Back in the box

In the last session we took the first step in discussing the anger I have.  It went pretty much as I predicted it would.  As soon as the issue is brought up, he emotionally disconnects and only deals with it on an intellectual level.  When pressed, he was able to acknowledge that he did hurt me many times and that it was never his intention. 

I sat there looking at his face and waited for it.

So did the therapist.  She prompted him...an acknowledgement is only the first step. 

...crickets...

So she turned to me and asked what I needed to hear.  I told her that he has never apologized for anything...and I needed to hear that he is sorry for hurting me. 

There was more acknowledgement of hurting me, and a declaration that of course he was sorry about it.  But he still did not say the words until prompted again.

"I'm sorry for hurting you."

It was good to finally hear it, but it did not make it all better.  It's easy to give a blanket apology when you don't have to be confronted with the actual behavior you're apologizing for.  I can't just let it all go and pretend everything is fine now. And I refuse to build on a foundation of shit.

It's about to get ugly.

In addition to our usual intimacy homework, our homework is to each write three lists:  a list of the ways he hurt me, a list of the ways I hurt him, and a list of the ways we hurt ourself. 

Even starting to think about that first list is overwhelming.  Opening that box of pain a tiny bit was enough to ruin the rest of the weekend, give me nightmares, and make me want to flee.  There's so much stuff in there to deal with, and it all feels awful. 

It's impossible to work on intimacy and confront pain at the same time.  So our agreement with each other is to wait until after this weekend to work on those lists.  Until then, the pain gets locked away again.  After 10 years, one more week won't matter.

Pants on fire

In the last session, I was given the opportunity to start talking about the anger I've been dealing with for the last decade.  Instead, I chose to talk about trust.  As in...I can't trust him because his words are meaningless.  She asked for specifics, and although I could have started anywhere, I started with how he's been promising for years to become more involved with understanding and planning our finances.  We spent most of the session talking about how we can get him to be accountable for what he says, and not make it my problem to remind him all the time.

There really is a clear distinction between the things he is accountable and trustworthy for.  He is trustworthy with the things that he takes ownership of, generally speaking.  But things that I ask of him...things he promises to me...those are the things he is woefully unreliable, untrustworthy, and frankly, a big fucking liar.

I've spent the last decade living with the debris of a thousand broken promises.

It ends NOW.

Hatin' the game

The weekend away was mostly uneventful, except for the rather sudden changing of the rules.  On Saturday afternoon he announced he was having a cocktail...which I believed was not part of the rules we had agreed to.  He said he only agreed to stop drinking for a month, and that time had elapsed.  Oh, really?  I disagreed, but left it at that.  Fortunately, he stopped at one. 

We talked about this in the latest therapy session.  We now have a new set of rules around drinking.  What are the odds that it was 50 minutes and $175 wasted on defining the new parameters that will be obsolete before the check even clears?

This constant rule changing is all part of the pathology of the relationship.  I really can't trust him to do what he says he will.  Whenever he doesn't agree with something he previously agreed to, he simply changes his mind. 

Just. like. that.

The same thing is happening with the homework assignments we have.  There's no longer any accountability there, so nothing really gets accomplished.  Agreements and promises mean nothing. 

...and yet I believe him, every single time.

The result is always the same.

I think it's time to stop tryin' to kick the football and kick Lucy instead.

Blue

In our last session, I brought up that I'm still struggling with anger.  I was able to describe the feelings of despair and hopelessness, the negative impact on my self esteem, and what it was like to live with an alcoholic who was checked out emotionally for the duration of our relationship. 

And for the first time ever, I was heard.

...and then asked to leave those feelings there at the office until we can work on them in a subsequent session.  Which doesn't occur for another week and a half.  I suppose it's no different that usual...I'm quite used to the compartmentalization and denial of my feelings.  Another week or two won't matter much.

We still have the homework to have intimate time each day, but I'm finding that it often gets overlooked.  We've been given the go ahead to progress to the next level in the homework...sexual touching, but not actual intercourse.  Since the last session that hasn't happened.  I think we're falling back into some old habits of neglect, and I'm trying to turn that around now.  But I can't do it on my own, and right now it feels like I am.  Despite not drinking, he can find other things to fill the space and time to avoid being present and accountable.  I get the feeling that I'm losing him again. 

