Searching4peace's Journal as a wife of a PA

[Searching4peace]

I felt a sudden rush of clairity today reading New life begins now and was able to finally put into words some of the things my husband and I are working on. This inspired me to start this journal. I know that this first entry seems to be hyper focused on my husband, but the reality of it is there is so much information about my growth process that I have to add to this. This is my work in progress just as my life is also. I hope that I can help myself through this formost, but also to help others in the process.

This was my response for bananaman's journal.


My husband and I actually talked at length last night about things that we could do to help him when he feels those impulses to relapse. One thing we decided was his love of video games, we have struggled through our relationship with him living in his video games which had a detrimental effect on our marriage, before I had the enlightened experience of realizing my own faults and daemons as a wife of a Pa...once I stopped trying to fix him and worked on fixing myself I realized why he plays them.

I'm learning to understand that pa is triggered, for a lot of addicts, by self doubt, insecurities, boredom, etc. One of his main triggers is feeling lonely...so the times that I wasn't home and he was lonely (by not having a lot of his own friends to talk with or hang out with) he would then get bored..and boom came the relapse. He tried to spend time in the video games, but for him he beats the games quite easy and covers all the content so quickly that it became hard to afford keeping him in games. This being said...we had to find another way. Mind you during all of this, 4 years, I was still in denial about a lot of things...and spent a lot of my time being forceful, rude, mean, hurtful and just down right out of line with him about everything he did, not just pa.

Once I started to realize that he "had a problem", that I "had a problem" and we finally reached the same page in life...we have started to work on fixes for both of us. We have agreed that if he is alone and get's the urge to look at p, he will do several things.

1. Call me, I am finally at a point where i can be objective to a certain extent, and I finally through talking with him realize what he needs from me. I recommend that you find someone, a sponsor per say, that you can call when you feel the urge to falter.

2. We will invest in several different video games, console games, and pc games that he will only play as a use to fight the triggers. A safety net if you will, something to divert his attention from the urge.

3. We have set asside one day a week where we will just talk about his recovery, and my recovery...to keep each other included and in the loop about where we are in our own personal growth.

4. We are also big fans of movies, this is a big one for us to enjoy together. I have made a commitment to compromise with him, when he is feeling weak or that he might relaps to watch the movies that help him focus on other things (for him that's action flicks go figure a guy likes action flicks, lol). This is kinda a big one for us because I tend to like artsy and independent films...which bore the hell out of him, and as I've learned boredom is a huge trigger for him. Idle hands and all!

5. We have made a commitment to find a hobby for each of us outside of video games, movies, and tv. His is Rc cars...mine is my art. Something you can do with your hands, seems silly but I've learned during my own addiction to cigaretts that having something to do with my hands and my mind help me to get past the urge to smoke. We are going to try this for him too.

[FairyG]

Good stuff! I'm glad you and your husband have reached a point where you are both actively working at helping yourselves to heal and grow stronger, and can put "protective" steps like the above into action. There's no instant fix (for either party!) unfortunately, but remembering why you love each other, keeping your mind on the positive outcomes you want to achieve and making efforts to communicate and understand each other like this...well, that's what helps marriages to heal and grow stronger than they ever used to be.
Keep talking :)

[cmperry]

I have a few suggestions for hobbies. My husband also like RC toys, he recently got a RC helicopter that he just loves, although it is constantly breaking, it's better to start with the cheaper ones$-). As for you I too enjoy art, you say something with your hands I auto think of crochet, I've watched my mom do it for years and can actually do bit myself. Macromay (that surely not how it spelled so I soundexed!) is something I've always enjoyed as well. If your not all that into string, you could always pick up guitar, a wonderful relaxing fun hobby.

[Searching4peace]

You must be psychic I play guitar, flute, draw, paint, make jewelry, clay work, sew, quilt, scrapbook, and metal art. I should be the picture of sound mind with all of that therapy, lmao.

[cmperry]

how cool is that! I play flute too!! love making jewelry yup yup all that great stuff. Well you are already musically inclined you should pick up a new instrument I have found a saxaphone is about the same keys as the flute. I love crafty stuff! you should see if there are any leisure learning courses around you, they teach staind glass, glass blowing, neat stuff like that here around $100 for the whole course usually 1 or 2 days a week

[Searching4peace]

Warning...this is a long one...but I felt it important to get the back story in one shot.

So now I guess I should tell my story. Ohh were to begin, for it seems soo long ago!

