I am trying to keep an account of how "I" am doing during this process. I still have my extreme ups and downs. I still get extremely disappointed when I feel that my husband isn't making the progress that I would like to see on the emotional/connection side of the relationship. Right now my biggest current struggle is mourning the losses.
I have been almost overwhelmed with grief over the years of our relationship that were lost to porn. One of the things I can honestly say hinders our progress is that when things start to feel 'better', I think about how we could have and should have had this 'better' relationship years ago. Why did we have to hit rock bottom before he realized he loved me, why did he have to fall so far down before he realized he wanted this relationship? Why did he allow something as stupid as pornography to distract him so much he missed important milestones in the development of our children. Sometimes, you don't get a do over. In our conversation this morning he said he was going to "fix things" and I asked, "How do you fix what was missed to time?" You don't get to 'fix' not having an active role in the pivotal years of your children's development. How do you 'fix' all those times he turned me down when I asked him to come to bed with me. He picked jacking off to porn over having sex with me for years. It wasn't until I thought about things recently that I realized just how many times he flat out rejected my advances. How do you 'fix' that?
It feels unfair, that I am expected to simply move on, to put the past in the past. He didn't spend the last few YEARS feeling rejected, feeling abandoned, feeling unloved. He spent those years on a dopamine high. He is walking away from something that was fake and walking in to something that is real. I am being asked to trust someone that I used to trust and he violated that trust. The only reason that I don't trust him now is because he proved himself untrustworthy. I am being asked to 'trust fall' from a cliff into the arms of someone that has consistently dropped me every single time I closed my eyes, crossed my arms, and fell back thinking that he loved me enough to catch me. I can never get back to the pure trust I used to have for him, the trust that I had that he would never let me fall, he would never betray me or hurt me intentionally.
I am mourning the loss of my ideas of a 'good marriage'. I see the only way to make this work is to significantly lower my expectations. To stop holding out hope for restitution. What can he possibly do to repay the harm that he caused? The most he can do is try not to hurt me again. That is like someone breaking your leg - they don't take you to the hospital, they don't hold you and comfort you until the pain medication takes effect, they don't take on your duties while you are healing, they don't even notice you are in pain most of the time. Once things finally come to ahead, the absolute only thing they can offer is to get 'anger management counseling' and promise not to break your leg again. And you have to find a way to accept that.
I am mourning the loss of my fantasy. I am mourning the mountain of disconnect between what I needed to see and what I am actually seeing. My husband honestly cannot figure out what things he could do ease the pain of what he caused. I can think of 1,000 ways. I am no longer giving him lists of things he 'could do'. The reason is because when he would do the things I requested, they weren't from the heart and they were consistent and sustained over time. He would do them until he though he was 'done' and he was ready to move on.
I feel like I am in a bit of limbo - I am mourning the loss of our marital past, I am mourning the loss of the fantasy of fun and fascinating future. It is hard to believe that I am not trying to hype myself up to accept mediocre. Sigh
I have been almost overwhelmed with grief over the years of our relationship that were lost to porn. One of the things I can honestly say hinders our progress is that when things start to feel 'better', I think about how we could have and should have had this 'better' relationship years ago. Why did we have to hit rock bottom before he realized he loved me, why did he have to fall so far down before he realized he wanted this relationship? Why did he allow something as stupid as pornography to distract him so much he missed important milestones in the development of our children. Sometimes, you don't get a do over. In our conversation this morning he said he was going to "fix things" and I asked, "How do you fix what was missed to time?" You don't get to 'fix' not having an active role in the pivotal years of your children's development. How do you 'fix' all those times he turned me down when I asked him to come to bed with me. He picked jacking off to porn over having sex with me for years. It wasn't until I thought about things recently that I realized just how many times he flat out rejected my advances. How do you 'fix' that?
It feels unfair, that I am expected to simply move on, to put the past in the past. He didn't spend the last few YEARS feeling rejected, feeling abandoned, feeling unloved. He spent those years on a dopamine high. He is walking away from something that was fake and walking in to something that is real. I am being asked to trust someone that I used to trust and he violated that trust. The only reason that I don't trust him now is because he proved himself untrustworthy. I am being asked to 'trust fall' from a cliff into the arms of someone that has consistently dropped me every single time I closed my eyes, crossed my arms, and fell back thinking that he loved me enough to catch me. I can never get back to the pure trust I used to have for him, the trust that I had that he would never let me fall, he would never betray me or hurt me intentionally.
I am mourning the loss of my ideas of a 'good marriage'. I see the only way to make this work is to significantly lower my expectations. To stop holding out hope for restitution. What can he possibly do to repay the harm that he caused? The most he can do is try not to hurt me again. That is like someone breaking your leg - they don't take you to the hospital, they don't hold you and comfort you until the pain medication takes effect, they don't take on your duties while you are healing, they don't even notice you are in pain most of the time. Once things finally come to ahead, the absolute only thing they can offer is to get 'anger management counseling' and promise not to break your leg again. And you have to find a way to accept that.
I am mourning the loss of my fantasy. I am mourning the mountain of disconnect between what I needed to see and what I am actually seeing. My husband honestly cannot figure out what things he could do ease the pain of what he caused. I can think of 1,000 ways. I am no longer giving him lists of things he 'could do'. The reason is because when he would do the things I requested, they weren't from the heart and they were consistent and sustained over time. He would do them until he though he was 'done' and he was ready to move on.
I feel like I am in a bit of limbo - I am mourning the loss of our marital past, I am mourning the loss of the fantasy of fun and fascinating future. It is hard to believe that I am not trying to hype myself up to accept mediocre. Sigh