Just a few tear drops

/ CrazyKat1963

beach path

So, enough about sex addiction… just kidding. What would my life be like without sex addiction? I wouldn’t even have this freakin’ blog.

We had an amazing anniversary trip to the coast last weekend. It was relaxing and invigorating and on the morning after our anniversary, we even went into our new beach house great room and opened the big, huge slider and sat out on our very own deck looking out to the mighty Pacific Ocean as if we actually have a beach house, because we almost do. And then I turned around to see a strange man standing in our “bedroom,” which kind of startled me. There may be huge lockable windows on the beach side, but there is no front door or garage door and so people can just walk on in (well, they do have to climb a ladder) and stroll through our house. Ha. Once the fancy stuff is in, like sinks and toilets, they’re going to have to do something about that riff raff and get some doors on! Just kidding, but seriously. Our house is located in a very quaint and friendly little beach town and so far most of the neighbors seem wonderful.

Did I ever mention how not wonderful our next door neighbors are though? No? Well, long long story short, they are Californians! I KNOW!!! Just kidding, BE is from California (well, okay, I realize that is not a great example). Anyway, I have never met the wife, but the first time we met the husband, a rather large and imposing man, he was complaining about our contractor. Of course. The weird part though was that he was totally ignoring me, not even acknowledging my presence. At one point I said something, and he turned and looked at me and said, “who are you?” I said I am his wife. He looked at Blue Eyes and back at me and said, very matter of factly… “I thought he was gay???” It took both me and Blue Eyes by surprise. Truthfully the guy seems like kind of a bully, so I thought he was trying to disarm us. Who knows, the guy is a weirdo. My response was, “well, Blue Eyes has a lot of secrets, but I don’t think that is one of them.” The guy actually is a real asshole, but thankfully they don’t spend much time at their big old beach house next door.

So, we introduced ourselves to the guy roaming through our house and he seemed embarrassed that he was talking to the real owners and he apologized for just walking on in. I said, well, the whole front side of the house is wide open with no signs saying you can’t come in, so we expect people to come in. Now is the time to see it if you want to because soon there will be doors and then we won’t take kindly to trying to leisurely relax on our deck while some strange neighbor rummages through our bedroom. I actually didn’t say that last part, but I think he got the message anyway.

After relaxing on our deck and taking a long walk down the beach and back around through our soon to be “new” neighborhood, we took a drive down the coast in Blue Eyes’ convertible. What a lovely drive it was. We have some funky beach towns on the Oregon Coast, but the coastline is take your breath away gorgeous. We stopped in for a late lunch and Blue Eyes got kind of teary eyed and said he was having a really wonderful time and he was so grateful I was in his life and had agreed to continue to travel this journey with him. Looking at him and knowing he was feeling real, true emotion, hit me hard, but not in a calming, content, satisfied way. It hit me in an empty way. To that point on that day I had already realized it was the three year anniversary of the last day he begged to see her for sex. Just hours after celebrating our 24th anniversary, he met her at a coffee shop, strolled the nearby neighborhood where she had recently purchased a rundown apartment building with money she inherited from her sister who had passed a couple years prior. He kissed her on the street outside that apartment and she agreed to a quickie at her house. To that point though, on the day after our 27th wedding anniversary, I hadn’t let that day come very far into my conscious thoughts. Then when I saw Blue Eyes being grateful for me and being thankful, I realized that the pain he feels will never equal the pain I felt and still feel when I think about the betrayal. It is a gut wrenching anxiety ridden pain coupled with shortened breath and nausea and that is just the physical side of things. The mental anguish is far worse. But I have mastered this pain. Time and time again, I have mastered this pain.

As just a few tear drops rolled down my cheeks, I reiterated the enormity of the pain he caused with the choices he made. It wasn’t a long conversation. When we left the restaurant, I did not take the tears with me. I said good-bye to those old feelings and rejoined the present. I didn’t think about his betrayal, or his recovery, or my pain again that night or for the rest of our time away.

I don’t want him to feel shame, I want him to feel compassion for me as a human being that he wronged. He will never know how difficult this is, or how this feels. He will never know.

 

 

23 thoughts on “Just a few tear drops”

  1. I am so glad to read you and BE had a wonderful anniversary and time down the beach with your newest home.

    I would very much like to know the words spoken to reiterate his poor choices without having BE feel shame but rather compassion for you instead. That is true healing.

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  3. Ahhh I love men who talk to my husband instead of me, by the time they realise their mistake it’s usually too late, one eyebrow raised, a slight pouty lip and I’m ready to rip that mutha a new asshole. By the by, your coast looks/sounds gorgeous…one day I shall come sit on that deck with you.
    All of what you wrote about BE’s heartfelt emotions I understand, even though our trauma doesn’t run as deep the scar still leaves a numbness I can’t seem to shake X

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    • Thanks, Owlie. We are making our way through this mess, day by day. Time does help, but you know, we still need that memory wiping machine thingy.

