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Susannah's Going to Stop Trying to Control Things .....Tomorrow

Discussion in 'Significant Other Journals' started by Susannah, Nov 28, 2018.

  1. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    SOs often receive advice about how to get a recalcitrant SA to finally see that, “Damn it, I am serious this time!” If we have exhausted techniques like simply asking them to stop, explaining how damaging the addiction is, or enforcing boundaries, to no avail, we are told we must go to extremes. We must “wake them up” by threatening divorce or kicking them out of the house, etc. We have to make it painful, get their attention! We have also heard from many SAs on this forum that this extreme approach did, in fact, have the desired effect of motivating them to begin recovery.

    I never considered that approach for my own situation. I’m not here to say that there is anything inherently wrong with this approach or that it doesn’t work in some cases. I’m just going to say that I never considered it and explain why.

    For me, I really think it came down to self-respect. I threw myself against this addiction for 18 months, working myself to the point of mental and physical illness. All of this - my deterioration, my increasing franticness, my desperately searching for answers, my abject misery, was in full view of my husband, who never put in more than 1 hour of effort to every 100 hours of mine. If seeing what I was going through was not “extreme” enough, not painful enough to spur him to take action, what did that say about his opinion of me? Why would I want to devote myself to someone who obviously cared so little for me?

    What if I had served him with divorce papers and asked him to leave the house and that had resulted in him finally getting serious about his recovery? What would either of us have gained? He might have started down the road to recovery. That’s very nice for him. (I suppose I am skeptical of the durability of recoveries motivated by reaching “rock-bottom”, but admit I could be wrong about this.) As for me, I would have gained the knowledge that simple caring and respect for me had not been enough to motivate him, and that ultimately he had to be motivated by the discomfort of losing his convenient and comfortable lifestyle and/or assets. I can almost hear some of you saying, "Yes, but what about his disease? Addicts aren't capable, etc." The very fact that he could do it when things got “real” would be evidence that he could have done it at any time, but chose not to. I would get to live the rest of my life knowing that I was worth so little, that I commanded so little respect, that I had to burn down his security and lifestyle in order to get his attention and convince him that he should finally take action. What I really wanted was that my husband should respect me and our marriage enough to sit up and take notice the very first time I stated that I could not continue to live with this addiction.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2019
  2. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    Thank you, Sweetheart. I sincerely hope I have healing to report in the future! I always read your posts and know that you are in a very painful place right now. Please know that things can change. It will not always be like this.
     
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  3. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    I spent some time with my husband last evening and we had a good talk. He tried (for the thousandth) time to explain to me how his obsessive impulses with other women (real and imagined) work. Usually when we start discussing this, I fail to really understand (in spite of the fact that he is very articulate, so perhaps the fault lies with me) and he gets very frustrated and just gives up. He just sputters that I don’t understand. I have theories about what is really going on – I suspect what he is really looking for is not understanding, but absolution. I think I can say, “Yes, I understand what is happening.” and repeat it back to him all day long, but until I say ”And it’s okay and you are not at fault.”, he will, in his mind, think I “don’t understand.” He is simply unable to give up the idea that anyone who really understood would see that he is not culpable, probably because he doesn’t feel remorse. I am not willing to offer absolution because, Hello Minimization….but more importantly, the things he has done are NOT OKAY. I have tried saying to him, “I understand why you acted the way you did. The things you have done are wrong, but you are still a valuable person.” No dice. He is willing, when asked directly if his actions were wrong, to say “Yes”, but somehow unable to admit fault for them. ??? It’s very confusing and I don’t know how to solve that particular problem.



    But the discussion brought up some very interesting deep feelings in him. He talked a lot about how much pain he has been in throughout his life as long as he can remember and how that pain led directly to his SA at a very early age. Of course, he says “directly” but he can’t ever truly convey the mechanics of the pain expression to me. But I could clearly hear how his family background had contributed to his primary terrors of rejection and abandonment. He explained a lot about how he is always looking at the next girl he sees, his coworkers, friends, etc. as a possible sort of “dream partner” who would accept him, love him and not leave him. He can go on to develop mental obsessions with a girl if he is in a position of being exposed to her a lot, as with coworkers. This was such a gut punch to me, because it confirmed what I had always suspected – that my devotion was never acknowledged by him, my position in his heart and in our marriage was never secure, and that he, at least subconsciously, was always auditioning for my replacement. That’s why I bristle when people object to SOs saying they feel “not enough”. I truly was not enough. No one ever could be enough – I get that. But I am so sad when I contemplate that I put so much effort and love into a situation when I never had a chance. In addition, it made me feel pretty awful because I (along with everybody else) have now left him, confirming his worst fears of unlovability. I have confirmed for him that every one will leave as soon as they discover his basic unworthiness. But what can I do about that? Nothing. Even if I decided to sacrifice my whole life to trying to convince him he is worthy by staying with him no matter what, it still wouldn’t work. He has to be alone, face being “rejected” and understand that he can endure all that AND retain his value as a human being BEFORE he can heal. All I can do for now is be his friend.
     
