Trust

It’s been on my mind this week.  Building trust, giving trust, earning trust, and losing it.  Relationship advice is loaded with thoughts on it.  To love is to trust, a strong relationship is built on trust, if you love me then trust me... etc. etc.

Addiction has changed this for me.  Now trust is complicated.  “The belief that someone is reliable, honest, good, effective".  Do I believe these things about my husband?  Yes.  Yes, I do.  Do I trust him to never look at porn again?  Absolutely not. That would be naive and.. well.. setting myself up for some serious heartache.  He is an addict and although I believe he can, and will someday, live symptom free (code for no longer seeking out porn), I also know he’ll always have a weakness for it.  In mortality anyway.

So don’t ask me to trust in this area.  I will love, support, and assist in every way I can in his fight against porn addiction.  But I won’t trust.  And he is wise enough not to ask for it.  I can’t give what I don’t have.  Instead he asks for help.  He gives me the freedom to check in at any time.   I remain aware that this is a weakness.  Help when I can.  Ask when the Spirit prompts or when I’m feeling insecure and needy.

We’ll build our relationship on Faith instead of trust.  Faith in a perfect, loving God.  Faith in the Atonement and Repentance.  In our ability to pick ourselves up and try again.  To heal, progress, and learn.  That is something I can trust.

Because of Him

This is so beautiful I wanted to share it.

All my love,
Elisabeth

Back in the saddle

I needed to set this aside for the holidays.  Take a much needed vacation from the energy sucking world of addiction.  And I’m not gonna lie.   It was awesome!   I focused on the holidays and a few old hobbies.  Read some good books and spent time with the kids.  Now the end of January is here and I need to pick this up again.  I still feel like there’s work to do.  For both of us.

Quick update - things are good.  We started couple therapy a few months ago and I think it was helpful?  Our therapist was great and I tried to be honest and kind in all that I said.   There were two running dialogs going on.  One in my head and the other out loud.  The out loud one was exercising great restraint and the inside one was, well.. not so much.  But we worked a few things out.  I’m glad we went.  Funny thing is, there wasn’t a lot to work out.  Our problem is pretty cut and dry.  He has an addiction that still rears it’s ugly head occasionally and I hate it with a fiery hate and wish it would die a quick, ugly, and painful death.  I actually smiled and felt a little giddy as I wrote that.  Like I said, we both still have some work to do.

light in my vessel

It's been such a crazy month.  I've tried to write about it several times but it hurts and the words don't come out right.  M fell pretty hard and for whatever reason, this time it hit especially deep.  I've spent the month trying to find purpose in this pain.  I remembered again how to pray with my whole heart.  Each day asking for enough strength to make it through ONE day at a time.  Daily bread.  Crying my eyes out to Heavenly Father because it is so hard to cry in front of anyone else.

Oh, and I started working through the Twelve Steps.  The hard realization is there is no way a girl can live with an addict for fourteen years and NOT come away with baggage.   Each day I'm seeking light for my vessel.  Either in the scriptures or the temple.  And I'm feeling better.  Like I'm breathing and feeling and seeing again.   Conference was awesome.  I also came across this quote by Richard G. Scott that really helped.

"Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses simultaneously.  When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more.  He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit.  To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain....  Your Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son love you perfectly.  They would not require you to experience a moment of more difficulty than is absolutely needed for your personal benefit or for that of those you love."

And I wanted to thank you women out there in the blogging world who are fighting this beast of addiction.  Your stories are so powerful.  They are like air for me when I'm drowning.  It is so good to feel like I'm not alone.

All my love.

Elisabeth

Stupid present tense...

I like to write about his addiction in the past tense.  Lesson's I've learned (oh yeah... love the past tense).  Past tense feels like progress.  It means I've learned things from this nightmare.  Maybe I've learned enough that God will take away this stumbling block.  M will be healed and our life will be like one of those awesome "I'm a Mormon" videos.  But really... really we are very much in the present tense.  Stupid, soul crushing, present tense.

I keep thinking we are making progress, moving forward, only to find out we're back at step one.  M slipped up this week and well...let's just say I didn't handle it well.  He's escalating and I'm stuck in this fearful place.  Afraid he'll get worse and our marriage will fail.  Afraid my children will have their hearts broken by this hateful addiction.  Afraid to hope.  I see clearly the lies he tells himself and the highs and lows are devastating.  For both of us.  It's easier to accept that this addiction will always be in our life than to hope for healing.  I'm not sure which one is the more honest view.  My mind and heart don't always agree.  Tonight, I'll hope for my own healing and let Heavenly Father worry about M's.

Infinite

Why does it have to rip your heart out Every. Time.  I want it to be easier as time goes by.  Sometimes I wish I loved him a little less.  Just read an article about "detachment" and thought I could probably use some.  How does Heavenly Father do it?  Infinite love and infinite forgiveness.  Tonight it just feels like infinite heartache.

Words of love

I remember the first time I was able to see past my own hurt and speak words of love.  It was late and dark.  I asked him how his day had gone and his response, full of hesitation and shame, told me all I needed to know.  He'd gone through the cycle again.  That familiar, soul crushing heartache came flooding in, just like it always did, filling my throat with words of pain.   It tasted like agony.. white hot and bitter.  My stomach twisted and I wanted to cry... to scream at him.  This was destroying me.  It was destroying our family! How could he do this to me, to us, again and again and again...

What came out of my mouth instead surprised us both I think. Somehow, through the grace of God,  I was able to swallow my pain and really look at him.  I saw how helpless and full of despair he felt.  Perhaps for the first time I was able to see how miserable, alone, and powerless he had become in the face of this addiction.  Instead of hate, I felt compassion.  Beautiful, soothing, compassion!  I told him that I loved him.  That he could fight this and I would stay here fighting right beside him.  I told him that he was strong, and good, and to please just keep trying!

I understood how we can speak with the tongue of angels.  Words of love are so powerful!  So much more powerful than words of shame.  I also understood how the words we speak can change our heart. In that moment they changed mine.  Do I always remember this?  Of course not.  But I look back on this memory and try a little harder to speak those powerful, healing words of love.