The Walking Wounded: A SO's journey

[raining on the inside]

“Like wounds of the flesh, wounds to the heart, mind and soul cannot heal if they are continually re-injured”. – from the book: Your Sexually Addicted Spouse


I am the walking wounded. On the outside there are no wounds to show, there are no bandages, there are no well-wishes from others to “get well soon”. My wounds are on the inside. Gashes to my heart, I bleed from my soul. Pain for me to bare secretly as I plaster a smile on my face and go through my day. Some days it takes so much energy to smile. Sometimes I don’t think I have it in me to get out of bed…but I do. My daughter needs me. Yes, I have a history of depression and anxiety that goes back to my teen years and take medication to help with it. But I was doing well. I was feeling good. My husband and I were preparing to start trying for our second baby. My internal wounds created from the last P discovery had healed up leaving only scars in their place. I thought those wounds would never be re-opened. I TRUSTED that they wouldn't be.

I thought he was P free. It took me a long time to trust him that he had given it up for good, a long time to start believing in him again. But I had. I did. We had a written contract where he outlined what was off limits and that he would share any slips with me within 48 hours. He didn’t. He broke every promise that he had written in that contract. I discovered that he had began using P again about 6 months ago and had been keeping it hidden from me. This was a couple of weeks ago that I found out. I feel like a tornado just ripped through what I knew to be my life. Stripping away the layers of lies leaving me empty, disoriented, devastated. How could he? He had promised me. How could he look me in the eye and tell me he loves me when he knows he is doing this behind my back? I don’t understand. I can’t wrap my brain around it. He knew how much it would hurt me. We’ve been through this before…more than once. But this time I thought it would be different. I keep asking myself (and him) how could he knowingly hurt me so much and betray me in such an immense way? He doesn’t have an answer for me. I don’t have an answer for myself. Instead the thoughts and questions just run rampant through my head driving me more and more out of my mind. I wish I could describe what betrayal feels like when it hits this close to the heart. I want him to know. But I can’t. I can’t put into words what I am feeling. I don’t even know what I am feeling a lot of the time. I feel sad, depressed, outraged, anxious, worried, confused, distant, discouraged, hopeless, disgusted, lonely, numb, ugly…I feel like I could go on forever.

I've tried to disconnect from the hurt, almost to the point of repressing it just to get through the day. But I cry. I cry a lot. And when I can't disconnect and I can't help but perseverate about the betrayal, my heat will race and it gets hard to breath. My stomach tightens and I feel nauseated. My body tenses and my muscles ache. I shake with anxiety and worry. He saw me go through this the last time. How could he do this to me again? All of this hurt just so he could look at P. Tearing apart my heart and my soul and the trust that our relationship is built on for P. I can’t help but wonder how that can be. How could he be so selfish?

I go to bed now with my clothes on. I don’t want him to see me naked. I don’t want him to touch me. I know what he finds beautiful, and I don’t look like those girls in the images he searches for. He says it’s different. That those girls are not real. Yes, they may be airbrushed and caught at the perfect angle and dressed up and made up by professionals, but they are OTHER women, no matter how you look at it. For me, it is hard to accept that my husband has urges daily to sit and look at women other than me for sxual stimulation. How does one’s self-esteem make it through that in tact? I know mine hasn’t. Lusting after and giving his sxual attention to these women. These women mean nothing to him. But yet satisfying the urges to look at them is more important than keeping promises to me and hurting me terribly. I want to be enough for him. I do not want to share my husband's sxuality with anybody. It should be for me only, I'm his wife.


I miss my husband. I miss the closeness that I felt with him up until this last discovery. I can’t even look at him sometimes. And sometimes when I do look at him, I see someone different from what I saw a couple of weeks ago. I see a liar. I see someone who has broken my heart and destroyed my trust. I see someone who chose P over his commitment and promises that he made to me. I get images of him sitting at his computer looking at all of those other women and getting turned on. It makes me sick to my stomach. I don't even want to leave the house because I am afraid to leave him alone. It causes me so much anxiety. He tells me before I leave that I don't have anything to worry about. But really, how am supposed to believe what he says, when he's been lying to me for the past 6 months? There is no trust anymore.

I can’t sleep. I lay in bed next to him overwhelmed by so many feelings that my head and my heart feel like they are going to explode. I try to listen to music to calm my thoughts. It doesn’t help. The sleeping meds don’t help. I just stare out into the darkness. I don’t touch him. Sometimes I desperately want to but I am afraid to feel close to him, so I don’t. Sometimes I just hate him and I wish I was anywhere else but beside him. And there he is, sleeping peacefully. I want to scream. I want to yell. I want to wake him up and shake him and say, “How could you do this to me?” “How can you just go about your life like everything is o.k.?” “Why am I the one who has to feel this pain?” “I didn’t do anything wrong”. I want him to feel my pain. I want him to somehow take away my pain. But I know he can’t do either.

