Looking back to the very first discovery, I was so innocent, naïve, and pure the day I wrote that reflection on November 2, 2019. I did not know the course ahead of me, and I did not know this was only the foreshadowing of the breaking.
Reflections on November 2, 2019 (a little over 1 month after the discovery of 4 porn websites)
I begin to acknowledge my true story…for many years of marriage, I tried to live with rose colored glasses. God knew at 14 years, it would mark my marriage. 3 months before I discovered “the truth” about H’s porn use—I knew…I knew there was something “hidden”, “something dark,” something beneath the anger, apathy, & indifference…I just couldn’t figure it out. Wow, he is the master of deception. 14 years he hid the truth from me. Lord, amidst the pain, the betrayal, the deception, I am broken—yet I have hope that you will take all of my broken pieces and make me into a beautiful piece of glass, Chihuly glass.
It hurts.
I must realize that he will hurt me.
Hurt people hurt others.
Broken people break others.
He is a hurt and broken person.
You can’t begin to heal until you know the truth and from what you need to heal. You can’t know the truth if the person is not ready or willing or able to come forward with the truth. You can know the truth and create more trauma for yourself if you don’t get the right help with the process of disclosing the truth. You can know the truth, but it not really be the truth without the right questions and a polygrapher trained in intimacy infidelity. There is no rushing the deal when it comes to healing from betrayal trauma and knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I waited for an entire year for the disclosure to be completed due to some mishaps that I experienced along the way. I originally scheduled the disclosure in December 2022 and again in May 2023 but canceled both times due to some miscommunication, misinformation, and lack of choice permitted to me.
This year of waiting was full of H’s raw and unfiltered rage and SAD…sad, angry, and depressed. H lost his job of 12 years (November 2022), his filter, and told me there was nothing in his life that brought him joy. I moved out of the bedroom for the very first time in our marriage (February 2023), he took a job with half the pay (March 2023), and I spent most of my time becoming educated on sex addiction, betrayal trauma, and self-care. My days and nights were filled with going to weekly counseling sessions, attending a support group 3x a month for 1 ½ hour sessions, and juggling all of the kids schooling and activities alone. H worked on his recovery on his own. We were 2 ships passing in the night.
I was blessed with an incredibly intuitive counselor, an experienced support group leader, and inspiring ladies to traverse with me on my darkest days. It did not come easy. I reached out to 30 organizations before I found a group of women to join who had space for me. These women held me when my heart was breaking while facing and enduring the most devastating news of my life that could not be disclosed to my closest friends and church family due to the repercussions/stigma/consequences other wives have endured for themselves, their partners, their marriage, their children, and their ministries—from disclosing too much too soon to well-meaning Christian community/church/friends. This too is yet another heartbreak of sex addiction.
To know that you have been betrayed but then to wait one year to find out is the most grueling, painful process that I have ever undergone. It is almost as painful as hearing the long-awaited truth of betrayal told from the lips of your beloved.
For 14 years of our marriage I lived with rose-colored glasses; things were not perfect, but I had the philosophy of making lemonade out of lemons and just thought we were like any other couple with ups and downs and struggles…where we lived life “together”, made decisions “together”, and were faithful “together”…and then a 3 year erosion of a slow, steady shattering of everything I ever thought was “truth” and “love”, with layer by layer, the dribble effect, being slowly peeled back…to undergo what is called in this world “the disclosure.”
My birthday and our disclosure with Dr. J…a gift…the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God. A remarkable turning point in our marriage to begin to battle addiction together.
2 weeks later my body broke for a second time. Another 2 weeks of a high dose of steroids and breathlessness. Again, people thought I had a bad case of Covid…but I knew this is the ravaging effect of years of addiction, lies, double life, and sexual betrayal from my most intimate attachment, my husband.
The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. Exodus 14:14 (NIV)