Well I'm in my late twenties and have been with my husband for going on 6 years, married for 4. I found out about my husbands addiction 2 weeks or so before we were married. I ignored the voices in my head that said to run away, and married him. Not that I didn't love him...I believe that he is my soul mate which made it more difficult to understand how my soul mate could hurt me this way. I believed that by marrying him I could fix him, and the next four LONG years taught me that that was a foolish thing to believe.
**now for my back story
My father was an A**hole, Ex marine who served in Vietnam who came from an abusive childhood of an alcoholic and adulterous father. My father suffered from PTSS(post traumatic stress syndrome) and it wasn't until i was 15 that my mother and I even found out that he was in Vietnam; that happened the day he *snapped*. My father was regularly unfaithful to my mother, usually with her friends, he was emotionally, verbally, and at times physically abusive to her and at times me. I was 15 the first time I saw my father hit my mother, and when I stood up to him to protect her he came after me. I carried the bruises for weeks to prove it, but at the same time an awakening as to who my father really was. This I wouldn't trade for the world. Being able to see a man for the monster he was inside helped me to cope with the chaos that was the next four years of my high school life. My father began drinking and became addicted to prescription drugs around that time, and as I found out later in life he began sexually assaulting my lil' sister (for the record she's not my real sister but a girl from school that we got custody of to save her from her horrible family life...in retrospect I wonder how good it was for us to do that since I found out two days ago she's been committed and is on suicide watch). I think this is important for me to talk about because it was one of the first shocks to my system when it comes to being affected by someones Sexual addiction.

My life was normal to everyone else out side of the family for a very long time, no one but my closest friends even knew about the turmoil of my home life. I was the one with a stable family, parents not divorced, all of my friends wanted to stay at my house because my parents were "cool". I graduated high school with honors, and was a participant or officer in nearly every after school organization my school offered. Life was grand, at least on the outside. I spent my entire day trying to pretend to be this strong, intelligent, grounded, dedicated woman on the outside; when I was falling apart on the inside. Even in the deepest bowels of my depression my Sr. Year, no one knew it but me...it was my own inner fight. I just assumed everyone was like me laying in bed at night minds racing never stopping, wishing at times that I'd not wake up because that would be easier than this. Wanting to be loved, trying so hard to be what everyone else wanted me to be, but still never being enough. It seemed to everyone that I was the golden child of the family, the first to ever go to college...three cheers for me. I choose the school I always wanted to attend, and to show the geek in me, it wasn't for the degree programs or location it was the marching band. Marching band was the only thing that made me happy, hell i was sent to Europe for it, it was my thing. So when I finally got to college and fell apart half way through the semester, I walked away with 5 f's and only one A...marching band.

This lead me to move back home, where I worked 2 40 hour a week jobs and spent every moment I could away from my home. Searching for someone to make me happy, I dated a few dim wits that had no real meaning in my life other than a car of their own and a decent credit score. Then one day, I found a friend online...ohh nothing torrid just a friend that lived in Austin Texas, live music capital of the world...ohh this I had to see. So after 6 months of getting to know my friend I bought a plane ticket and flew to Austin. It was a two week vacation and by the 5 day or so, I called home to inform my father that I was moving to Texas, a 23 hour drive from home, and there was nothing he could do about it. So I commenced to turn in my two weeks notice at work when I returned home, and after that was done I moved to Texas on a plane with a duffel bag and my guitar and 240$ in my checking account. Of all the things I had done in my life up to that point, it was the smartest thing I ever did.

Talk about repeating life habits, you stick with what you're used to right. I dated a man for a year that could not commit to me, wouldn't even kiss me on the lips, preached to me that porn was a sin and anyone that looked at it was going to hell. Until I found his stash of online smut, I say smut because it wasn't soft at all. (add another mental scar to my list...as you watch my able to trust meter go down a few notches) Ohh I forgot to mention through this I found an amazing job, making more money than both my parents combined and was, what I thought, Very happy. So on to my next relationship, Met J*...policeman...successful...everything I could want in a man. If I could trust anyone it'd be him right, well great man, still love him today, but J* was an alcoholic. (back to the repeating of life habits) We lived together for over a year, and in that year it went from drinking at the lake with friends to me coming home and finding him so drunk that I had to call the sherif to make excuses as to why he didn't show up for his stake out. I did make some good decisions for myself at this point, realizing I was repeating my old habits learned as a child. So I left, got my own apt, a raise and promo at work and was doing well for myself. Then came my daemon...played company softball Wednesdays, seemed good for me, exercise and time with friends. Schmoozing with the big bosses and all, until I realized that after a few weeks I was putting away over 18 beers a night several nights a week with these guys, and let's not mention the tequila...it was texas after all! It's hard to make it to work on time when you're that f'in hung over, so I got my butt fired, then evicted, then was forced to move back home with mommie (who at this time had finally left my father) and a few weeks before that My Grandpaw died of Cancer, he was my rock, my paw paw, and this crushed me, but I acted strong for everyone elses' sake.

[Searching4peace]

Ohh East Coast small town here I come...

