Therapy day here which means I’ve once again seen how many things I can get wrong in a week. Here are the lies I am telling myself this week:
Lie 1: We will NEVER have a compatible sex life Truth: our sex life is messed up right now. That’s my fault. I’ve been an addict our whole marriage, I don’t know what a normal sex life is. It can be true that my wife has rarely initiated sex and that I’ve never felt like my needs were met, but I’ve also never shared my desires and hopes for our sex life either. I have measured her with a ruler she never knew existed.
Lie 2: A little bit of pornography won’t hurt. You’re doing so well and you’ve got a great relationship with the kids now and you’re meeting your obligations at home, you deserve a little treat. Truth: I am powerless over my addictive sexual behavior. No amount of pornography is healthy for me. It doesn’t matter how “innocent” a few peeks at some nudes may seem. I am staying bonded to that and not being open to connection with my wife. Further I’m risking falling further into my addiction cycle and that leads to very bad places.
Lie 3: You are incompatible Truth: I don’t want to do the work. I’m tired. I want to just give up and acknowledge I’m trash, I’ll always be trash, so it’s not even worth trying. I am so afraid of failing that I’d rather just quit trying than have to admit I tried and maybe it wasn’t good enough.
Lie 4: You’ve been working hard and it doesn’t feel any better Truth: you screwed up your anti depressant Rx replenishment and you’ve been a couple days off your meds. The new bottle of pills arrived tonight and things are going to feel more even keel tomorrow.
Lie 5: sure your Affair Partners had some flaws but at least they would f*ck you any way you wanted. Truth: they had massive character flaws. They were willing by to sleep with a married man. You’re ignoring a lot of other red flags, too, because you never had to be around them other than when you were getting off. This is not healthy and it’s going to hurt your wife more if you keep going here. Leave them in the past.
Lie 6a: divorced life would be ok Truth: it’s true you won’t die if you get divorced but you don’t want to miss mornings waking up with your kids and putting them to bed. You don’t want to miss the inside jokes and helping with homework and coaching teams. Yes, you would still find ways to do that if separated but it would not be as easy as you think it would.
Lie 6b: but see, you’re just staying for the kids, you didn’t even mention one thing you’d miss about your wife. Truth: that is bad that you can’t name things you’d miss about your spouse, but you’ve been bonded to something else for so long your memory on this topic is clouded. You need to get clean and see if you fall in love again. Even if you can’t remember now why you got married or you are scared maybe you just followed the path of least resistance, you are not a reliable source right now. 16 years ago you wanted to get married. Until you’re clean you’re not competent to evaluate that decision. Just relax and focus on getting sober.
Thanks for letting me share.