My PA Recovery

[Thoughtless]

Seeing two long time sober TTF members slip back into the PA trap, even if only briefly, has inspired (scared?) me to start a recovery journal.

I have been totally free of P for several months, after skating around the edges for several months. Specific dates elude me, as this has been a gradual awakening (too gradual if you ask my wife) aided greatly by TTF.

I suspect it will take me a few days to get my first real entry together, but wanted to at least initiate my journal.

[HopefulsRock]

Thoughtless... I welcome you to our little community and appreciate you stepping up and starting this journey of recovery as we can always use the support and wisdom that another member has to offer. With several months of sobriety behind you I'm sure you can already see the improvement in your relationship and life and it only gets better the more we put this addiction behind us and the more we open up and share our feelings and emotions with our SO's. I agree that this has been a gradual awakening and yes, too slow at times but as long as we keep learning and heading in a positive direction then we are on the right path.

This is a huge step in the right direction for you and to help your wife to heal from the trauma she's been through... I am grateful to have you aboard and you couldn't have said a more true statement about all of our recoveries when you said this...

this has been a gradual awakening (too gradual if you ask my wife) aided greatly by TTF

You're already sharing your wisdom my friend!

[Disillusioned]

We are to be positive at TTF, and that includes spouses as well as other members and guests. In that thinking, I will say that I had put very positive messages to my husband Thoughtless in his journal, and he did not respond and has yet to post any further thoughts. My encouragement has not inspired him to write, and he did say, in another journal, that he hesitates to write here, because I am a member and might read it. I have offered to withdraw and close my membership here so that I cannot read what he has written. I did not look at his journal until he asked me to. I got more understanding as to where he was in his recovery when he wrote why he didn't read the material that I had requested in another's journal when I asked him if he could help her understand why her h might not be doing the reading she asked him to do, as he did and does the same thing. I have removed articles from other sites in my h's journal and loving encouragements to him trying to get him to share his uncertainty, fears, and concerns. I apologize for any negativity I have put in his journal, and see that I should not have used it as a venue to share his thinking or respond to me. Since the last post from me on his journal, I send him emails of articles I think might help, and copy entries that I feel are particularly enlightening to his other email account or print something instead of sharing it here. I did fall asleep for a little while last night, and dreamed he came to me and said, "Happy New Year's Dear. Come look at your email." When I awoke again in my restless, short sleep, I realized 'my email' in my dream was a reference to TTF and a loving post he had made to me. It has not happened, and yesterday my h told me he would do no more than he already has as far as recovery.

[Disillusioned]

Something I read from another's journal...just to think about. What do I know, really?

"I don’t know where you come down on the benefits of psychoanalysis, but I’m a big believer in it. At its core, psychoanalysis is about “making the unconscious conscious,” figuring out what’s going on in your head. I think you have to really listen to yourself closely for maybe the first time in your life, and take yourself seriously. That may be especially difficult if people have discouraged you from doing this, as they have me, but it's totally worth it, in my opinion.

Just as an example of what you might uncover when you look inside yourself, here’s what I think is going on in my head: I have internalized all the voices of people who over the years have shouted at me, laughed at me, told me I was no good, slow and stupid, and, worst of all, too sensitive and overly emotional. What I believe now is that p and mb are just two of the many ineffectual methods I have turned to to quiet those voices, to imagine myself as all-powerful, the object of every woman’s desire and the object of every man’s envy. The problem with using sx to block feelings of humiliation is that you can be humiliated sxlly as well, and then what do you do?

It’s black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking: I’m either a god or a piece of dirt. I’m trying to replace that thinking now with the idea that I can be just a regular guy. I’m trying to see myself as someone who will have some occasional victories and some failures, but either way I’ll be basically okay. I want to build some stable base to return to after both the victory celebrations and the agony of defeat. A healthy and happy sx life will be part of that foundation, but it won’t be the only ingredient.

So I guess I’m basically trying to say what Mell already said in fewer words: inquire within. And, as for how long it takes, please see my signature. :)

John "

PS, Thank you, John (Burned Out) for your honest response in Crusader's journal. Disillusioned

[burnedout]

Welcome, Thoughtless. Glad you decided to start journaling.

Something I read from another's journal...just to think about. What do I know, really?

Thanks, D. I definitely don’t have all the answers, either. That’s why it takes a team working together like this one where everyone puts their heads together to solve a common problem.

I like what you wrote about self-pity. I was indulging in it today, and, yeah, it was hurting me. I could FEEL it. I was walling myself off and picking at my scabs. Gotta just leave them alone and let them heal. I can’t ignore that life is unfair, but it’s unfair for everyone, not just me.

My therapist is also an ordained minister, by the way, so I think religion and psychology go perfectly well together.

[Disillusioned]

Hey Burned Out,
I am hi jacking my dear heart's journal, and as you can see, sometimes I am quite ready to give up. He just got back from a gun show and bought himself a well-deserved Christmas present for himself. I love to see him happy, I really do.

Anyway, we all wallow in self-pity, Burned Out. The thing is to go ahead and feel it and get it out of the way, instead of bottling it up till it causes a wound that becomes systemic or numbing ourselves from the pain as in p and other drugs (being drugs, food, or anything else that causes mind numbing and avoidance of pain). No life is not fair. Ask the mother of a stillborn baby, who has followed all the rules that ensure a great pregnancy and good outcome. Ask any mother of a deformed child born under the same circumstances. The thing is there is pain and suffering of all sorts out there, and it is carried so much easier if there are two of you to share it; so much better if you have someone who might not be able to change it, but gives a darn that it hurts and wasn't fair.

There is a poem that I have listed in General Discussion called Desiderata that might offer you some insight into how to look at life's unfairness. I use it all the time in my own life, and need to recite it often when I am feeling down about h and me. It ends with the universe is unfolding as it should, and it is, despite the fact that life is not fair, despite the fact that there are ugly things that entrap us like P, despite the fact that there is poverty and ignorance and crime and these things are not easily remedied. The universe is unfolding as it should and each of us, in our own little ways, each is as important in that universe. It will go on if we are knocked to the side of the road, or even pass away, but we had our moment and it was ours to live and define.
There is another powerful poem called "The Dash" which is a favorite of mine. The Dash refers to the period of time between our birth and our death, and refers to all the good and bad things that we have done while we are here, in our moment in the universe. I would like mine to mean more than P, and more than recovering from p or being injured by p. I would also like to know that it can't drag my beautiful h down into its claws again. I have feared for a long time that because I am not the raving beauty that most men dream of, this is what led my h into its lair. But it is more than that I fear.
For you, for him, and for me, Burned Out, I am hoping our Dash becomes more about good things than bad things...more about positive than negative. More about dwelling on being loved and loving than being treated unfairly in this life, in our time, during our moment in the universe, which is still unfolding as it should.
Best wishes on your journey.
disillusioned

[Disillusioned]

We are to be positive at TTF, and that includes spouses as well as other members and guests. In that thinking, I will say that I had put very positive messages to my husband Thoughtless in his journal, and he did not respond and has yet to post any further thoughts. My encouragement has not inspired him to write, and he did say, in another journal, that he hesitates to write here, because I am a member and might read it. I have offered to withdraw and close my membership here so that I cannot read what he has written. I did not look at his journal until he asked me to. I got more understanding as to where he was in his recovery when he wrote why he didn't read the material that I had requested in another's journal when I asked him if he could help her understand why her h might not be doing the reading she asked him to do, as he did and does the same thing. I have removed articles from other sites in my h's journal and loving encouragements to him trying to get him to share his uncertainty, fears, and concerns. I apologize for any negativity I have put in his journal, and see that I should not have used it as a venue to share his thinking or respond to me. Since the last post from me on his journal, I send him emails of articles I think might help, and copy entries that I feel are particularly enlightening to his other email account or print something instead of sharing it here. I did fall asleep for a little while last night, and dreamed he came to me and said, "Happy New Year's Dear. Come look at your email." When I awoke again in my restless, short sleep, I realized 'my email' in my dream was a reference to TTF and a loving post he had made to me. It has not happened, and yesterday my h told me he would do no more than he already has as far as recovery.

[Disillusioned]

We are to be positive at TTF, and that includes spouses as well as other members and guests. In that thinking, I will say that I had put very positive messages to my husband Thoughtless in his journal, and he did not respond and has yet to post any further thoughts. My encouragement has not inspired him to write, and he did say, in another journal, that he hesitates to write here, because I am a member and might read it. I have offered to withdraw and close my membership here so that I cannot read what he has written. I did not look at his journal until he asked me to. I got more understanding as to where he was in his recovery when he wrote why he didn't read the material that I had requested in another's journal when I asked him if he could help her understand why her h might not be doing the reading she asked him to do, as he did and does the same thing. I have removed articles from other sites in my h's journal and loving encouragements to him trying to get him to share his uncertainty, fears, and concerns. I apologize for any negativity I have put in his journal, and see that I should not have used it as a venue to share his thinking or respond to me. Since the last post from me on his journal, I send him emails of articles I think might help, and copy entries that I feel are particularly enlightening to his other email account or print something instead of sharing it here. I did fall asleep for a little while last night, and dreamed he came to me and said, "Happy New Year's Dear. Come look at your email." When I awoke again in my restless, short sleep, I realized 'my email' in my dream was a reference to TTF and a loving post he had made to me. It has not happened, and yesterday my h told me he would do no more than he already has as far as recovery.

[Disillusioned]

We are to be positive at TTF, and that includes spouses as well as other members and guests. In that thinking, I will say that I had put very positive messages to my husband Thoughtless in his journal, and he did not respond and has yet to post any further thoughts. My encouragement has not inspired him to write, and he did say, in another journal, that he hesitates to write here, because I am a member and might read it. I have offered to withdraw and close my membership here so that I cannot read what he has written. I did not look at his journal until he asked me to. I got more understanding as to where he was in his recovery when he wrote why he didn't read the material that I had requested in another's journal when I asked him if he could help her understand why her h might not be doing the reading she asked him to do, as he did and does the same thing. I have removed articles from other sites in my h's journal and loving encouragements to him trying to get him to share his uncertainty, fears, and concerns. I apologize for any negativity I have put in his journal, and see that I should not have used it as a venue to share his thinking or respond to me. Since the last post from me on his journal, I send him emails of articles I think might help, and copy entries that I feel are particularly enlightening to his other email account or print something instead of sharing it here. I did fall asleep for a little while last night, and dreamed he came to me and said, "Happy New Year's Dear. Come look at your email." When I awoke again in my restless, short sleep, I realized 'my email' in my dream was a reference to TTF and a loving post he had made to me. It has not happened, and yesterday my h told me he would do no more than he already has as far as recovery.

[Teemo]

Hey, Thoughtless,

Just want to wish you a Happy New Year and let you know I am hoping to find out how you are doing.

Teemo