Tomorrow we go away for the weekend.  This will be the first sober trip ever.  I'm trying not to attach too much expectation to it and just enjoy it. 

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco...

We've now had 4 visits...an initial visit with both of us, individual visits, and another visit with both of us.  At every point along the way, I've been impressed by the concrete, goal-driven, and insightful guidance we've gotten.  There have been questionaires that gave us great insight into the things that make us tick and about our assumptions.  At each visit we've had homework.  It's been specific and tangible, and we discuss it at the subsequent visit.  We have to schedule time for homework and for the travel time to the appointments, which isn't easy to do.  Then again, nothing of value is easy to do.

After 4 visits, I now know that a lot of the information I had about my sexual relationship with my husband was wrong.  Despite being given a dozen reasons over the years why we weren't connecting, the real reason was a failure to be honest about what was going on.  It wasn't that he had no desire for me...or that other issues got in the way...or there were physical concerns.  It was that he didn't know how to communicate the things that drove his desire, and was embarrassed by them.

All the damage to my self esteem...all the heartache...all the distance and fighting...was based on interpretation of faulty information. 

At first I was so relieved to know that everything I knew to be true wasn't true at all.

But now I'm starting to get angry again.  I've been lied to.  Misled.  Perhaps not intentionally, but consistently and repeatedly told things that weren't the truth.  It me caused great personal devastation, thousands of tears, and many years of misery. 

I don't know how to deal with this anger when it's co-mingled with relief and hope and love and understanding.  Am I just supposed to let it go, suck it up, and move forward like it never happened?

After all of these lies and so many others, can I ever really trust him again? 

Do I dare?

First session

This might have a chance after all.

Despite my best efforts, I was a nervous wreck by the time we got to Philly.  Even fortified by a delicious lunch and a Bloody Mary, I felt an overwhelming sense of danger and doom. The tiny waiting room seemed not to have enough air to sustain life, or at least my hyperventilation.  I tried to pass it off as allergies, but I was having trouble breathing and swallowing.  Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.  I considered fleeing, vomiting, and faking my own death.  Fortunately, I think it went completely unnoticed. 

The office, in contrast to the oppressive waiting room, was large and spacious, with views of the city.  I relaxed a bit, grabbed some tissues and hunkered down on the couch.  I was determined not to be the one to drive the conversation, and for the most part, I didn't.  When she asked what other factors she needed to know about, I had to speak up about the role of alcohol in the relationship.  I wasn't sure it even had an impact (on anyone but me, that is), but when it came time to assign homework (which she calls homeplay), it came up.

The homeplay is this:  4 hours over the course of the week devoted to non-intercourse sexual play.  It's scheduled, accountable time each day.  She also wants him to get a recheck of testosterone and prolactin levels.

And then the bombshell:  she oh-so-casually told him not to drink this week.  OMFG!  And just as casually, he agreed. 

It sounds like the makings of a very nice week...and so far, it is.  Almost three days in, and we're still on track.  I'm taking things one day at a time and enjoying the assignment.

Next week is a double session:  one hour for each of us, individually.  The following week is a joint session where we lay out a strategy. 

At least this time we have a strategy.

Day -1

Tomorrow is the first appointment with the new therapist.

This week has been fraught with skirmishes, minor arguments, and snark.

And so much alcohol.  Alcohol to the point of obliteration some nights.  Despite saying I would never again rescue him from drinking, I did try to wake him to go to bed when he was passed out cold at 2:00 am.  What a mistake that was.  Seriously...never again.

I'm trying to keep occupied and positive to avoid being drawn into any more disagreements before we even get started.  But I am feeling an overwhelming sense of dread instead of the hope that I had last time.

This time I don't want to be in the driver's seat.  I don't want to be the one doing all the talking, all the crying, all the feeling like shit.  Initially I will sit quietly and say what I need to and nothing else.  I can't establish a dynamic that has me splaying my emotions all over the place while he sits passively and watches.  No, not this time.

It doesn't bode well, does it?

Prelude

An appointment has been set for October 6th with the new therapist.  We had phone interviews with two therapists last week and chose the one who had the most action-driven approach, as well as the most experience.  I don't think this therapist will allow us to fall into the same trap of endless discussion without any clear plan for improvement.

