* *I wrote the majority of this post months ago when I was coming to terms with the end of my marriage. At that time I had been doing a lot of online research about the behavioral tendencies of a sex addict. The following thoughts are my feelings and personal experience of being married to a SA. **
No real recovering is happening if a sex addict isn’t committed to learning why he acts out, avoids those triggers that are causing that behavior and learning what caused the addictions in the first place.
I married a sex addict and as a recovering spouse I have committed myself to learning why he acts out, honing in on his triggers, and attempting to help him face the cause of his addictions. I have been the one working on facing the reality for over the past year and working through it. In order to make a relationship work, and for a SA to heal, he/she should be the one doing all those things. I have provided a safe place for healing and have given him tools and a way for him to heal, but he hasn’t chosen to do so.
I admit there have been attempts on his part, but there has yet to be COMPLETE honesty and transparency – no evasiveness, denial, half truths or defensiveness. I soon realized however, that if he can’t be honest, he can’t be committed to his recovery as I thought he was.
I've been pretty much nonexistent on my blog the past month or so. I haven’t gotten on my blog, checked my stats, or written much of anything. I'm still struggling with wanting to speak the truth. I'm dealing with a lot of wounded energy and I feel like I'm going to get in trouble if I keep expressing myself. On one level I know this isn't true, but for a deep part of me, I feel like just ending my blog all together. I know these feeling stem from my childhood abuse and it’s common to feel like you are going to get in trouble if you’ve been abused. I keep praying to work through this energy, but I'm also learning to accept that this is where I'm at right now and not beat myself up. I'm learning what it means to be gentle on myself and to not put undue stress on myself because of my expectations. It’s just not helpful for me to be upset at myself because I’m not where I want to be. Expectations are a big thing for me and something I’ve been working through a lot lately. I feel overburdened with the expectations I feel from myself as a women, mother, friend, expectations from my family, and society in general. As women we feel as though we have to meet certain expectations or we are not good enough. I have had to release a lot of unnecessary expectations on myself the past several years and let me tell you it’s freeing to do so. I never knew until I started to take accountability for my life how much I was burdened by expectations. When it comes down to it in all honesty, God loves us no matter what! It’s ok to ease up on ourselves…to breathe…to relax… to lighten up. So this blog post is to further affirm that it’s ok that I’m working through a lot of energy lately and it’s ok that I don’t feel like blogging or speaking my truth for that matter.
The funny thing is though as I write this, I start to feel that excitement and spark of wanting to speak up and express myself. It’s also sinking into those wounded parts of me that it’s perfectly safe to speak the truth. It’s safe to express myself in ways that are meaningful to me. When it comes down to it, I know I have to continue writing my blog because it is meaningful for me to do so. I have no expectation of when I’m going to post next, but it feels good to get my thoughts out.
I releaseothers
to experience whatever is
meaningful to them, and
I am free
to create that which ismeaningfulto me
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