  4. HonestyMatters

    HonestyMatters Fapstronaut

    I wanted to say that you are a very strong woman @Susannah for leaving him but still supporting him. You must of taken this step while I took a break from here for a bit. You have come a long way from when you first joined NF. Your confidence and strength has grown immensely. I'm so happy for you. And I am sure you will find a man worthy of your love and affection. I am certain not all men are like this surely. Even older men, there must be ones out there that value a real woman for who they are and where age does not matter. Keep positive and believe it will happen for you eventually. Surely all men can't be this shallow and messed up - we can only hope! And with the first part that you wrote about - is it that he wants to just blame it all on the addiction. Yes he did wrong but it wasn't his fault - it's the addiction's. I know my husband use to go on about it being the addictions fault all the time, therefore he was pretty much not responsible for his behaviours. This was prior to doing any real recovery work and he doesn't seem to shove that down my throat anymore.
     
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  5. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    Thank you for the kind words. Eventually I had to limit my emotional investment in him in order to preserve myself. Even though I cannot live with him anymore, I still care about him very much and genuinely want to help. He has no one else and in a way, I feel I have a certain responsibility. I don't think it is an unhealthy obligation caused by some psychological problem I have or some "white knight" thing - I just think that the world is better if people try to take care of each other. I took the steps necessary to stop him hurting me and I have been able to begin working on my own trauma. I have arrived at a place where I can now hear him without my own pain getting in the way. Oh, I still have plenty of pain, but I no longer take things so personally. Ironically, I am much better able to help now than when I was living with him. I also feel that the insights I am gaining from helping him work on himself somehow help me with my own healing. For instance, I have developed his "disease" in a way. In order to try to manage threats during our marriage, I adopted his behaviors. Things like scanning and evaluating women in a crowd, and seeing sex everywhere, for example. I am having to learn, along with him, to stop doing this. Ironically, he and I are using the same strategies to undo these habits. I used to have terrible resentment about this, but that has disappeared. Leaving has allowed me to stop, evaluate where I am, accept it, and get to work getting to where I want to be instead. Thanks again for your well-wishes. Back at ya!
     
  6. RUNDMC

    RUNDMC Fapstronaut

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    No one is responsible for helping their abuser.
     
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  7. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    I agree. I never said anyone is responsible for helping their abuser. I made a rather vague statement about "feeling" a "certain" responsibility. Perhaps I should have said that I have decided take the responsibility on myself.
     
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  8. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    Yes. You're quite right. My husband actually got to the point where, if I wanted to talk to him about how hurtful his behaviors were to me, he would ask me to look in a different direction and "address this to the addiction, please." Tragically distorted...
     
    HonestyMatters likes this.
  9. Strangely accurate,
    Except for the part where his hand
    Is attached to his body still...

    I’ll remember that
    when I wrote something
    in error at work.
    My hand did it....

    Sheesh.

    That is truly a moment of clarity.
     
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  10. HonestyMatters

    HonestyMatters Fapstronaut

    Yes, an absolute unwillingness to take any responsibility for it. I don't see how anyone could recover with that mindset. With my husband, I think that belief started when he was going to SLAA and was introduced to the 12 steps. That first step, "we admitted to ourselves we were powerless over our addiction" is open for a whole lot of distortion and manipulation I think. Can easily be interpreted as I'm not responsible for the addiction, everything is the addictions fault type of mentality.
     
    Susannah likes this.
  11. HM,

    So interesting how some might rationalize they are separate from their responsibility.

    I’ve heard it said that the these programs are an amends made in 12 steps. That to come to the whole realization is too much, so that we turn the battleship one small action at a time, if diligently done.
    ‘Make a list’ or
    ‘were entirely ready’
    and such.
    Hmm.
     
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  12. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    Earlier this week I went home (funny- it’s weird to call it “home” now – it doesn’t sound right) to visit my husband and check in on my plants. I had a big garden there and I really miss my plants. Sometimes I anthropomorphize them. I know it’s strange, but I picture them feeling abandoned by me and I want them to “see” me as much as I want to see them.

    He seemed happy to see me, but who knows, really? He’s certainly fooled me plenty of times. We did some garden chores, had dinner and sat around to talk a bit. I don’t ask him about his addiction anymore. I just wait to see if he brings it up. He did. He gave me a little list of challenges that had come up for him during the week and how he handled them. They were things like experiencing and handling urges, noticing and resisting salacious You Tube videos, etc. They are either good signs (if true) OR yet more BS perfectly crafted to lull me into a satisfied/confused state so he can have one more undisturbed day immersed in his meaningful relationship with Miss January. I will never know. Of course, he wanted the usual pats on the back for his achievements. Okay. Congrats to you on either moving a little further away from being a lying, objectifying asshole or at least learning how to better impersonate someone who isn’t.

