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| Photo credit: gebauer on Flickr |
The morning after that first horrible night when my world exploded with Mark's revelation, I stood in the shower sobbing. My tears scalded my face, hotter than the steaming water pouring down on me. I leaned against the wall for support, and it felt ice cold. I felt like a trapped and wounded animal: rational thought driven from me through intense pain.
While I struggled to stand, to move, to eat that morning, Mark was frantic, propelled into frenetic action by fear of losing the people he held most dear. It was a Saturday morning, and he was on the phone at 7 a.m., calling every marriage and family therapist in the phone book, one after another, leaving messages and begging one of them to see us that day. He was on the phone with friends, confessing his sins and begging for help watching our son so that we could see a therapist right away.
One of those therapists agreed to see us that afternoon, and Mark dropped our son off with some friends, while I stood by the car, never removing my sunglasses from my red and swollen eyes. The therapist told me the same thing Mark had been trying to tell me: that it wasn't my fault, that Mark's actions came from his own brokenness, that what he did didn't reflect on me or on our marriage.
As that day, and the weeks following, progressed, I would alternate between a bone chilling despair that left me wanting to give up, lie down and never get up again and a red hot fighting fury that left me wanting to kick the ass of every living being straight on up to God until I had won whatever battle I'd been thrown into. In my dark moods, I'd close into myself and wouldn't speak a word. I'd lock myself in a room alone or leave the house and sit silently sobbing in my car, wanting to drive off to a place where I'd never see another human being again but never turning on the engine. In my fierce moods, I'd fight the isolation, the aloneness of finding that I didn't know the man I thought was my best friend and truest partner in this life.
I went to S-Anon 12 Step meetings looking for understanding, connection and healing. I called on my dear friends, who carried me, just carried me, during those dark days. I had an impulse to scream out to the entire world "my husband is a sex addict and what he did was not my fault!" but I stopped short of telling people (like my family) whom I felt would take sides or might not be supportive in the way I needed then. After all, I was plenty angry and hurt enough for all of us, I didn't need anyone to join me in hating Mark, I needed people who would love him (and me) anyway. And I found that in the friends I had and the friends I made.
Mark began attending Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings in addition to weekly therapy sessions with the same therapist who had been kind enough to meet with us on that dark and terrible first day. He found he was not alone either, and was held up by some of the same hands that carried me, and some different ones.
Our old life was gone. Our old selves were gone. Our old vision of our marriage was gone. Our old understanding of the world was gone. But we were beginning to build a new one and a real one on our own separate paths of healing, together.
I have to tell you all that of all the posts I've written in this series, this one is the only one that has brought tears to my eyes. I've forgiven my husband. I've worked through that initial anger. I've hashed and rehashed the events of our past together, and come to see how they fit together again. I've come to a new understanding of who he is, who I am and what our marriage is. I can recall those events, see them as clearly as if they are happening, but I don't feel them so keenly anymore. Five years later, I have less rage or hurt than I do compassion for who I was and who he was.
But I am still overwhelmed with a gratitude that brings me to tears when I think of how hard Mark has worked from day one, and especially of the support of the people who were there for me when I needed them. Many of those folks read this blog and two of them (Jay at Two Women Blogging and Mama at The Elmo Wallpaper) are active bloggers themselves now. (These women have been with me from the start!) And beyond all that, now I have a new group of supportive friends I've found in all of you here on the blogosphere. To say that I am grateful doesn't even begin to cover it. I am unbelievably blessed to have such love in my life and to be following a path of growth and recovery that makes me better able to give that kind of true love in return.
Thank you all for being here.
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