Sorting through the Muck

As I was talking with a friend in the writing program, I was telling her all about how there are so many things I DON'T want to write about anymore. The list goes like this:

1) My divorce

2) Being married to a sex addict

3) Being sad about my divorce

4) Being confused about being married to a sex addict

5) Shawn

6) Sex

7) My sexual experiences

8) My anger, my sadness, my grief

9) My experiences with harassment

10)Loneliness

11) My divorce

12) Being married to a sex addict

I think this is fair. I've been pretty wounded for a couple years, and I think my body is ready to heal. Ready to forget. Ready to bury the past.

For some reason I feel like I should be over this loss. I should move on from this awful topic of divorce. I sense my family, my friends, the men I've been on dates with, and even my own pragmatic self urging me on to the future, leaving my experiences in the past, in the silence.

But, the true version of myself, the writer, the thinker, the optimist within, knows I must worry this subject into extinction. I feel like part of what pulled me into a relationship with a nice man who had an addiction, were some of my own blind spots. We matched like puzzle pieces fitting together. He wanted a woman who wasn't aggressive, wouldn't push for intimacy or even sex. I wanted a man who felt safe, who wouldn't pressure me to have sex, who would treat me politely and not get into fights. Ultimately, though, maybe he sensed I'd eventually hold the line, force him to confront his addiction, at least for the first time. Maybe I sensed he'd force me to assert myself, to set boundaries, to put my own needs first for once.

Personality traits are a two-headed coin. I love that I am compassionate, but the flip side of that is that if I'm not careful, I put others' needs ahead of my own, that I rely on others to take care of me.

Here is a silly example of what I mean:

When I was turned 16 my family let me choose where we were going for dinner to celebrate. My youngest brother who was 7 at the time desperately wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. So, for my sweet 16, we went to Chuck E. Cheese.

I don't really remember the experience, but I wouldn't be surprised if I felt sorry for myself after the meal. I was relying on someone else, my mom or dad, to step in and say that Chuck E. Cheese was a ridiculous choice for a 16th birthday.

Compassion. Duty. Fear. Shame. These are the buttons that have pushed me to be fake-nice at times.

Now I love that I can be genuinely compassionate, and I'm aware of whether I'm acting in a genuine manner or because I'm trying to do the right thing, be the good daughter, the good big sister, the good wife, the good teacher. I'm aware when I'm being kind because I'm afraid I won't be accepted.

Truly, I am a genuinely kind person. I don't think I'm fake very often. I think I used to be scared into trying to woo people to accept me, into being a pleaser, but I think I'm pretty good at curtailing that behavior now.

Here is an example:

I set a goal to greet all of my students when they walked in the door this school year. Not because I wanted them to like me, or because I thought it would make me a good teacher, but because I wanted to respect the light within each one of them, whether that light was shaded by the pain of adolescence or not. It sounds corny, but in yoga, the saying "Namaste" means the light within me recognizes and honors the light within you. I love this saying. I try to bring that attitude to my meetings with people, and especially my students. This doesn't mean I don't discipline students or set boundaries, but I try to see them as whole people, flawed and perfect, as I do so. As Plato said, "Be kind to everyone, for we are all fighting a great battle."

This afternoon I took a nap and I dreamed of my ex-husband. I was trying to pick out an outfit and we were both staying at my parents' house at 6275 Kerry Lane. He kept following me around, trying to see me naked, asking me to pick out his outfit. It was very strange. And disturbing. I remember feeling like I just wanted to be away from him.

Then he asked me if I had ever even loved him.

My heart broke again. I tried to explain, yet again. I tried to tell him how much I had loved him, how much I had put into our relationship, how I wanted more than anything for it all to work.

But he started to get "slippery" and I knew I had to leave again. Slippery is a term often used in recovery programs for codependents of addicts. It's recognizing this sort of manipulative and deceptive line of reasoning that turns black and white concepts gray. It's Shawn using guilt, logic, sympathy, and cruelty to coerce me into staying with him in our sad marriage. It's a baffling place to be as the partner to an addict, I would get so confused in our arguments. I would forget things and get lost in his reasoning.

In any case, even in my dream, I left again.

I think I dreamt about him because I've been bracing myself for the fact that he is going to get married again to a woman that is not me. In my dark moments I wonder if maybe I was the problem in the relationship. If he could truly be happy with the girlfriend he's been living with for over a year (as I've heard from others). I wonder if I dreamed the whole thing, the porn addiction, the sadness, the loneliness. Maybe I was the problem after all.

But I have the credit card statements. I have all of my journal entries. In my heart I know he is not in recovery. I remind myself I was with him for 5 and a half years before I really started to question the slight pulling away I had sort of been feeling for a year.

Sometimes I feel like I look like the wreck. Like I am the one dwelling in tragedy. Reliving a past that doesn't matter to anyone else. But in my heart I know the work will pay off. Trudging through the darkness, making it through the woods, and sorting through the muck, painful as it is, will make my future so much clearer.

I will die happy and uplifted, knowing I did the best I could with the time I had.