Moved home November something, just before Thanksgiving, to my dad calling my mother over 40 times a day leaving death threats and very very lude comments on her voice mail, and I'm not exaggerating EVERY DAY. I did what any one in my place would have done, or I'd like to think so, I picked up the phone one day and cussed him out telling him to stop threatening to kill himself and get it over with...then hung up the phone. How refreshing it felt to do that, or at least I thought so at the time. I met my now hubby that December, and told my mother the night I met him that He was my Soul Mate (to this day despite any of the things he put me through with his PA I still believe this, Through it all I am grateful to have him) we spent the first three weeks of our relationship in utter bliss the happiest I have ever been in my life. Then he was shipped out for 6 months with the military. Two days after he was sent out, my mothers best friend who was like an Aunt to me died of Cancer. I then moved into a house with my Boyfriends Best friends fiance...see My hubby and his Best friend were shipped out together...so it made sense for us to live together till they came home. I got pulled down into a world of drinking every day, started smoking cigarettes again, and did some things I'm not proud of with some random people from our local bar, being unfaithful to my boyfriend. Then it happened,three months after my boyfriend was shipped out and 3 days before my birthday...I got a call that my father had killed himself, and years of pent up anger, hatred, denial, and sadness fell on me like a 2 ton weight. I had to support my mother, handle all of the funeral arrangements, and become disowned by my fathers entire family who blamed me for his mental illness, alcoholism, sexual addiction, and apparent suicide. (in retro spec, a mental health facility would have been a good vacation for me) Through all this I stayed strong for everyone, no one knew the inner turmoil I felt inside...I never even cried.

Three months later in June my boyfriend came home and we moved in together and by the time he got home I had gained 75 or so pounds, when I'm stressed apparently I eat. I was not the same woman he met that previous December, nearly all signs of who I was had vanished. I couldn't keep a job, friends kept hurting me, my family was leaning on me so hard by then that I thought I might crack. But I tried to appear strong, in control, happy...even when my Boyfriend now husband would stay up all hours of the night on the computer(playing games, welcome to my denial). After a year he got out of the military and we moved to Texas, I was so relieved back in the state that I love the most. He had a great job, was going to school, and I was working with some of the most amazing people I could imagine...Life was good Until I decided to cut my sales calls off early and come home with breakfast to surprise him. I walked in to him at the pc with Folder after Folder after Folder of Pictures and stories, and his shorts on the floor. I knew, I knew the moment I walked in that this wasn't just casual, this was bad. I remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I felt as if it had hit the floor, not knowing whether to throw up or run...I made it down the hall to the bedroom and colapsed on the bed. It took me about 15 min to get my stuff together to be able to walk, and I strolled down the hall to inform him that I was leaving and that I didn't know when I'd be back...I drove to the closest parking lot and Lost My Mind In the Drivers Seat of My Nissan Altima...I was lucky no one called the cops on me. I nearly tore that car apart inside. I called everyone I knew and hung up just before they answered, thinking Oh my god I can't tell them this...I'm so ashamed, but I'm so alone, what do I do now. So I calmed down, put the car in drive and went back home. He was just sitting there at the damn computer shorts still on the damn floor staring at the screen tears rolling down his cheeks. I had no words! It wasn't until about 30 min later that he came back to the bedroom and told me he was looking for my Christmas present and that's why he started closing all the windows on the screen when I walked in. I was SO PISSED! Did he think I was stupid, How dare he insult my intelligence. That *******, I told him I didn't know what to do and that he had to sleep on the floor in the living room until I could figure it out. By the next day despite what I was feeling, I was so alone that I folded like a lawn chair and asked him to never do it again, and to come back to sleeping in our room...There were tears and promises...The next day I searched the computer to find nearly a GIG of porn, all arranged into folders by type, person, etc...I was Sick. Sick on a level that I didn't think humanly possible, I would rather have the flu for a month than to feel that ill ever ever again in my life. I called him at work and ripped into him, mind you that is a huge understatement....I'm sure the guys in the back ground could hear me. I searched for Sexaholics meetings near us, found him a therapist that specialized in Sexaholism and people with child hood sexual abuse. I knew that's why he had this issue, so I told myself it's not his fault, he can't help it...let's get him help.

I spent the next four years dying a little in side every time he fell off the wagon, everytime he told me he didn't have a problem, every time he told me it was my fault for snooping that if I hadn't I wouldn't feel this way...It took me leaving before I finally woke up and saw that through all of this...My childhood, My teenage years, My college years, My life in Texas, and My marriage...I had been doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. I blamed everyone, for my inability to get over it, to get help of my own...ignored my therapists advice to take accountability of my own actions first...Until I woke up...and now I'm here...and so is he...and for the first time in my ability to remember I am Happy! I still have my days, and no my life isn't perfect...but I no matter what am happy.

[FairyG]

It may sound trite, and that's not how I want it to sound because your post(s) brought me to tears and then made me smile hugely at the end, but the best I can say is "I'm so happy you're happy" because that pretty much sums it up >:D<

[FairyG]

Hehe, I like your new avatar by the way...tested my eyes reading it, mind you! :D

[Searching4peace]

Hehe, I like your new avatar by the way...tested my eyes reading it, mind you! :D

I tried to find a better version of it, but alas no luck...I think I'll just make my own when I get the time to tinker with photoshop. Ty for taking the time to read my post...I know it was a bit much.

Peace and love
Me