What I knew

Another post answering some questions I was asked in response to my Saturday Night post.

I was curious if you thought your husband's acting out behavior was limited to/exclusively only lust and pornography prior to this most recent disclosure?

Before my husbands' disclosure, two of my friends asked me what my best guess about the extent of my husbands' behavior was. I thought it was extremely likely that he had had an affair with a coworker a few years ago. From what he has told me in the past few weeks, it seems this was not the case. But I would say I was 75% confident that he had engaged in some kind of sex with another woman. I was a bit surprised it ended up being a prostitute, and that apparently the only times it happened were within 2 months of his disclosure (seems fishy, huh? I've asked him about this again and I'm still not trusting that I have full disclosure on the issue). But him having sex with a prostitute rather than having an affair really does fit his Avoidant attachment style better (if you haven't read Attached yet, get your hands on it!).

I also was about 85% confident that he had been to a strip club at least once. On the first D-day, 2.5 years ago, when I found all the porn on his laptop while he was out of state on a business trip, I saw that he had looked up where a strip club was in the town he was visiting. When he got home the next day, I told him I knew about the porn. I spent 3 days doing nothing but trying to drag the truth out of him, and for months after he still maintained that he had driven up to the strip club and then had an agonizing hour of soul searching while sitting in the car, deciding whether or not to go in and had ultimately decided that he "didn't want to be that kind of man/husband." Now I know that he did go into the strip club that night (yep, just hours after I found out about his porn use I spent the night at a friend's house in literal shock and he was in a strip club . . . ugh) and had been in several strip clubs on trips before that experience and went to several on trips after that time. Yeah, my husband has his work cut out for him if he is every going to earn ANY trust back from me.

If the answer is yes, could you share how you 'knew' before he had the courage to more honestly disclose? If the answer is no, that you did know his acting out behavior included more then lust and pornography, could you share how it felt slowly hearing/understanding additional behaviors over time?

Even though my best guesses about the extent of my husbands' acting out weren't correct, what I did know for the past 2.5 years was that what my husband was telling me did not make sense, was too vague, and was not consistent with what I had learned about pornography addiction. For two years my husband maintained that he was not an addict, striving to prove this through direct lies and denial and more indirect minimization  of the information I was aware of. For a while I kind of believed him. Part of me wanted to. But it was unsettling to me that he could not/would not give me more specific information about when he started viewing pornography (it took three days of grilling him for him to change from saying it had only been a few months, to six months, to 3.5 years---turns out it had been an issue for 2.5 years longer than he admitted at that point. I sure hope I've got the right start date now . . .) and how casually he talked about how often and how long he would engage in it. And the ease with which he said he would never look at it again. I tried to reason with him that even if it wasn't an addiction, it was at least a pattern of behavior in times of stress and he would have none of it.

With moving out of state and having another child shortly after the first D-day, I had a lot going on and my capacity for putting emotion into this issue fluctuated, but as I accumulated courage and confidence and sought more support (blogs, the forum, etc.) and learned more (from books and others with experience) I finally got to the point where I was 99.99% sure that my husband was addicted to porn, regardless of what he said or any evidence I had (which was zilch; he's super tech saavy, which is going to be such an issue for the rest of my marriage, however long that is). It was only around the beginning of this calendar year that I reached this point and finally started referring to my husband in my mind, and in my limited communication with others about the situation as an addict. Before that, I would use long and awkward phrases referring to his "use of pornography." What gave me confidence that he was an addict was his classic addict behaviors: lack of openness about important issues in general, but especially related to sex, minimization of his negative behaviors, immediate defensiveness when I brought up any concerns about his behavior in any aspect of daily life (as evidenced by him through withdrawal, as opposed to anger and confrontation like many addicts---it was hard for me to see this right away because I've had to learn to recognize his subtle, passive aggressive style which is in stark contrast to my direct approach to communication, so it has not always been easy for me to recognize), knowing from just a few small, but significant, experiences that he was capable of and comfortable with lying to me. Also things like him never wanting to sleep in bed with me, getting antsy about sharing his laptop with me, quickly closing his computer when I came in the room. Suff like that had made me suspicious about porn for years prior to the first D-day.

      With all that said, it has been difficult to learn the specifics of his behavior, how long they have been a part of his life, and what his behaviors mean in terms of boundaries that must be put into place. To be honest, I really haven't even started processing it all yet. I've been only brushing up against emotion (which is hard enough) and have been focusing on staying in assess mode. I will be having my first post D-day individual therapy appointment in a couple days though, which I plan to use as an official ushering in of the processing stage. I know it's what needs to be done and that no matter what, good will come of it for me personally, but I'm not looking forward to it. Processing emotion is so raw and exhausting.

