past, I spent many nights on that hammock. I was high, smoking cigarettes and imagining the aliens who lived on planets circling the stars above me. A few times I woke up Ashley so she could join me. She thought I was being a good dad, and begged me later to wake her up more often for midnight snuggles.

I've been researching videos for our Father's Day service. I found this one that struck me with its honesty. It begins by recognizing dads who balance work and family – pretty standard fare. What touched me was that it goes on to honor dads who try not to repeat their fathers' mistakes, and dads whose fathers were absent completely. I began to think of the men in my church, and the messes and heartache they struggle to leave behind.

Last weekend I broke one of my rules. I returned a phone call when I was angry. When my coworker answered, I was condescending and sarcastic. I hung up the phone and that feeling came back: I am my dad. My dad, who has tantrums at work, until he's not working there anymore. People only put up with this for so long, then he moves on to another job. This tendency to ruin relationships with fits of ego-centric rage feels like a legacy I can't escape, no matter how much therapy I pay for, or how many 12 step groups I join. It suffocates and terrifies me. It feels like fate.

Tonight Linsey read to James from a journal she kept when he was a baby. Unlike the journal for his older sister Ashley, James' journal is sparse and incomplete, reflecting the brokenness of our lives at that time. We were discovering that while one kid had been fun, two kids were exhausting. I laughed when Linsey read aloud what James said after he hid the spanking-spoon: “daddy no pow-pow me!” I cringed when she read about his preschool teacher, the woman I thought would save me from my miserable marriage.

That was an awful time. We moved to a new house and I was overwhelmed at my new job as a church music director, afraid that I would cave in under the pressure of dealing with people. Like my father had when I was a child. We had left our church back then when he yelled and stormed out of a board meeting. I didn't come back until they hired me twenty years later.

I am still here. I have not been fired or shamed, and I've weathered the conflicts with relative grace, because I am not my father, I am me. There is no fate. Instead there are choices – innumerable choices and opportunities to surrender my future to the grace of God.

After I hung up the phone last weekend, I called my coworker back. I ate humble pie and asked her to forgive me for being a jerk. I think she did. I think we're okay.

Tonight I showed my family the Father's Day video and I cried. Because we are an army of broken men who have imperfect or non-existent examples of what it means to be a father. Because we fight to stand on the shoulders of the men who raised us and we curse our own mistakes. Because the man in the video with the abusive father was not me, but my dad, who escaped a legacy of divorce and abuse to give me a stable home filled with love. He wasn't fated to repeat his dad's mistakes. Neither am I.

Tonight I am thankful for my dad, and for who he is today. I'm thankful that even though he had temper problems, he never abused drugs or alcohol, and he never abused me. I'm thankful that I get to be sober for the rest of my years as a father. And I'm thankful that I could talk about electricity and superheroes with my son while we laid in a back yard hammock.