The nitty, gritty, and not so pretty

Warning: If you're looking for inspiration, this post may not be for you today. There will be no pictures of peonies today.

I am angry. And I am ready to write about that. For so long, I have not felt safe with my anger. It is so important to me to try to be Christ like and not hurt others, especially my husband, that I work very hard to not indulge in anger. But I'm realizing now that not all of this effort stems from righteous desire. Some of it comes from pride---I don't want to be seen doing the "wrong" thing. And some of it comes from the out of control feeling that comes from anger. I don't like it. It makes it hard not to do things I regret. I feel like I lose agency and perspective and compassion when I'm in that mode.

So I think I have been in denial about some things because I've been trying not to get angry. Lately as I've been reading the great posts you have been sharing on your blogs, I've realized how I have not been facing some issues related to my well-being that I need to, and internally I've been working on ramping up my motivation and courage to face the truth and figure out what my next step is and execute it.

One big breakthrough was joining the Help and Healing Forum for Wives (or Ex-Wives) of Addicts. This has led to a few specific triggers for me. They make me feel uncomfortable, but I know I need to feel uncomfortable at times in order to progress.

First, I wrote an introduction telling how I found out about H's pornography use. This was hard for me to do. I have known that I should do this for a while, but haven't because I didn't feel ready. Sharing it was and still is making me feel more vulnerable than I even expected though. And of course I just shared a short version. There is so much more that I really should write and formally process.

Second, I had a dream about two weeks ago that was extremely vivid and coherent. In it, I engaged in sexual behavior with some men even though I knew I was married to H. In the dream, part of me enjoyed it but I also felt really bad about what I was doing and knew it was wrong. Then, in the dream I saw H and he kind of knew what happened and I knew we needed to talk about it and I needed to confess, but I just could not form the words to tell him what I had done to violate our marriage. It was so interesting to feel this loss of words as an overwhelming physical sensation because I am very talkative and only very rarely am I at a loss for words. After thinking about the dream, I decided I could use it to feel empathy for H's position and I decided I wanted to talk to him about it. So two nights ago after a short, neutral every day conversation together, I started by telling him that I knew he loved me and I appreciated all the things he did regularly that helped me know that he really loves me and then I told him the dream. I then told him that I understood why it would be hard for him to tell me about things he's done because I know he doesn't want to hurt me. He didn't say anything in response, but we made eye contact, and I made myself detach and go on with my evening, feeling glad that I had said what I wanted to say and remembering that I could not and should not try to force him to engage further on the issue even though it was tempting. But then, last night I read something on the forum that made me rethink the whole thing. I can't share what was said here, but basically it came to my attention that if I excuse H from being honest with me because it might hurt my feelings, I'm enabling his addiction. Of course I don't actually want him to hide the truth from me even though it may hurt me, and I did explicitly tell him that. But if I am too careful with our emotions, the truth will never come out. I do think it's good for me to understand H's perspective, so overall, I think the dream and the conversation that followed were a good thing. But it was good (hard, but good) for me to realize that having that perspective is not the end goal. It is something that should facilitate our path to truth, not keep us from it.

Third, through the forum I found a link to this site which is full of good information and contains two videos that I watched. One was the testimony of ex-porn star Shelly Lubben to the state of California on the harm that is inherent in the porn industry and one was a TEDx talk by Gary Wilson on the harmful effects of porn on addicts. (Warning, there are some videos on the site that were too graphic for me, and even the info Shelly shared with me disturbed me. So be warned that not everything shared on this site may be for you.) I knew pornography was bad before I watched these videos, but I have been minimizing that in my mind because I feel there is so little I can do to control H's use of it (or even know if he is using it). So when I made myself come to face with all the specifics and compared them in my mind to the LIES H told me when I found out about the pornography---that there is nothing wrong with it except that it hurts my feelings and that it's between consenting adults so it's fine---I got so mad. Of course I didn't believe his lies before, but I did not feel I was in a position to contradict H; in fact, I didn't want to. There were so many issues we had to face just with him leaving the church and he made discussing anything so difficult that I didn't want to bring up anything I didn't have to.

So those three things have all contributed to my discomfort and anger right now. It's not overwhelming, it's not violent, but it does feel motivating and powerful. I feel like I want to do something and I'm ready to do something. What I want to do is sit down with H and make him listen (I don't want him looking at Shelly, and you all know why) to those two talks in my presence. I want to tell him that he doesn't have to tell me how he feels about pornography, especially if his views haven't changed in the two years since we've talked about it last(!) but that I am finally ready to respond to what he said in a conversation once about pornography not being harmful (except to my feelings---and btw, shouldn't that be enough reason not to use it?). I want him to know that because I want him to not use pornography because I care about him and because I care about all the people affected by the evil of this industry that are being hurt because otherwise responsible citizens are supporting it or turning a blind eye to it. I want him to know that it is reasons like these that it has no place in our home. And I want to ask him what he is going to do to start showing me that the intention he stated two years ago to never use it again has any meaning to him, and if so, what he has done to follow through with that intention. And I want to ask him what he is going to do for the 8 weeks we will be apart (on different continents) this summer to stay true to me.

But I'm scared. Because I don't know very much about codependence and what my version of it looks like yet, and I don't want to make things worse and I'm worried that a conversation like this might do that. (If I really am way off base here, I'd love for those of you with more experience to gently suggest a better course of action.) I know that I can't MAKE H do anything. That's why I've been working so hard to invite, encourage, lead, and love instead. But I also know that I have the right and duty to expect behavior from H that will keep me and my family safe. If he truly thinks there is nothing wrong with pornography, he needs to know, and he needs to know that I know, what a lie that is.

I feel like a lioness at the gate. That's right. I am woman, hear me roar.

I say that, and yet I still feel hesitancy in my spirit. A pep talk, please? Can I hear your roar?

P.S. About 5 minutes after publishing this post, I read this awesome post about anger. Umm, 5 minutes? How about 10 years? I think my anger pasts the test . . .

P.P.S. I mean to share a link to this post about writing negative things that I could really related to.