Jittery Days

I'm proud of myself for not getting depressed. There were a few tears shed, but I pushed through and did my work and came out on the side of acceptance. 

The thing I hate most about these revelations is the distance between Jonah and I afterwards. And there is pride on my part that says that I didn't do anything wrong! He should be the one to reach out to me! I have a right to be hurt and annoyed, right?

He says he stays away because he thinks I don't want him to be there.....which really bugs me because I've never asked him to leave or to go away. I've never refused to talk to him for any reason at any time. I've always been completely open and maybe not completely welcoming but never unwelcoming. I don't know where he has ever gotten the idea that he couldn't come to me or hat I wouldn't want him to come to me. I love him. If I didn't love him, it wouldn't hurt me. If I didn't love him, I wouldn't be here. And because I love him, I will always want him to be near me. I will always want him to come to me with his pain and his struggles and his joys. 

I want him to be better. I want to help him be the best that he can possibly be. Helping him become the best person that he can be is what I need to help me become the best person that I can be. We need to be together and work together and help each other as we work toward our eternal destiny. 

My issue now is, where do we go from here? I suppose it's another example of my naïveté andaybe even my pride. I'm desperately afraid of what happens now. He's not been formally disciplined by our church. I've never had cause to be formally disciplined by the church. Of course I've done my own repentence...tried to make up for my mistakes and prayed for the forgiveness from God and His help to make up for what I cannot.

I'm afraid for him that some sort of formal discipline will be put on him. I know how much that would pain him. It would hurt me, too. And again, I'm amazed at the amount of humility it takes to bring your sins to a priesthood leader....the humility it takes to ask for that kind of help when the real possibility of consequences is there. It's not even my sin and I'm terrified and reluctant and tempted to tell him not to confess...tempted to tell him to just work it out at home. But as I have told him a thousand times, that hasn't worked before....only pride and stupidity (insanity?) would pretend that the results would be different this time. 

I know what needs to be done. I only hope he does, too. And I hope it works....that real change can be made....that we'll be better for it.

Relapse and the 5 Stages of Grief

So, it happened. Relapse. That big evil dreaded word. And I hate to be setting him up for failure....but it was kind of inevitable. And I hate to be setting him up for failure....but it's a whole lot easier to give a hopeless "I told you so" than it is to feel hope die again.

I kind of knew it was coming. I saw him getting lax and apathetic. We rented a movie the other night. He wasn't feeling well, so I went to the store to get him some medicine while he stayed home and watched the movie. When I came home, he was watching Netflix, not the rented movie. I asked him why. He said because it wasn't funny and he had gotten bored. I could see the time stamp on the DVD player where the movie had been stopped. 26 minutes.

The next day, I decided to watch the movie myself. I was up and about, doing laundry and other things. I didn't notice until it was halfway through that there was a rather....graphic? scene in a strip club. I noticed at 24 minutes.

He had lied. He hasn't stopped the movie because it was boring. He had stopped it because of the explicit sexual content. And the part I didn't want to admit in that moment was....he didn't stop the movie until after he has watched that scene.

My chest tightened...rage and intense sadness and the desire to vomit and eat a whole box of cookies.

I talked to him later about it. He said he lied because he was embarrassed but that nothing had happened. He turned it off and that was good. I told myself that was good. I told him that it was a stupid thing to lie about.

Sunday, I asked him if he was going to go see the bishop. He said he didn't want to because he didn't know what to do there. He said he was going to go to one of the addiction groups instead. I felt angry and disappointed. He was getting lax. He had been talking about attending one of the groups for a while, but had never made any effort. He hadn't seen the bishop in over a month.

Last night, I went to a church women's function while he stayed home with the kids. And that's apparently when it happened. He watched some videos on his phone.

I don't know what to say other than that I was super pissed. 

He said he just clicked on an ad thinking it wouldn't be that bad but it turned out to be really bad. I yelled at him. "What did you expect to see that wouldn't be that bad!?!?!? What content were you expecting? What part of the video pushed it over the edge from 'not that bad' to 'really bad'? What would you have been okay with?" He finally hung his head and said, "it was a bad decision."

If there are 5 stages of grief, I think I blew through 3 of them last night. Denial...at least he didn't masturbate. Okay, he turned it off. That's good, right? 

Anger. The rat bastard. He does this! He says "it's not an issue anymore!" And then he stops doing the things that make it a non-issue. And then it happens again. And I yelled. And I told him this. And he said he didn't think it would be an issue again and that he thought it had just gone away. And I was like, "you complete and utter moron!!! Really? What kind of delusional fantasy world do you live in? Because of the 3 times in the last 10 years that I've tried to help you and the countless times you've tried to quit on your own, when has it ever just been gone? What situation, what experience do you have which made you so arrogant to think that the last 2 months of sobriety were different or better than any other 2 month bout of sobriety?" And then of course the "what on earth made you click on that? What was going through your brain that made you think, 'this will be fun!'???" Bastard.

