How do you forget?

I realize I'm in your space, but I think that's a very insightful analysis.

From the addict's side, we don't end up hitting bottom and disclosing until the pain has been unbearable, often for many, many years.  When we finally let go, there is a huge sense of relief.  It's over.  Something that has been part of our lives in many cases since childhood.  We can start anew.  For the first time, we have real hope.

And then addicts get puzzled.  Why isn't my spouse feeling the same relief?  Why can't she also start over?  We don't understand, and we probably have to be reminded again and again, that it may be ending for us, but it's just beginning for our spouses.  That what we are finally putting down, they are just picking up.

And of course, those who have been hiding their feelings, and hiding from their feelings, since adolescence are not always all that great at understanding the feelings of others.

So the world is full of puzzled recovering addicts who can't understand why everything isn't all good after a week or a month or a year.

I think you've captured the phase inversion between us with brilliant accuracy.

I have no idea when the pain ceases.  I haven't been where you are.  What I tell addicts who get in a rush is what a wonderful spouse on another board used to say - that for every year of betrayal, it takes two years to restore trust.  I have no idea whether that's true or not, though I am absolutely certain that I will never again betray my wife after that span of time.  Nobody in my family has ever lived to be 114.

Tim M.

I've run across this paradox a few times......in my own life and in a book or books (I've read a library on this, and I've lost track of where I read some things.)

The paradox is this:  He's unburdened himself.  His secret is out.  He no longer has to work to keep the secret and his healing can begin.

For the wife, her private hell has just begun.  The man she thought she was married to does not exist, probably never existed.  She is mourning his death, but cannot reach out for the support of many, as this is not something she can share with just anyone.  It is a terribly isolating and painful event.

For me, I took a giant step forward in healing when I realized that I was mourning the loss of an illusion, not the loss of a reality.  That's a subtle distinction, but I hope it helps you.  Something about coming to the realization that you never had what you thought you had made it easier somehow.   Let me repeat:  You are mourning the loss of an illusion.  The reality you thought you had never existed.  I really hope that realization helps you as much as it helped me.

Instead of mourning a loss, I celebrate the fact that I now know the truth and that I WAS NOT CRAZY.  Every new revelation isn't quite like a ray of sunshine, but every new revelation is like taking another step out of the shadow of falsehood into the light of truth.   It also allows me to look at me and ask not "what is wrong with me?  How did I fail him?" but I ask the correct questions about how and why I stayed for 25 years, 23 years knowing something was terribly wrong but never having the courage to leave.  It's really no longer about him.  His mess is his mess.  It's now about me and getting healthy, rebuilding my life and getting rid of all dependencies on him and rebuilding myself to be the person I was intended to be. 

I realize the truth in Dr. Weiss' words:  "If you take a puppy, feed it only enough to survive, never touch it, talk with it, play with it.......you end up with a real mean dog."  I'm a junkyard dog that would be quite happy to rip an addicts leg off and beat them with the bloody stump.  I'm a real mean dog.    This dog was made, not born, and I'm going to try to undo the damage that has been done to me over the last 25 years.  I'm exercising.  I'm going to fire my existing therapist.  She does not understand sexual addiction or intimacy anorexia.  I am joining a group for wives of intimacy anorexics and I'm going to continue on with individual therapy with a woman who was married to a sex addict.  She get's it.  No else can or does.

Yes......he is now unburdened and wants an ATTABOY for taking tiny steps in recovery.  Remember, emotionally, he's 12, tops.  He is a child.  He has no clue what you are going through, no ability to empathize, no understanding. None.   He's T...W.....E.........L.....V....E.  If you would give your son an attaboy for picking up his dirty clothes.......give the "husband" an attaboy for taking tiny steps in recovery.  Really.....you can't look at him as a man.   He's not even close.  He cannot process that which he cannot understand. 

It's another one of those jaw dropping moments, LadyP..........

My best,  DW


And I should have added:  After I listened in to the group for wives of intimacy anorexics, I realized I'd danced the co-dependent dance to a point.  I used to think "Well, maybe I need to clean more, maybe I need to cook more, maybe I need to keep the house more picked up, maybe he needs some recreation time, maybe he needs to come home to appetizers and wine, maybe he needs to come home to a wife who is dressed and has makeup on.......maybe he needs........maybe he needs.........."   I did all of this trying to get him to engage in the marriage.  I begged him to talk with me.  I begged him for relationship.   "Maybe he needs/maybe I need to do" was my mantra.  None of it worked, because he is first and foremost and addict:  An intimacy anorexic, a sex addict, and an alcoholic.   I lost myself in trying to get him to engage in the marriage.   Celebrate the fact that you know the truth.........at least part of it..........and you are no longer living in an illusion.