[mell]

Hello Raining and welcome to TTF,

I am a recovering PA.

Reading your post made me cry. So sorry for where you are right now.

There are many SOs here. I hope you can make a connection with some of them and begin your own healing process. And I hope your H will check out the site, if he hasn't already. There is a lot of support here from both sides.

Praying for you.

[stillinlove]

Hi Raining,
I'm so sorry for your pain. I remember the rip through my heart when all hell broke loose. I thought I was going to die, that I could never recover from that deep a pain. So, I understand. Once I got to a certain point, I had to think of my own survival and what to do for myself. He was going to be he no matter what. You don't have to leave the house for it to happen, it's usually right under our nose.
Stay with us, and if he is open, for him to come aboard, also. There's good support here and good recovery for you. Just as your scars and pain aren't showing on the outside, either are his. He is feeling pain from hurting you, from the shame, guilt.
I was more upset about the lying and deceit then the actual porn. It was just body parts to me, objects, they could have been mannequins.
Post your anger here, vent, scream, cry, let it out. We SO understand completely.

[JenMac]

Hi Raining!
I am so sorry for your heartache. I am so sorry that you are having to experience this trauma once again in your life. Such a sad situation we find ourselves in. The grief you are experiencing is natural for this Raining. I have come to see that is so. At one time I thought maybe I was unique in feeling this way, as that is what society would have us believe. I have felt so grateful for TTF if only for that. If only for making me feel like I was not alone. It can't take away the pain, it can't solve our problems for us, but it does give us a safe place to share our innermost feelings and fears. I am glad you are here Raining! And I am glad that your H is here with you. As Still has said, he will be going through his own trauma as well. Being responsible for this damage to your relationship will no doubt heap shame and guilt on him. That too is hard to live with. I once told my H mac, that it must be hard to be him, knowing that he had caused this upheaval in our lives.
Raining, I had a bit of a mantra that helped me during my toughest times. First, I prayed for strength and guidance. Then I would tell myself over and over again, I am safe, I am strong, I am loved. I had to dig deep raining. I had to muster up all of my courage just to get through the day at times. It is a difficult path to walk, but I believe we come out stronger in the end, with or without our relationships.
I am glad you are here Raining!
I am sending you huge hugs and praying for strength for you to get through your day!
You may find this helpful in describing what you are experiencing.
Trauma to SOs

Jenn

[Hipparchia]

Hello Raining

Many of us have been there - the deception, the betrayal - when they had promised and you believed that promise, and then they break it. That is completely heart-breaking. I think they don't know themselves how they can do it, they don't understand themselves - they separate things out.

All we can do at the moment is offer you support, show you that we know how it feels, know how much it desperately hurts. You are experiencing trauma, are in crisis and all the emotions and physical distress that goes with that.

Do you have some help - a counsellor, friends? And keep writing here and we will try to help you.

[Mac]

Hi! Raining
Like Mell your post brought tears to my eyes. Took me right back to that place you find yourself in right now and that was 20 months ago. It can be so fresh and raw at times still.
As a recovering PA I remember that same sick feeling that you have and I was on the other side of this lousy invasion in our lives.
Coming here and getting this off your chest I pray will help you not feel so alone. You are not alone, you now have friends here that will lend an ear and support you as much as they can.
My heart goes out to both you and MAB. Stories like yours inspire me to stay the course of recovery and also to be here to offer encouragement to people that need that. WE will be here for you guys.

All the best
Mac

[Disillusioned]

Hi Raining,
I could have written your words. How could he? I trusted my PA so much. I felt he was so noble and above all of this. It got worse as what he had been doing trickled out...it got worse and it got worse.

I felt physical pain, like a gash or fresh cut right down the middle of my body where my heart is. The pain was so real that I was surprised there was not a real gash there. I know about the feelings, the crying, the feeling apart from everyone else, the feeling of not belonging in the real world anymore, like everything was lost, and I had wasted my life. I felt like I had been a terrible judge of people instead of a person with good insights, as I usually regard myself. This was such a shock, and to have it happen again.

Someone said they separate, and I know this to be true. In the general discussion area of this site, there is an article about the 14 methods of denial or rationalization many PAs use to defend their use of p to themselves and to others. I handed my h the list and asked him if he saw himself using any of these. He identified one. I took it back and gave him written examples of all the ones he had used explaining and justifying his activity to me...there was only one without one of his quotations, only one he didn't use.

This thing,P, is a modern plague. What starts out as wink, wink curiosity, ends up ensnaring our men. There are no warning signs on the sites, as in "Caution; this product may be hazardous to your health and mental well-being," but there should be. It is addictive and it actually causes changes in the way the brain works.

