Well - here I sit, past the 60 day mark on this reboot - have I learned anything, am I any better than before?
Well - I'm not doing any PMO - that's a definite improvement. And I don't have any desire to return to my old life of lies, secrets, passive complicity with the abuse and exploitation of young girls, objectification of women, or objectification of self. No urges. This is the right path, there is no doubt in my mind. My body feel stronger, my brain clearer, and my soul is getting a little bit cleaner.
On the other hand there is plenty of regret, guilt and sadness. The knowledge of what I did, the disengagement from my wife, the distance from my daughter, the throwing away of years of potential joy, and of the hard reality that I was a shitty Dad, an unloving husband, and a habitual teller of lies is difficult to square with who I am and who I want to be in the future. Worse yet, the habits of the past have not all gone away. When I get frightened about losing my family, I stupidly withdraw - just like I always did in the past. In 60 days, I've told even more lies - oddly trying to defend who I was in the past - instead of being able to FULLY acknowledge what a bastard I was, how compulsive I had become, how brutally wrong it all was - and how much pain I had caused. As I've worked through everything that happened, and tried to answer every question my wife has asked, I've learned more and more about what happened and what I was thinking. At first, I thought I was being honest - but as I become more honest with myself, I've discovered that there were quite a few things I was in denial about. And instead of fully being the man I want to be, I've retreated into depression and obsessed about myself when I should be connecting to others.
I understand more than ever before why my wife is so angry and hurt. Every story that changes from the first week of disclosure is another wound to her sense of reality, to her sense that she could ever trust me again, to any vision of a better life for her and my daughter. She is an amazing fighter - and has engaged with me through the recovery in incredible ways - but what is in this for her? When do I start becoming the husband she deserves? This can't be a process that takes years - or even months. There must be tangible change now.
I believe that the husband she deserves is there - but he needs to be strong now - he needs to get comfortable with discomfort, just as he did with PMO withdrawal. He needs to get out of his head - he needs to have courage when there is no rational reason to be courageous. He needs to engage with life, no matter what happens, and accept emotions and pain as part of life. He needs to give his wife something more than a recovery...she deserves a renewal.
And it occurs to me that withdrawing for good from PMO only took a decision - a true, to the heart, to the core, decision that this will be no more. Can't these other behaviors - though some have been a part of my life longer than the porn, be changed with a decision as well?
In that decision, I had to accept that I was an addict - then put everything I was into changing it.
In this decision to be a genuine, present, and giving man to my family - I have to accept that I have been a self-obsessed, arrogant ego-maniac pretending to be a nice guy. This has to be fully accepted without depression or feeling sorry for self. I have to just accept the truth of who I've been. Now, how do I live without being that guy? How do I not succumb to the temptation to believe my own shit - to hold myself up as a great person - to retreat into thoughts - to not listen - to not be a jerk?
There's a long list of behaviors that must change - but they all come from the same root - my ego. The ego has to go. All that matters is the world outside my head - not what it thinks of me, but what it is. I have to focus all my energy on others - on learning them, on delighting in them, in living my life to care for and support others in ways big and small.
I might be a little better - but there's quite a bit more work to do.
