The Invisible Wife, Part Three

The Invisible Wife starts to hear a familiar voice. She feels herself in a familiar place, where all of her resources have been maxed out, her reserves empty, and her heart broken.

The familiar voice whispers, "It's time to let go. Rest for a while, I'll take care of you."

The familiar voice and the familiar place always give her that message. The one that is so very hard to remember. The message of surrender and acceptance.

She releases her grip, realizing how sore her fingers were from holding so tightly to the outcomes for which she hoped. She looks around and notices her toes need a pedicure. She notices that her aching shoulders could use a bubble bath. Her muscles could use a run.

The Invisible Wife is not invisible to God. She is learning a lesson she must learn over and over again. The message of letting go. God teaches her with ever gentle messages, allowing her to see beauty in her story and power in God's amazing work.

The Invisible Wife, Part Two

The Invisible Wife decides to isolate from the recovering addict. Feeling betrayed and abandoned, she spends her time alone, trying to figure out exactly where she went so very wrong. How did she get to this point of hopelessness and despair? She once had such strength, such determination, she thinks. There was a time when there was no problem she thought so big that she could not solve it by will power and careful planning.

But here she finds herself feeling alone and empty. No pulling herself up by the bootstraps now. The Invisible Woman is at a crossroads. She has exhausted herself completely. Fixing, guiding, leading, analyzing. Objectifying her marriage.

Where does The Invisible Woman turn at such a crossroads?

The Invisible Wife

The sick addict finally turns his life around after leaving a path of destruction in his wake. He is praised for his hard work and welcomed with open arms by his family. He feels satisfaction in helping those who are still held captive by addiction and devotes his time to answering late night phone calls and early morning texts.

And his wife, who at times remains bleeding on the ground from the destruction, starts to wonder. Why can't she welcome him with open arms? Embrace his newfound sobriety? Doesn't she know the story of the prodigal son or the lost sheep?

Right or wrong, the wife feels a bit ignored. Were it not for her sacrifice, suffering, and compassion, she thinks, the addict would for sure be bankrupt, without a family or home, and would possibly not even be alive.

But was she really involved in all of this? Is it even reasonable to expect the family of the addict to acknowledge her? A Higher Power and the addict are surely to be respected for this miracle of recovery, maybe the role of the wife is really just a role of observer.

She finds herself lying in bed alone at night, wondering if she might be The Invisible Wife.

Mourning My False Self

My false self has been nurtured well over the years. It's the parts of me I let people see. Fr. Richard Rohr (my absolute favorite spiritual leader/writer) says that this protection and building of the false self is part of the first half of life, the ascension.

I totally rocked that part of life. I could mold my behavior, my image, even my appearance, to be what other people desired from me. The goal for me, ultimately, was approval and praise.

The problem, according to Fr. Rohr, comes when one works so hard to cultivate the false self that she ignores and denies her shadow self. The shadow is human weakness, character defects according to 12-step.

And so it appears that living through D-Day has caused my false self to start disintegrating. Those things I worked so hard to protect, like the image of the perfect family, became impossible to protect. I started to realize that living my life to get praise from others was miserable.

Fr. Rohr describes the phase I find myself in right now as the descent, which is ultimately just plain old reality. I'm finding myself in situation after situation where my weaknesses are being made clear. I like to be right all the time, I'm stubborn, I have a serious emotional eating problem, and I'm terrified of intimacy.

The funny thing about this awareness of my weaknesses is that I'm overall happier now than I've ever been. Humiliated, for sure, but feeling more authentic.

I Receive This

My therapist introduced an amazing concept to me.

I can choose whether or not to accept another person's opinion of me. I have no control over what another person chooses to say to me, but I can choose whether or not to receive those words. She said that sometimes when a person gives her a compliment, she will even say out loud to the person, "I receive that".

And it just so happens to work the other way around. I can also choose not to receive words.

Someone close to me recently told me that I really need to teach my son to toughen up. At first, I started to internalize the comment, feeling ashamed of my parenting skills. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I intentionally refrain from giving my son the message that he needs to toughen up. I for sure encourage hard work and communication skills, but I choose not to stifle his naturally sensitive and caring nature. He's just fine the way he is, and so I chose not to receive that criticism. She was free to make the comment, but I'm also free to choose to reject it. It really helped me to stop the spiral of shameful thinking.

In my mind, I replaced the criticism with an affirmation. I am a good mom!

A Life Motto

"Wherever you are, be all there." ~Jim Elliot

So much wisdom in so few words. More thoughts to come...

Blogland

I blog for mostly selfish reasons. I like feeling a connection to people who understand my pain, and I like having an outlet that is disconnected from my immediate social and family circle. I blog to help myself, and I don't know that I do a whole lot of helping others with this space. There are so many wonderful writers who do the helping much better than me. I'm OK with that because I just really don't have any advice. I'm still in it. In the muck and the confusion and the hurt. I don't have answers, just experiences. My recovery moves at a snail's pace.

For so long, this blog has been exactly what I needed. It has provided with me an amazing sense of peace in some very dark times. I've been able to work through difficult memories and receive support when I needed it the most.

But like everything in life, things change. And I'm not sure this blog is helping me anymore. When I started this blog, I thought that I would be writing the story of a woman who divorced a sex addict because he wouldn't seek help. But as it turns out, I am now in the situation where I am still married, and the man I am married to is purposefully and diligently changing his life for the better. Along with him, I am also changing my life for the better.

Lately, I've felt like blogging has been a way for me to continue to isolate myself from real connection. There are a lot of things I write here that I don't tell Husband. I still don't feel safe in being vulnerable with him, but I started working with a new therapist, and I joined a women's trauma support group. I am making connections in my new city. But perhaps the most important reason to not isolate myself is that husband is trying so hard to be a good husband. I don't know if it will ever be enough. But I feel the urge to engage a bit in my real-life marriage and take a break from thinking through it on my blog.

So I might take a break here. I'll probably come back. I might even come back soon. I don't want to obligate myself to anything. I like to avoid that now as much as possible.

So for now, I'm going to go live a bit. I'll let you know how it goes.