If your h abstained before because he didn't want to hurt you or feared losing his marriage, that kind of incentive to stay p free, usually doesn't work. The most frequent time for relapse is 6 months. The men have to do the work. They have to go deep into themselves and see what p is used for by them. Titillation yes, but the main benefit seems to be a numbing of themselves to their real pain, the pain and disappointment encountered in everyday living and pain from hurts from the past. It is zoning out of their real lives. It is taking the lower easier road. It is abandoning their wives and families and even jobs. The siren sings and she wants our men. IF they respond, it would seem they are ensnared. WE have many older men on our site...some 50, 60 and 80 years old, and still trying to break away from the chemical high from P they have been addicted to. P addiction follows the same brain pathways to the pleasure center as do addicting drugs, alcohol, and other addictive substances. It is a way of feeling safe, level, and okay and not dealing with emotions in a real, healthy, and positive way.

I am so sorry you are dealing with this again in your life. LIfe is too short to have to waste a moment on P. But I am glad you are here, Raining. I picture Gene Kelly dancing and singing while the rain is falling in "Singing in the Rain." I pray for peace in your heart, and for your ability to detach and get away from the terrible hurt, shock and disappointment this has caused you.

I will tell you that you did nothing to deserve this, and it isn't about you. It is about Big Business offering this junk everywhere as a terrific money maker, being allowed to do so, and about men who do not feel safe emoting, or safe in handling their own feelings and disappointments in their real lives.

God bless you as you go through this terrible time. I hope something reaches you today that will make you smile, lift your spirits and make you realize you are still here, alive, able to function and love in your own world, and that you are merely the spouse of someone suffering from a brain illness and addiction.

Disillusioned

[Mac]

Hi! Raining
I already posted to this thread but felt the need to return with some more thoughts.
For some reason your post has rattled me a little and has been the source of a lot of reflection the last couple days.
I don't think you really have said anything I haven't heard before but something in the way you tell it just hit home for me right now.
I have felt like I have an understanding of what we PA's have put our wives through, but i feel like you have me understanding it on a different level, maybe a little deeper level. Jenn and i have talked about this lots of times and the only way for us to try to get an understanding is to put ourselves in your shoes, as in if you had an affair with another man and were looking for forgiveness from us. I think a better thought to put us closer to your feelings would be our SO having an affair with a whole bunch of different men and think about how we would react to that. Jenn and I were talking about this exact thing this morning because of your post.
I don't want ramble on too much here, but we as PA's need to have this understanding so the cylce of returning to the old behaviours once the dust settles is broken.
Everyday I read another sad story by another suffering SO, there just doesn't seem to be any end to the despair PA is causing in so many lives and yet I still come away feeling like us PA's just don't completely get it. I think we try hard to, but just don't quite get there.
Maybe we need to stop and think about how we would feel cuddling up in bed next to our wives with the thoughts of the 100 or so men she had been intimate with running through our minds, maybe that would get us a little closer to knowing what this has done to the women in our lives. WE have to get there somehow.
Thanks again Raining, I hope your post has the same impact on others as it did me.

Mac

[raining on the inside]

First, I want to say thank you to those of you who responded to my first journal posting. I can’t tell you how touched I am by all of your kind words, understanding, and encouragement. I feel like I have been battling this issue on my own for such a long time. It really feels good to not feel so alone.