And bargaining. "Have you decided what you are going to do now? No? Well, I have a list. You have now lost your YouTube privileges. You can't have Facebook on your phone. You need to talk to the Bishop and if you don't know what to do when you talk with him, you **ask him**! You start attending those meetings. You don't miss one. Ever. For any reason."

And now I'm back to anger. Because I can't do depression again. I'm not willing to let him ruin my life and my day because he did something some completely stupid and selfish and thoughtless. Bastard.

But I'm sure it will come. That dark cloud is looming on the horizon like a hurricane just off the coast, ready to rip apart my world, knock me off my feet, and send me spiraling down into the pit again....that out where I am so alone and afraid and helpless. Bastard.

There's that song that kids sing about going on a bear hunt or a snipe hint or whatever variation you prefer....and as you are out wandering around looking for bears, you encounter various obstacles in the forest like a muddy spot and a briar patch and a river and a cave. And as you approach each obstacle, you say "can't go over it! Can't go under it! We'll have to go through it!"

On the other side of depression is acceptance. I'm standing here on my bear hunt....standing in anger and bargaining....pacing in a circle....staring at the depression in front of me. I can't go over it or under it. I know that I've got to go through it. I just really don't want to. I feel like it took so much out of me last time. It took me so long to find a way out. I feel like I was only just finally finding my way to solid ground....that I was just starting to really feel confident in my footing....and the rug has been pulled from under me. 

I know I'm mixing like a million metaphors....but...

I just don't want to do it. It's not fair! I didn't do anything wrong! I've been supportive and forgiving and kind and loving. I've done everything that I know how to do. And yet, here I am again. Again. It isn't fair.

My son is supposed to be baptized this year. My second son. And I hate that I don't trust my husband to be worthy to do it. At this point, I don't trust anyone to be worthy to baptize my son. I look around me and see a bunch of closet porn addicts and perverts. I see sex crazed youth who will grow up to disappoint their wives and poor little girls who have so many hopes to be crushed. I see sad and lonely women who think they are the only ones who hurt....treading water in marriages that are hiding secrets. And I feel helpless and hopeless because I can't help any of them. I can't save the men or teach the youth or disillusion the girls or comfort the women. I can't save any of them. Because I'm barely treading water, too. I'm drowning in my own mess of secrets and sadness. I'm trying to come to terms with my own reality. And I'm not doing a great job. 

I want to take my little girl and run. I want to escape reality.

The sad truth is, though....even when Dorothy made it to the magical land over the rainbow...it wasn't all lemon drops and blue birds...

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I guess I'll start out by going to the gym. And then maybe I'll pick up a case of diet coke and I'll spend the day in my pjs.  And maybe I'll finally get the courage to head into depression. At least I've learned one thing...Christ is there. he loves me. So I'm not doing this alone. 

The Abiding Shame

I feel like, for now at least, the worst of this whole situation is over. I only rarely have nightmares. We are more open and honest with one another. Jonah is actively reading self help books. In a way, I've retreated back to a place where I try to pretend it has never happened. 

But it has happened. The residue of his sin and confession are like a gory aftermath that stains and complicates our lives.

And I am further impressed with the humility and testimony of those who go through a repentence process with their bishop because I wasn't even the one to confess sin, and yet I feel so much shame. I can't look that man in the eye, that man who knows our deepest secrets....that man who is called as our judge in Israel. And poor Jonah fears him. Jonah fears being reprimanded for making a comment during and young men's lesson. He fears a knowing glance during a discussion on the law of chastity.

I fear that, in my weakness and sorrow and selfishness, I judged Jonah too harshly, and that the Bishop will use that as a reason to be harder on him in the future. I'm afraid of the pity that hides behind ever handshake and "good morning, sister Darlene!"

And all of these fears come from shame. 

I didn't realize how much shame I was feeling until the Bishop came to shake my hand at Women's conference. I couldn't look at him. I have him the weakest of wet fish handshakes and ran in the other direction. It was humiliating.

Someone said, on Sunday, that shame is not something God wants for us to feel. I think I believe him. I think shame and guilt are closely related. They are a form of sorrow for the consequences of our actions. They are a desire to hide the consequences and hide from the consequences. 

Godly sorrow is something different. I think it is the recognition that we were wrong, God was right, and we could have been happier if we had just listened to Him in the first place. 

We should feel Godly sorrow for our sins because it is the acknowledgment that we could do better, that we could be happier. And it motivates us to change. 

Godly sorrow is motivated by humility. Shame and guilt are motivated by pride.

So this week, I am going to seek to eliminate my own shame. That is my goal. I need to be humble and allow myself to feel the love of others in my life rather than focusing on a guess of how they might be judging me.

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On a lighter note, Jonah reports  that though the temptation has not yet gone away, he has successfully remained sober. And for my part, I didn't feel like I was going to throw up when he admitted that he was still tempted! Growth!