Journal Entry: April 29, 2014

With me being sick, and my friend being super busy with work, most of our communication lately has been via FB email. I have really isolated myself from most everything that was my life “before.” The loneliness can really get to me, especially when the only human I encounter in a day is my husband. It feels good to see that email from D in my inbox, even if I can’t see her pretty face.

In her email to me, she asks if I watch the Tori Spelling show (I don’t). I am not really into reality TV (unless it is food related) and as I mentioned before, TV is a trigger now. She basically says maybe I don’t need therapy, but just to watch Tori and see how pathetic she is and that will cure me. I wish it was that easy!

My email to D:

I am finally feeling better. I almost have my voice back. It’s been about 10 days since I could talk normally. I don’t think my family is as excited as I am to get my voice back. I have not watched Tori Spelling. Ironically, we were at a new therapist a couple days ago and in the waiting area was an US Magazine (I think) that had Tori Spelling on the front. B didn’t think that was such a great magazine for the therapist office. I didn’t have time to read it through, but I did peruse it and it seems she was just talking about a one night affair or something although the tabloids at the grocery store checkout were screaming “Dean has sex with men, women, off to sex rehab,” etc.., so who knows the truth. I know he is an alcoholic and she was the OW (and he was the other man) when they met, so not sure how parallel that is to our situation. Maybe if I watch her “reality” TV show, I will get the truth, ha. Just kidding.She looks pretty distraught over a one night stand, I wonder what she would do about 15 years of cheating with multiple partners. As I told the therapist last week, I cannot imagine being the wife of Tiger Woods or David Duchovny and having to live out the horror in the public eye. It is no wonder they cannot make their marriages work. Basically society just won’t accept sex addiction as a real addiction but merely as a moral weakness (which you might think is relegated to powerful and/or really handsome men, if you believe the media) and why would any woman stay with a cheater anyway. Some therapists are still telling the wives that if they just have more sex with their cheating husbands, they won’t want to have sex with other women. Well, we know that is complete and utter bullshit. I am pretty anti-therapist right now, so don’t get me started. Trying to get people who do not understand sex addiction, or even betrayal, to understand the feelings of a betrayed spouse is the problem most of the women in that partners group were having. Some of them shared with all their friends, sisters, mothers, etc…, and so all the friends and family are feeding off the wife’s pain and encouraging them to divorce. Pretty much all they are hearing from the women they love and that love them is, leave the cheating bastard! I think most women would say if their husband ever cheated on them they would leave his ass immediately. But when it actually happens to you, all that bravado goes out the window and reality slaps you in the face. I know B did not love those women and was not looking for a “new wife.” (Most of the men aren’t). Even though he told them he loved them, that’s not where most of my problems come from (although it does drive me nearly insane on some particularly dark days). I think for all of the women, thinking the man is unhappy with his wife or his marriage is just a byproduct of how society bastardizes the whole cheating epidemic. The biggest problem is understanding how someone can be so overwhelmed by an addiction or a weakness that they would be willing to hurt the one they supposedly love the most. They block out and compartmentalize the wife’s feelings in order to act out. They think they will never be caught and therefore the spouse will never actually get hurt. They don’t really take responsibility. With B, I think he really did in some sick part of his mind only think about what he thought he needed and that I actually was this person who was neglecting him. That I couldn’t love him the way he wanted to be loved (and I don’t mean sex). He was living in his own sick world, rationalizing his behavior, all the while keeping up the other parts of his life. It is a true addiction. They need that clandestine sex act like an alcoholic “needs” a drink. He has a tough road ahead of him. Things will never go back to the way they “were.” I will never be as strong as I was before and, therefore, he has made me into one of his victims. Hindsight is 20/20, but his pathology is so clear now. Not only is it clear, but one thing that sets B apart is that he is incredibly patient. Building the secret is a big part of his deal, his process. The relationships took months to build. The first one took years. It is so freaky to think about how much time and effort he wasted on the sex addiction. On the other hand, the way he is is also what propelled him to the business success he has now. His sexaholism and his workaholism fed off each other. I know this sounds crazy, but they helped him keep his life in order. Since diagnosis, he hasn’t worked a full day. The guy goes from being obsessed with work and career, to not being able to go into the office. It is overwhelming, for both of us. They say it takes at least 2-5 years for them to really break the addictive cycle. That seems like forever right now.

I think Tori could learn a thing or two by watching my reality. It sucks!