      Men can be such jerks. I think he was ultimately disappointed he wasn’t going to be able to tell all his friends that his new beach neighbors were gay. We sorta know where his assumptions came from, but you know what they say about people that assume things. He just made a complete ass out of himself. All the other neighbors seem wonderful.

      Regarding sitting we me on the deck, I certainly hope so. I’m planning on visiting you at work some day very soon. And, you must come to Portland too, you know, so you can see the hydrangeas in person! 🙂 ❤

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  4. Wishing you both a very bright future you have both come a very long way from 3 years ago (also wishing u houses free of unwanted house guests — what a freaking wierdo LOL). ❤️❤️❤️

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    • Ha, yes, C. They will need to add doors to our beach house very soon. The weird thing is we are kind of like celebrities… all we have to say is, “we are building the modern house down on xxxxxxx…” and everyone knows our house. They have watched it go up day by day. They know more about it than we do. It is such a sleepy little beach community, watching our house go up is one of the excitements of their day. I’m not joking. We are actually thinking about putting a sliding metal gate across the front of the property otherwise I am sure we will be bombarded by friendly neighbor visitors every day. Thanks for the wishes! xoxo

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      • Hey, remember u have the gate pics from NOLA? Although I’m not sure if that is in keeping with your design. That beach house is really going to be something special. I’m very excited for u (and for me: your future houseguest 😜). ❤️❤️❤️

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        • I’m saving those NOLA gate ideas for our Portland house. I want a fence that raps around the front with a gorgeous little gate. I have big dreams. 🙂 The beach house would get a utilitarian electric gate, just to keep the riff raff out 😉 While we (me and you) are sitting in the shade on the deck gazing at the ocean with our pastries and tea, we do not want to be bothered by anyone! ❤

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  5. Yep. The gift that keeps on giving (clichéd, I know.) But I really like that you were real, allowed your pain to be there, seen, then managed to pack it away.

    The coast looks stunning. I admit this dumb kiwi finds it odd that Californians have a beach house in Oregon. But seeing some of the photos, it makes more sense.

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    • I really hate being in pain, but what I hate more is being dragged down into this kind of mild monotonous depression where I don’t want to do stuff. If I let myself get swallowed up by the pain and the memories, I go to that place. It’s just not me.

      So, California is directly south of us and the deal with Californians… they like to MOVE up to Oregon (not just visit), namely Portland (weather be damned) as it is the only moderately large city in our state and things have historically been much less expensive up here, namely housing. They seem to come in waves (when they can no longer afford to live in California). They drive up the housing prices with the proceeds from selling their excruciatingly overpriced homes in the bay area or Los Angeles, or wherever. They bitch about the weather and many other things about the city, but many of them stay. They often bring with an attitude that everyone should know everything about everyone else’s business (I know I am simplifying and exaggerating and many Californians are swell people, but…). They really like their CC&R’s (Covenants, Conditions, & Restrictions) where they get to tell you what color you can paint your house and what time you must bring in your trash bins. Oregonians don’t take kindly to people telling us what we can and can’t do to our own house and also, we like our green spaces and our kind of funky aesthetic. Californians generally like conformity and to build on every square frickin’ inch of ground available. It’s a battle. The neighbors are from Beverly Hills and Pasadena and have lived up in the Pacific Northwest for a while, but I can spot a Californian from a mile away… they often don’t adapt. They want everything green, but they don’t want it to rain. You know? The California coastline is equally as gorgeous as the Oregon Coast, and of course they have the Southern California sunshine, but millions of people pay a huge price to live there. Southern California cannot be duplicated in Northwest Oregon, no matter how much money they have or how hard they try.

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        • I totally agree with you. My husband is from Los Angeles and my very good friend is from Fresno. Both now Oregonians. We have friends (very nice people) living all over California. Our neighbor is from Beverly Hills, and he is an asshole. There are kind people everywhere. We are currently experiencing another influx, however, and our housing prices are getting out of control again. It makes it not as livable up here, unfortunately. 🙁

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  6. Thanks for this post, Kat. I have read through many of your archived posts, but not all, and not in chronological order. I was wondering if in the beginning of the recovery journey Blue Eyes did a formal disclosure with polygraph? My therapist feels strongly about doing this. My husband’s therapist is neutral. My husband is willing to do it. I have mixed feelings as to the value. We are 6 mos post d-day. My husband has disclosed that he had been using prostitutes for 30 yrs (we have been together 26 yrs) usually about twice a wk. He swears nothing else. I honestly don’t know what could be much worse that he could disclose or that he would have had time for. He never went out of town and was home every night. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I was going to email you but I thought others might be interested since this seems to be a common part of sex addiction recovery. Thanks

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    • Hi Maggie, Blue Eyes did not ever do a formal disclosure or polygraph. One of the reasons I went back and posted eight months worth of journal entries in chronological order in the first two months of blogging was because I had kept a fairly detailed daily journal of my feelings and everything I/we went through, but also so people could see how difficult it really was to not only find a proper therapist and recovery path, but to also see how much we struggled with not being part of a more organized process, which would have included a formal disclosure (with people present for both of us) and a proper polygraph.

