 |
| Image credit: Photo by raster on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
October 31 of 2003 was a hard day for me. I don't remember any longer what, specifically, was difficult about it, but I do know that told my husband, bitterly, as we climbed into bed that it had been a hard day. My son Austen was two at the time and not yet able to speak. My daughter Janie was an infant, still breastfeeding. And it was Halloween, with all of the overstimulating kid-related activities that go along with it. So, I don't know that anything in particular did happen; that combination of circumstances alone was enough to guarantee a hard day.
The reason I remember telling Mark that it had been a hard day for me was because he said, just moments earlier, that it had been a hard day for him. And I was having none of it. It was just over three months after I'd learned of his sex addiction, and at that point, he wasn't allowed to have hard days as far as I was concerned. What did he do but get out of bed in the morning and go to work? I'd lived that life, and I knew that the worst day I'd ever had in my paying jobs was easy -- easy -- compared to any given day at home with a two year old and an breastfeeding infant. And then there was that little added detail: his sex addiction. I was walking through my days feeling like my skin had been torn from my body and every inch of me was raw. I was in post-partum and post-disclosure, physically and emotionally broken and exhausted. How could he possibly have a day that could compare to mine?
So, when he pulled back the covers that night and said, "I had a hard day today," I let him know exactly how hard a day he had in fact not had. I told him I didn't want to hear him whine about his boss or his coworkers. If he wanted to know what hard really was, I sneered, he should try carrying half the burdens I had to each and every day.
He sighed and said with deep sadness, "That's not what I meant. Today was Halloween, and for adults, it's all about sex and fantasy. For me, that's what it's been about. People are supposed to let go of their inhibitions and be someone else, and I've always loved that. But I don't want to be that guy anymore. And today I kept seeing women wearing sexual costumes, and I was getting sick and dizzy walking around looking at my feet all day because I was struggling and I was too scared to look up and get sucked back into that fantasy world. It was just really, really hard..." His voice trailed off as he choked back tears.
And something brittle in me shattered. We had both had really hard days. We were both struggling with the fallout of his addiction. And for that night, at least, we both understood it, and fell asleep with our arms around one another, holding on for dear life.
7 comments: