Under Water

The rage and injustice have been steadily and increasingly bubbling over as disclosure has really sunk in this week. The injustice is extreme. There have been several women spanning over the last 6 or so years. Did you hear that? Several. 

My triggers have been increasing in breadth and frequency. They are everywhere: in thoughts, in feelings, in words, in places, in situations, in songs (sadly, Carrie Underwood has now been banished from my life), in tv shows (but I refuse to give up Downton Abbey) in people, in church, in facial expressions. I even dream triggers, for heaven's sake! 

I had a particularly painful trigger in therapy last night. Read on. 

So, Simon and I started a 4 week couples workshop with our therapist with the goal that husbands would better understand and be equipped to help their wives with soothing the betrayal trauma when triggers strike. I was so excited. I love reaching out to other women who've suffered as I have. Comraderie and support in this hell is crucial for me. Isolation is not an option for me. I refuse. 

I was also so excited and anxious for Simon to finally learn how to help me! I feel like I silently scream for it daily in some form or other: Help me! Please! Some days he does. Other days I feel neglected all over again. 

So, I got triggered during the first 10 minutes of us sitting there on my therapists sunken down, burgundy striped couch. The other two husbands introduced themselves and their wives. And in some way they each complimented their wives. Nothing big. But they looked at their wives, spoke softly, and seemed so genuine and tender in their words. Thanking them for being there and supporting them. 

Simon introduced us next. It was rehearsed. Without feeling. Void of vulnerability and love. He said the words "we" and "us" but it was like I wasn't there. Not really. I was just a person on a burgundy couch that he wouldn't make eye contact with. I'm just there, so he's obligated to mention me. 

I felt humiliated and unloved. And that triggered the most embarrassing moment of my married life. 

Months ago, Simon and I were asked to speak in sacrament meeting at our new ward. (On the timeline of his addiction, this is about the exact time that he had met with "the other woman" and started their 6 month affair. I'm fairly certain they had become intimate already.) 

So I give my talk and then sit down. Simon's turn. He always starts with a joke. But he started by telling a little about our family and then described how long we've been married. He said, "We've been married almost 8 years, but it feels like 8 minutes...under water."

My heart just completely stopped. 

Every eye in the ward turned to me. I could feel their pity! What did he just say? How could a husband say that? Why would he say that? And I had to sit up there facing these strangers all while my husband, the man that is supposed to build me up, made me the butt of a joke. I was humiliated. Utterly devastated. And I couldn't run. I had to sit there and pretend I wasn't phased by it. All my energy went into silently pushing down the urge to sob behind the podium. 

Why would he say that. 

In hindsight, it's because Simon resented me. Why else would you make that comment? He says he doesn't resent me and that it was a stupid, thoughtless comment. But there's truth in every sarcasm. The truth is he'd started seeing some other woman. And in his addict mind at the time, she was perfection and I was a living hell. I was "drowning" him. So yeah, I'd say that "joke" was dripping fatty drops of resentment. 

All that humiliation poured over my head, spilling onto that burgundy couch last night. I was dying inside. And I couldn't run this time either. 

Ironically, at the end of the session the therapist asked if anyone had been triggered at all. I was the only one to answer yes. He asked me if I'd like to share. 

I had tried to be so vulnerable and honest and open during the session, but as I opened my mouth to share my trigger I just couldn't. I took a moment and told him I couldn't, I wasn't comfortable and would have to speak with Simon privately about it first. SHAME wouldn't let me speak. 

The therapist told me that he actually loved that response. He wanted me to feel safe and comfortable. 

Thinking on it, the real source of the SHAME is that the trigger had nothing to do with the acting out. It was simply about Simon as a person. These other two husbands love their wives. And I feel like my husband doesn't love his. The SHAME is that I am unloved. 

The therapist made it a point to tell Simon to really prepare to listen to me and soothe me. He wanted us to talk to one another in the car before we left the parking lot. 

Once in the car, we talked for about 20 minutes. But Simon did all the talking. And it wasn't about me and my trigger. It was about how anxious and uncomfortable he had felt during the session. How angry he was starting to feel at the church for excommunicating him. How he felt shunned (even though everyone that knows has been so loving towards him.) 

I let him talk about his feelings, because he rarely does. I put my own pain on the shelf. And then we drove home in separate cars to relieve the babysitter. 

Jimmy heard me come home and wouldn't go back to sleep unless I lay in bed with him. I fell asleep and I've been waking up every couple hours now ruminating in these feelings. Feeling so...empty. I guess I've tried to fill that emptiness with words. It's like if I fill enough pages with all the hurt I feel then maybe one day I can hand Simon an encyclopedia called "Knowing Anne Intimately." 

Maybe then he'll get it. Maybe then he will SEE ME. 

I heard a great description of the word "intimacy." If you say the word slowly it becomes "into-me-see." Right now, Simon cant see inside of me. He is incapable of it. And the terrible truth is that maybe I don't want him to. 

Even in recovery, even if he's eradicated the addiction from his life, I don't know if he's someone I want to be with. 

I don't know if I want him. And I don't know if he really wants me either. We don't even know each other. 

My marriage has been 8 minutes under water. I just want to breathe.