Get Real

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Being real, and sharing, openly, with our spouse is a way to build trust and safety, especially in the wake of the awful marriage-wrecker beast of addiction.

I came across a post the other night that shows how a guy can "get real" with his wife. I loved it. I love the book too. (Love you, hate the porn by Mark Chamberlain and Geoff steurer.)

Just wanted to share!

Time Machine

Ingrid Michaelson's "Time Machine"

Feelin' this today. 

Sometimes you just need to be a little (or a lottle) ticked. 

Trigger Happy

I have a confession to make. 

I am trigger happy. 

Now I'm not talking about triggers, such as something that reminds me of the pain of addiction. I'm talking about the kind of gut response that comes from my fight or flight response. Which for me, happens to work very well, perhaps a little too well. 

For example, when first d-day happened long, long ago at the beginning of our marriage, I was so trigger happy I only had to threaten to pull that trigger and it worked so well(or not well, as you will soon see) that I believed our problems with addiction were a thing of the past. 

On that day, trigger happy sounded like this "You can't ever do that again!!! If you do I will leave you! This is not an addiction, this was something you chose over me!!!!!!!". 

So going along with how well that worked, you can read about that under the My Story tab. If you don't want to look that up, I'll fill you in. It didn't work. I may not have known that it was still in fact, an addiction, and that it still definitely would happen again and again, but the only thing my trigger-happiness did was scare my husband enough to hide his addiction from me for years and years. 

To be clear, I didn't make him hide his addiction. That was definitely his choice. But I also didn't get what I wanted by being trigger happy either, since he certainly didn't stop acting out and lying about it. 

So that brings me to today. I now understand that it is an addiction, and I also know that he has to choose recovery, and nothing I do will change that. 

But...

My trigger finger is alive and well. 

Case in point. 

My husband will omit a piece of information. Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not. My first response? "I can't do this anymore!!!!" 

He will check in with me and say he was triggered at church. My reaction? "And you kept it from me until now? I can't stand this. I am so done with this!"

He forgets to take out the trash. (Seriously though, there is a lot of history with this tiny little chore that cannot be brushed aside). "I never mean enough to you, I can't take this anymore!"

On one particularly dreadful night, when he lied to me again, because he was afraid of admitting something, I lost control completely and screamed at him "you need to get on board, or get the hell out!". 

Okay, now give me a second to regroup because that is pretty embarrassing to admit and type out. 

I am still very much trigger happy. When my husband messes up, I almost always fall right back to the doom and gloom attitude of "this will never get better", and I just want to jump ship. The hard thing is that I feel like that isn't the right course, and I feel inspired to stay and continue working on things, but it is really hard when I feel that urgency to run, and run fast when I know it isn't the right thing to do. 

If I know the right thing is to stay and keep working, for my own sanity, I want so desperately to stop revving the engine when the car is in park. 

What's there to think about?

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Life has felt like a roller coaster lately. More specifically, my marriage has felt like a roller coaster lately. Normally I like roller coasters. But not this one. I'm ready to get off this roller coaster. After the 1,245,689 time around the track things get old. Not such a good time anymore. 

One minute the roller coaster is up and there are acts of devotion, warm fuzzies abound, and declarations of a firm resolve to stay committed to spending the rest of his life proving he wants to repair the damage done. 

Then the roller coaster plummets, and we're back to selfishness, entitlement, and indignation. The firm resolve crumbles(or maybe it was never really a firm resolve in the first place?) and he's back to talking about his "rights" and what he thinks my recovery should look like.
When the coaster is up he says "I have hurt you and will do whatever you need to feel safe". 

When the coaster is down I ask him to sleep on the couch and he replies with "I will have to think about it". 

Which leads me to my question, "what's there to think about?"

I have been wounded. I have been hurt. When you betray someone you love, and you are able to offer them safety and peace, there isn't anything to think about. You give it to them. Freely. 

I am able to see what I need more clearly now, and ask for it. I have also learned that my boundaries are so important for my sanity. 

So if I ask him to sleep on the couch and he needs to think about it, or he says no, I might still get upset, but I don't need to beg or plead with him to understand why I need this. I will go and sleep on the couch myself(so far I haven't had to). I don't need him to agree or give me safety.

I'll go find my own dang safety. And spend some time thinking about what my next step will be. Because I won't live like this forever. I am going to take care of Sway. She is patient, kind, forgiving, and loving. But she isn't a pushover. She won't be walked all over and just accept that such is life. 

So pray hard Sway. Pray to know God's will. Pray for God to show you when it is time to endure, and for the strength to do it. But also pray to know when enough is enough, and to have the strength to walk away from that roller coaster if that day ever comes.