    While he was talking, it brought to mind the months following our first D-Day, when he spent time most nights after work, “writing a book” about masculinity. He spent many hours pounding out trite, derivative chapters. But I was thrilled with his progress and very supportive, acting as his secretary and editor. When I wasn’t doing that, I was very busy kicking the shit out of my own intuition and slowly destroying every last bit of trust and confidence I had in myself. “He’s trying so hard! He’s finally ‘getting it’. These misgivings I’m having must be wrong. Stop being crazy.” Of course, the SOs reading this know the rest of the story. My misgivings were dead right all along, and a few months later, he was caught with porn again and confessed to never having stopped at all. It certainly didn’t make me laugh back then, but it’s kind of funny to me now. Smooth talking, earnest, social justice warrior in the living room / your run-of-the-mill grandpa wanker in the bathroom.

    After the report, he began to get tearful. He asked me when I was coming home and I told him I hadn’t really thought about it, which was the truth. I held onto him for a bit while he cried. I think he is very lonely. Me too.
     
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  13. Hopefulgirl

    Hopefulgirl Fapstronaut

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    The more I learn about this addiction, the more I wonder if they can ever truly recover. It is a malignant cancer-devestates everything.
    You are such an inspiration in your strength and insights. And for what it's worth I do think your plants missed you and were happy to have your loving energy aimed in their direction.
     
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  14. It’s funny how this journey
    (for both the PA and SO)
    causes us to leave that
    which we call home,
    Maybe to return sometime later
    and know it for the first time.

    Plants are such healing
    poses of life.
    They missed you.
     
    Susannah likes this.
  15. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    I was a little worried about my husband after last night’s tears, so I brought some lunch over today. We had a nice talk, but again, he was sad. Turns out he had checked up on an old colleague from his first job out of grad school. This person had gone on to have a successful career and a nice list of publications. So this led my husband to be curious about other colleagues from that same job. Again, lots of success stories and all were PhDs that had started at this Mighty Famous Tech Company at the same time as my husband. Now, he has done okay with his career, but never developed into the star I think he believes he should have been. He had lots of theories about why his classmates had passed him up, but generally seemed baffled. It was very difficult for me to bite my tongue through this one. Everything in me wanted to say, “Well, perhaps “Joe” got further in his career because he managed to NEVER GET FIRED from Mighty Famous Tech Company for on- the- job porn use, like you did. And maybe “Harry” got further in his career because he never got dismissed from A SECOND JOB for on-the-job porn use, like you did. And maybe “Fred” published all those papers because he spent the three hours after work every night writing those papers and submitting them to journals instead of burning CD after CD of naked women giving hand jobs to donkeys. And maybe they all managed to avoid becoming hypnotized by their female colleagues' breasts, then running to the toilet to masturbate while on the clock.” Now these theories of mine seem pretty solid as far as explaining the discrepancy, but I kept them to myself. I was not going to be able to penetrate that level of denial.
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2019
  16. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    Recently, my husband and I have been having a series of discussions about his history, habits and recovery from SA. I usually go over for dinner. Where I’m living I really don’t have a good set-up for guests – there isn’t really a dining room or good place to sit, so I head back to my former home. It’s also nice to pet the cat and check in on the garden. Our discussions are beginning to open up in a way they seemed to never do when I was living with him and still fully engaged. I’m not sure why he is opening now. Maybe it’s because he has had kind of a “rock bottom” moment and has nothing to lose by doing so and everything to gain. Or maybe, now that I have divested, he is divesting too and doesn’t have as much incentive to lie. Not sure about this one, since he never needed a reason to lie before. The man would lie about the weather. And I always have in the front of my mind the possibility that everything he is saying is a giant con – he’s a great actor, very smart and knows what to say. I have been given so many perfectly plausible, yet conflicting rationales for every one of his behaviors that it makes my head spin. So, to all of you SOs reading this who are standing up waving your arms in alarm right now, never fear. I won’t get taken in again.

    So last night he closed his eyes and tried to dig up some ideas about what porn use had been like for him. He claims to have been porn-free for a bit over a year now and somehow, I actually believe him about this. Not sure why, but it has much more to do with my intuition (by now a battered old jalopy, but incredibly, still running) than with his claims and assurances.

    So here goes - some random reflections on pornography use from a 5 decade sex addict. I recorded him and will give you these in his stream of consciousness words and my questions or comments in bold:

    The sex imagined while consuming porn was not like real life sex. It was imaginations of use and abuse.