I have so much to say, I barely know where to start. I got into a fight last night with my husband. We were sitting together discussing my ongoing frustration about GI problems that I’ve had forever and some recent testing that didn’t give us any new useful information. My H was being empathetic and loving. I gently said “I so didn’t need all of this extra stress”. He asked what the extra stress was that I was talking about and I told him I was referring to the P issue. He immediately got stiff, stood up, and walked into the other room. It appeared that he could be empathetic with me about issues in my life as long as they don’t involve him. I called him out on this. He got angry. I started to cry. He told me that it makes him angry and is “annoying” that I keep bringing up how much he hurt me. That what’s done is in the past and that I need to let it go and move forward. He says that’s what he did. I lost it. How could he just let it go and move on when he still sees me in pain each and every day? His answer: he’s very concrete and doesn’t have the same level of emotion as I have. That yes, it hurt him when this first came out a couple of weeks ago when he saw how much I was hurt. But that he doesn’t have that empathy anymore because he “let it go”. He had read my journal posting and it didn’t even seem to phase him as to my feelings of hurt and betrayal. I told him that it feels like he doesn’t care. Instead of saying, “yes honey, I do care”, he looked at me and said “F*** you”. I cry more. I tell him that he should feel badly and feel hurt when he sees me in so much pain, knowing that he caused it. He tells me that I have no right telling him how he should feel. He tells me that I’m fragile and that my mental health issues are playing a role in why I am so affected by this. I tell him he’s minimizing. That he needs to suck up the consequences of this disaster because he’s the one who did this. That this wasn’t my choice. That god forbid he has to be reminded from time to time of the pain he has caused me. I wish that I could go through my day with only a reminder or two of this pain. But for me, it is there every day, all day. I can’t escape it. But he has. How is that fair? He said I was being accusatory. And, yes, I was. But who else is to blame? I will not take responsibility for any of this. I did not do anything to cause this. I didn’t create this. I didn’t keep it going all this time. He did. He tells me that I’ve just gotten “derailed” and if it wasn’t the “P thing” is just would have been something else. That that’s just the way that I am. That it’s my mental health that causes me to perseverate on this so much. Not because it is so damaging that I can’t push through it the way he thinks I can. And, you know what? A couple of weeks ago he probably could have convinced me that that this was just me being weak and that I was over-exaggerating the impact that this should or shouldn’t be having. But I have read so many posts and so many journals on TTF that I KNOW that my reaction is not merely a result of me being “unstable” like he says it is. I have read so many stories that sound just like mine. So many reactions and feelings that seem to mirror what I’m going through. I told him this. I told him he should come on here and look for himself. To see that it is not just me. That I’m not over-reacting. That I’m not just this weak, unstable, fragile person who doesn’t know how to cope properly. I’d like to see him try and cope with this level of hurt & betrayal. When he sees my pain or I tell him of my pain instead of having empathy he gets angry at me. This is not productive fore me. It just hurts me more. Yes, he has taken concrete steps towards recovery – he started therapy and is keeping a “P log” to track his urges and triggers. But that is just not enough. There is no emotional support for me from him.

I didn’t have anything left in me to fight with him so I just picked up and walked upstairs. I spent another night sobbing uncontrollably on my bathroom floor. But no matter how hard I cried I just couldn’t get it all out. I couldn’t get out the pain that was boiling from within. I felt like it was eating me alive and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt trapped. A couple of weeks ago when this first came to light again, I left for the night to have some time alone. He left me a hideous message telling me that I was a f***ing baby and that I needed to grow up and not run away from our problems. So I can’t leave this house without creating more problems. I am trapped. I am alone. I am scared.

He finally came upstairs and scraped me off of the bathroom floor and carried me to our bed. He told me that he had re-read my posting and read others responses to it. He said he read an article on TTF about the impact on SOs. He said my reaction does seem to fit. He said he realizes he needs to be supportive to me to help me get through this. But he said he doesn’t know how to support me and that he is not good at it. At this point, I don’t even know what I need. I don’t know what him supporting me would even look like. I feel like I want a hundred “I’m sorry that I hurt you” and a hundred, “it hurts me to see how much pain that I have caused you”. I want empathy. I want understanding. I want love. I want him to take the anger that he is projecting onto me and project it onto himself. I want him to take full responsibility for this upheaval in our lives. I want him to understand that this is going to take time and that I can’t just let it go. I want this to be over. I want it to never happen again. I want him to be able to trust him. I want this pain to go away.

[JenMac]

HI Raining!
Aww I am so sorry that you are living through this! It just breaks my heart.
Raining, I think your H's response is extremely sad. But unfortunately fairly typical. There are many who have come here who have no understanding of what this does to their spouse. Oh yes, they can see the anger, hurt or pain, but they really think it is only us who feel that way. We are the exception, rather than the rule, or so they think.
The downplaying of the affect of this in the minds of our H's and throughout society is very troubling Raining. It makes us think that we are somehow different than others. That we are somehow making more of this than we should. Well Raining, I will tell you, I am a strong confident woman. Always have been. I don't have any mental health issues, never have had. But this brought me to my knees. This basically put me into a scary place for over a year, probably closer to a year and a half. I likened it to grief. The feelings I had to work through as a result of this betrayal were difficult and all consuming. It was only with time and hard work that I was able to come back to a place of peace. Throughout that time, my H mac was there for me, completely. While he didn't come here with the understanding either, he learned as he went. He listened to others, his counsellor, other PAs, other SOs. And yes he will tell you that the most important learning came from the stories of other SOs, who helped to verify what I was feeling. Sad that it takes that for them to fully realize what we are experiencing, but if it helps then so be it. We also listened to testimonies from the 'stars' of the industry themselves. That was a telling moment for him as well.
Raining, it all started by coming here. We wouldn't be here if not for this place. There is much learning for both of you as you move forward. I am so glad you are here. You need to be!
I hope your H will be open to learning what he needs to learn in supporting you through this. There are many here who could help him with that. All he needs to do is to be willing to listen and learn, and exercise patience. Patience is vital if you are going to get through this together.
As mac's counsellor told him, the healing of your relationship will be on YOUR timeline. He has no control over that. He told mac that he needed to understand that if he was serious about wanting our relationship to survive.
Hugs for you Raining!
Jenn