I've been trying hard to remain positive.  It's not easy sometimes.  There's no evidence to support the idea that he'll be engaged and accountable in the process, so I've got to believe that he'll do something he's never done before.  He's been drinking even more lately, which doesn't help things.  The alcohol makes him argumentative or unavailable emotionally and otherwise.  He said some really hurtful things about my career development that he later took back after I confronted him on it.  It makes it hard for me to want to share things with him now.

As for me, I've also got to do things I've never done before; I have to allow him to feel the consequences of his inaction.  When he was confronted with the anger I had with myself over believing him, he still wanted for me to make it okay for him.  He wanted me to let go of that and not make him feel bad for it.  And stupid me, I did just that.  I let it go and allowed his actions to have no repercussions.  That's one thing I have to remember not to do.  And if he's drunk and says or does destructive things, I have to let him feel the consequences of that, too. 

I also need to be much more mindful about making plans and choices for myself without deferring or denying my options.  There are so many things I've wanted to do but didn't... not because anyone objected, but because I gave them up needlessly to put others first.  That really has to stop.  If I don't put myself first, I cannot expect anyone to consider me at all.

I've got to get me right before I can get anything else right.

The first post

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be so hard

I'm going back to the start

More than ten years in, and still can't get it right.  This is where I make my stand.  Now is the time, this is the place.  There are no more next times.  No more excuses.  No more promises unkept.  

This is me.  This is my story.  

We were best friends before we became more than that.  I was the only person who dared to stand up to him.  As relationships go, it was a great start.  Except for the one thing that defines a relationship as more than friends.  Even in the beginning of our romantic relationship, intimacy was infrequent.  Sure, there were reasons for that...the long distance between us was perhaps the biggest one...but when the geographical distance between us no longer existed, the physical distance remained.  

I didn't understand why.  We could talk about sex when we were apart, but when we were reunited it just didn't come together very often.  On a long weekend, after not seeing each other for weeks or months, we'd have sex once.  After we were married, the frequency hardly changed.  Weeks...at first one or two, then three or four...without sex, without explanation.  No matter what I tried, I couldn't seem to change that.  

I asked for more.  I offered more.  I begged for more.  I asked why and why not.  The answers were nebulous, mercurial, and never made sense in my oh-so-rational mind.  He was uninspired and not productive.  Or other peoples' demands interfered.  Or I was sick or hurt.  His testosterone levels were low.  Or there were unresolved hurts, disagreements, or other negative energies between us.

I learned to live without, sort of.  The weeks became months.  I trained myself to be functionally celibate.  When we did have sex, it was because he initiated it in a drunken state.  It often was unfulfilling and always humiliating.  He needed to be drunk to be sexually intimate with me.  Still, I could not give up hoping that things could be different.  So many times I tried to work it out, but my efforts got us nowhere.  I felt worthless and hopeless.

After seven years, I got angry.  I didn't want the anger to poison our relationship, so I went to a therapist to learn how to deal with it.  He told me I needed to end the marriage, that it was a lie and a sham and that it would never change.  The next therapist never even heard that I was angry, and instead lectured about attachment and child psychology.

The third therapist, a sex therapist, seemed like she could help.  Sadly, she never truly got involved enough to pose solutions.  It was a two and a half year conversation that went nowhere.  Thousands of dollars, dozens of hours, and countless frustrated tears later I called an end to it.  

I turned 50.  We had our 10th anniversary.  I realized that I wasted my sexual peak and would never get those years back.  

I suggested defining our marriage as one that did not include sex, but surprisingly I was met with resistance.  He wanted another chance to fix it...this time he really meant it and would take responsibility for finding a new therapist who could help.  He's a man who goes after what he wants with unwavering commitment and limitless energy.  But he took no action.  The only conclusion I could draw was that a sexual relationship with me is not what he wants. 

And I got angry again.  Angry at him, but mostly at myself.  I trusted him, and he broke his promise.  It wasn't the first time that he broke a promise to me, but I swear by all that is good and lovely in the world that it is the last time.

So here we are.  About to see the fourth therapist.  The last therapist.  The last promise.  The last chance.  

I'm going back to the start.  Maybe this time I can get it right.