    Fear and hatred of women as a class

    A class able to grant or withhold acceptance of me

    A class of all-powerful beings


    Did you hate them because of their role as grantors or withholders of acceptance or specifically because they rejected you?

    Because of their role

    Did you ever stop to consider that you also granted or denied acceptance to others?

    (long pause) No, I didn’t. Upon reconsidering, I hated them because they rejected me.

    What about the constant stream of girlfriends you had from age 16 on? You had no trouble attracting women. Who was rejecting you?

    I don’t know. I just resented women because they could reject me. I know it doesn’t make sense. It is thinking from a “younger” time. This is when I started imagining women as a class, not as individual human beings. My god, this is the beginning of my objectification

    I have some nostalgia for the porn days because then I didn’t have to feel the feelings. I only had to keep searching for the sexual excitement – the dopamine

    It occurs to me now that my other behaviors are leftovers from the porn habit. The same attitudes and malformed thoughts coming out in different ways.

    Why my fixation on young women? Obviously because they are pushed as a cultural ideal. Also it was when I was a teenager that I took a serious turn for the worse and all these habits developed, so now I am fixated on girls the age that I was then. Maybe. Also they have less power. That is important. I have never sexualized a woman who was my superior at work. I think the stuck at an age thing holds water.

    I asked him about the division between porn sex and real life sex, pointing out that he has introduced porn into our sexual experiences.

    I have papered my head and imagination with so many porn scenes and images that they are readily available to me. I have trained my brain to be aroused by them and I rely on them to perform.

    I asked if he could ever remove these images and hateful attitudes from his head at this point in his life.

    It is possible. I have hope. I don’t want them there. I know that.

    Have they started to recede since you have stopped consuming porn?

    I was never aware of them and how pervasive they were while I was still using. So now it seems they are always in my head, but I think this is only because of my raised awareness.

    This is very scary for me. The introspection and the telling is very scary. So scary to tell the truth. I can’t take it.


    //

    It was then that I thought we’d better stop. He asked me to hold him for a while and I did. I gave him lots of positive feedback for having done such hard work. Then I got up to go and he asked me to stay the night with him. I told him I had to go. I wasn’t opposed to staying as support for him, but I didn’t want him to have the impression that he could barter introspection and “recovery” work for attention and love. I can't stand the waste of this thing. I hate waste and this disease is the mother of all waste. People, their thoughts, energy and lives. I think often about the young women and girls involved in the porn industry and the life-long effects it must have on them. Who are they when they emerge, assuming they are lucky enough to? Why do smart people who know it is happening, finance with their clicks the psychic destruction of these girls?
     
  17. Queenie%Bee

    Queenie%Bee Fapstronaut

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    WOW . Just wow . How long have you been living separated?
     
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  18. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    Coming up on two months. I still see him several times per week. He'd like me to come home, but I'm never going back. Funny, the house was mine before it was ours, but i no longer want it. This will sound very dramatic, but when I walk through the rooms now, it seems somehow sinister, as if it were haunted, and I don't believe in that stuff. In January, I spent several days searching the whole place over looking for (and finding) hidden porn, photos, zip drives, old journals of his, letters, etc. Since then, it hasn't felt the same. It's like the calendar, where there is virtually no date that doesn't have some gross event associated with it.
     
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  19. Strength And Light

    Strength And Light Fapstronaut

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    This is such an excellent journal Susannah. I'm really just getting acquainted with it/you/him. There's a few things I read that I might have something to add to, but at this time I'd rather just say thank you for taking the time to share this journal here, to help yourself, to help your ex-SO (not sure if that's the right title), and to open up your story so this community can learn from it, relate to it, advise on it, and just generally nod our heads in acceptance of it. I'm getting choked up with gratitude as I type this so I'll just keep it at THANK YOU.
     
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  20. Susannah

    Susannah Fapstronaut

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    I really admire that you are able to recognize this in yourself and say it out loud. With your attitude, I have no doubt you'll be able to undo this damage. I'm not so sure about my husband. His warped thoughts about women have led him to places even darker than porn use. As much as I want to think that anyone is capable of reform, I'm afraid this may be too deep in him.

    It is interesting to consider where these thoughts come from, though. These ideas were presented to both you and him from somewhere and it probably happened pretty young. Neither of you is to blame for that. But in his case, he ran with those ideas, carefully cultivating and nurturing them for decades, even after he had the capacity and information to know better. That's on him, and disease be damned, I can't seem to get past the offense I feel at his admission of hating the entire class of humans to which I belong. I'm afraid I'll always see him as an adversary.
    Keep it up! I'm astonished at the progress you report in a mere 9 months. I'm sure it's a source of inspiration for many here.
     
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