      As I have been muddling through this nightmare I have watched others follow the path of formal disclosure and polygraph and although it doesn’t seem to shorten the trauma healing, I think it does provide some peace of mind that the addict is in fact telling the truth, or can tell the truth. I went through hell with my husband and the trickle truth. I asked literally thousands of questions over hundreds of days. I asked him questions in numerous ways over and over until I felt comfortable with his answers. Most of my questions were about the 8 year affair partner. He claimed he forgot some things, which sometimes I believed, sometimes I didn’t. I was in such shock that this person I had known for 30 years could do anything like what he was divulging, so I think I asked a lot of questions out of sheer disbelief. I know he wanted to forget it all and pretend like it didn’t happen. His answers were often excruciatingly painful. I will say, he continued to dodge and avoid on some things well into the second year. Now that we are in year three of my healing and his recovery, I no longer ask questions. I have more than enough answers and I really just care about him being honest and truthful in the present.

      I hope in all this time, nearly 31 months since discovery, he has realized that there is most likely nothing from the past that he will divulge at this point that would send me packing. Our journey was a tumultuous one and I wish it had been handled better by the therapists we were seeing because we had no clue what to do with the diagnosis, the disclosures, the prescribed recovery and healing for both of us. We were blind and a few times we were led astray by people who were paid to help us. In the end I do wish we had had a formal disclosure and a polygraph. I brought up doing a formal disclosure and a polygraph a few times last year, but I no longer have a regular therapist (the therapist I now see intermittently suggested I have him do a disclosure/polygraph if I felt like I still needed it), and BE and his therapist have basically said they will proceed with whatever will make me feel safe. I have concluded that at this point, so far in and after so much trauma and healing, I don’t need it. If I felt like he was lying in the present (which is so very common for addicts), I would not hesitate to ask for the polygraph. The formal disclosure is unnecessary at this point. I was blindsided by new information numerous times over the first year, especially as he completed his first and fourth and steps. And then his first attempt at his ninth step this year was like a formal disclosure all over again. I realized the last thing I wanted to hear at this point was all of THAT, all over again.

      So, after all that… if I had it to do all over again (yikes, that’s a horrible thought), I would do a formal disclosure as early on as practical (sometimes they do block memories) and follow it up with a polygraph for my sake and his. So he could prove to himself that he can be open and honest and thorough, and tell the truth. I think at first it would feel humiliating, but once he proved he could do it, I think it would give him a sense of satisfaction, but I am just guessing at this point.

      Feel free to email me anytime if you want to chat away from the blog. xx

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      • Thanks for your reply, Kat. It’s more helpful than you could possibly know. I can relate to asking questions out of sheer disbelief. The most difficult part for me has been realizing my husband had this double life and had it throughout our entire relationship. We started out as friends, first, then became romantically involved. Now every memory I have, including our wedding day, is tainted with knowing he was seeing whores. Street whores, no less. This has majorly fucked with my sense of reality because I had no clue until d-day. My therapist is adamant about the formal disclosure because he believes my husband has secrets. As I said, I don’t know what could be much worse. Thanks again.

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        • I think you should go with your therapist’s instincts on this one. It might be helpful with solidifying for you his story in this. What I have found is that my story was real from my perspective with the information he shared. His secrets were his own. He did love me. He didn’t want to lose our marriage or break up of our family. He was broken and dealing with addiction and wounds since childhood. Basically he presented to me who he wished he was, not who he really was. That is on him, but figuring out how to now live with this person that we do and don’t know… believing he can tell the truth now, in recovery and as part of recovery is critical to healing and moving forward. Don’t worry about what could be worse… most likely it is not worse, it just is. What will eat away at you is the not knowing whether you have the whole truth or whether he can tell the whole truth. He needs to be able to do that and the polygraph will help him realize he can. That’s my additional two cents. So sorry for all this pain you are going through. I remember it well. I was fairly well inconsolable way back then. You are doing great! ❤

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          • Thanks, Kat. Yes, I think I see what you mean. He’s had this secret, compartmentalized life that until 6 mos. ago, I knew nothing about. The level of deception that it took to pull this off for 26 years is truly off the charts. I read in one article on sex addiction that one goal is the obvious goal of abstaining from the acting out behaviors and another goal involves breaking down the compartmentalization of the addict’s life: the public life vs. the secret sexual acting out life. While I think this has been done to some extent, just by the questions I’ve asked, what he has disclosed, my checking bank records, and the phone bill (as you have said, the phone bill doesn’t lie), I can see that the polygraph disclosure can help both of us. Even though he swears he has told it all, so to speak, sometimes when I have asked about specific time and place questions he will say he doesn’t remember, which could be the case given a 26 yr period, or maybe not. I do trust my therapist so I will go forward with this. My therapist has even gone so far to say that, at this point, I don’t have enough information to know whether to stay in the marriage or not. Thanks, again.

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