What H has been up to

In my last post, I invited readers to ask questions to guide my next few posts. Thank you to those who asked questions---they were all good, and answering them has been a helpful activity for me. My responses are pretty long, so I'm going to break them up a little and publish new posts answering them every day or so. 

Question: Has your husband talked with anyone else about the addiction? Is he willing to do so? That is something that has been helpful for both my husband and me. For him, it has been helpful to connect with other addicts and know he's not alone. And for me, it has helped to not be the only person he discloses things to, not to be my husband's only or primary support.

Yes. And it has also been our experience that him talking to others has, overall, been helpful. Since disclosing to me, I have asked him to disclose information to various people in various settings. Thus far, he has chosen to comply with my requests (I know because I was there for most of the disclosures and received confirmation from the involved parties in the cases I was not).

I have asked my husband to disclose a summary of his addiction-related behaviors (dishonesty, pornography use, and infidelity) to his parents and siblings over the phone (they all live out of state).

I have asked him to disclose detailed information about his addiction to his therapist. He has been seeing a therapist for depression for several months, but hadn't told her anything related to his pornography use, acting out, or dishonesty.

I asked my husband to meet with the bishop with me. I had already met with the bishop once by myself and shared detailed information about his behavior. When we met with the bishop together, his behavior was discussed openly.

I asked my husband to begin meeting with an addiction support group and he is currently meeting weekly with Sex Addicts Anonymous and finding it extremely relevant and useful.

He tried meeting with a Sexaholics Anonymous group, but because it was an extremely small group and the few members are struggling with recovery, he did not find it helpful, and I am ok with him not continuing to attend that group.

I have asked him to try going to an LDS ARP meeting and that will probably happen next week. Due to some extenuating circumstances in our family life, it didn't work out for this week.

So for or now, he will be meeting with an addiction recovery group 1-2 times a week, meeting with his therapist 1-2 times a week (once it is fall, that will probably go down to just once a week), and we have plans to meet with the bishop together at least one more time. (This is huge given that he has not been active in the church for 2.5 years and says he has no belief in God.)

In addition, I have asked him to attend Sacrament meeting with me and our children and so far he is complying. Those are the big things he is doing. He also is reading some books I have asked him to. When I sleep at home, I am still in my own bedroom. I have no plans to change that anytime in the foreseeable future; in fact, when I have time and energy, I work on getting more settled into my private room and making it comfortable for me. I believe I will be sleeping at friend's houses often still in the foreseeable future.

I plan on posting another Q/A over the weekend, and if you have other questions, feel free to ask! 

Saturday Night

I was going to start this post with an apology for leaving you hanging about the outcome of my ultimatum, then I realized how ironic that would be. Technically, I still don't know the outcome of it. I mean, plenty has happened since I delivered it, but I still don't know if one year or ten years or 40 years I will still be married to my husband. Sadly, I've become so much more comfortable with the uncertainty inherent to the life of a WOPA. The good thing is that this has helped me be patient about not knowing the outcome of other things I can't control. Like my toddlers.

After delivering my ultimatum to H on Wednesday night (2.5 weeks ago), I felt so much peace. It was easy for my behavior toward my husband to align with the pattern in our marriage of treating each other respectfully and calmly even when there is really a lot going on in our relationship. Part of me is really grateful we are capable of doing this---mostly because I believe it offers our children some protection from the issues our marriage faces. Because of what I study (I'm still in grad school), I am very knowledgeable about the effects of marital conflict on children, and it is not good. With that said, I know that this apparent strength in our relationship is actually highly problematic. If H were more open to conflict and I were less accommodating of him, I would have been aware of the reality of our relationship years ago. This tangent is deserving of its own post, but what's important for you to know right now is that life went along pretty smoothly as we approached our scheduled discussion Saturday night.

As soon as our children were in bed, we went downstairs and sat on the couch in our living room and H brought a little notebook he had written a list in. It was clear that he had things to say, and there really wasn't much need for me to say anything at the outset of the conversation; we both knew that it was him that was expected to carry this conversation.

And carry it, he did. For almost an hour, he talked with barely a pause and only a few, short questions from me. Given his history (see here, here, and here for examples) of extreme non-communicativeness (his "record" of longest period of time passing without giving me any type of response---yes, total silence---to a question is THIRTY MINUTES. That's right: us sitting in complete silence for half an hour after me asking some questions and raising some issues. So the fact that he talked for almost an hour with no prompting from me is significant.

