Sacred Space and Intimacy

Following D-Day, I felt completely unsafe in almost every environment. Even in my own house, in my own bedroom. The only place I felt safe in the whole world was lying on the floor of Child's bedroom. I would listen to the fan, his sweet sleeping sounds, and feel the soft touch of his hand holding mine. It became a sacred space for me. As long as I was in that room, the world couldn't harm me. I also used it as an escape from Husband. I would lie in there for hours, waiting for the sound of Husband retreating to the bedroom to sleep. Once I was pretty sure he was asleep, I would come out of my sacred space.

I used this tactic even more when I knew that Husband was interested in intimacy of any kind. I would hide out in Child's bedroom and pretend to accidentally fall asleep in there. It was dishonest, what I did. But I wasn't strong enough yet to communicate openly about intimacy.

Now things are different. Communication is more open surrounding intimacy. Husband is super-recovery-man. Boundaries are clear. But last night I found myself back in Child's bedroom hiding out.

I've been avoiding Husband.

My avoidance comes in waves. I linger between "I want to rebuild this marriage" and "I wish he would screw up so we could get divorced". And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with my husband's actual behavior. As far as I can see, he is doing anything and everything to build and maintain emotional stability and active recovery. It's really a battle that rages inside my own head.

Are his actions really forgivable? Why am I putting effort into this relationship? Shouldn't it just die so we can move forward? But am I just thinking and acting out of fear? Is fear going to hold me back from rebuilding a truly intimate marriage?

This battle won't be able to sustain itself forever.

I think that it's time to seek out professional help for this phase of our relationship. We've had help during crisis times, I've had my own therapy to recover from past trauma not related to Husband, Husband is in daily and weekly recovery and therapy sessions of various sorts, and we've had some marriage counseling to sort through moving back in together. But now it seems time to delve into our actual marriage issues, intimacy issues, communication issues.

But my goodness this is a lot of work. And I have to ask myself sometimes if it's worth it. And I just don't know.