His somewhat lengthy and repetitive introduction (which betrayed his almost emotionless voice and made his high anxiety perfectly clear to me) focused on making it clear that the reason he had decided to tell me what he was about to tell me was that he loved me and wanted to come clean so we could stay together. (Some day I'll point out to him the irony of him making such a big point of this because for 2.5 years I've been trying to use that reasoning to get him to disclose to me; I've pointed out that it's not fair to not be open and honest with me if he loves me and cares about my well-being. Oh, addicts . . . you're so ridiculous.)

And then he started disclosing. Given that I have been anticipating the worst for years, on a technical level there was nothing that surprised me. But I'm sure anyone who has sat through disclosure from a sex addict (and yes, he now accepts that description of his behavior) understands how even if you've imagined the general issues your husband might have had, actually hearing the admissions and having even small amounts of specific information to fuel your ability to visualize certain scenarios is really, really intense. In order to avoid triggering anyone (hopefully) and myself (I'm going through a lot and have to take it easy emotionally when I can), I'll give you the most minimal summary I can that still conveys the severity of his addiction:

• H's pornography addiction has been an issue for 8.5 years of our 10-year marriage (2.5 years ago he told me it had only been a problem for the previous 3.5 years, so he just added 2.5 years to his start date).
• For the past 5 years of our marriage, when traveling (something he has done a lot of for work) he has been in the habit of flirting with and seeking the attention of women while purposely NOT wearing his wedding ring and frequenting strip clubs.
• In the very recent past he has had sex with a prostitute twice.
• He has literally stolen money from our family budget to help fund his behaviors. (Impressive since I track our budget pretty closely. Not closely enough, I realize now.) And he has lied to me in order to get access to money he wouldn't otherwise have access to in order to pay for strip clubs.
• He engages in other behaviors not consistent with the standards/commandments of the LDS church (he has not been active for 2.5 years but has always told me that he has maintained the same personal standards of behavior that the church teaches).
• He admitted to having extensive issues with dishonesty and that nearly all of his communication is laced with some sort of deceit or manipulation.

After he finished sharing the topics he planned to share, I asked a few questions seeking clarification or additional detail on aspects of his behavior. In the next hour or so, we talked a few more times, for a few minutes at a time as he continued to disclose behavior he had forgot about and I thought of questions I wanted answers to.

Throughout all of this, I was incredibly blessed to stay unbelievably calm. I took handwritten notes of everything he said, which helped me stay detached. I went into information collection mode; I focused on writing down as much of his words as I could, as if I were sitting in a class and would be held responsible for remembering everything he said in a test (remember, I'm still in grad school; going into nerd-mode is a safe and easy transition for me). I just knew, given my husband and our relationship, and his own clear efforts to keep emotion from entering his communication (which would have caused him to shut down), that the Lord blessed me to stay calm because it was important for me to get as much information about his behavior as possible, and if I had reacted emotionally at all, he would have stopped talking.

In the following week, I received additional disclosures every day, and now I only receive them every few days (as he begins some recovery behaviors, things he reads or learns sometime trigger things, mostly from very far in the past, that he has forgotten to tell me).

For the first 3 nights after D-day, I slept at home in my separate bedroom (and I made that bedroom official by moving all my clothes into the closet and moving my stuff into my kids' bathroom). Then I was able to get the key to the house of a friend who was on vacation, and I've spent all but three nights there for the last two weeks. I've learned that I can spend about one night a week at home, but two nights in a row is not a good idea. Maintaining distance has been so important for me for so many reasons.

There is so much I want to share---so much I'm learning and so many specific behaviors that are helping me stay strong. And H is starting to do some things that show me that it is a possibility that we could stay married. But I am still not counting on that and am starting to take steps that will protect me and my girls financially if/when things do not work out.

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask, and maybe that will help me decide what to post about next the next time I have the time and emotional energy to share something (the intersection of those two resources is so rare these days).

I would like to end by sharing that in the last few weeks my testimony of God's love for me and the reality and power of the Atonement have been greatly magnified. Praise be to God. I also am the luckiest woman alive for having the BEST friends I could ever ask for right now. The best. I have them close to me and far away, I have support in the flesh and in the fabulous online communities I'm a part of (the forum, the blogging world, and FB). Endless, endless gratitude for those who bless me so richly. I wish I could list you by name, but I know for sure that a few of you know exactly who you are.