Cursing and Blessing

Last Thursday afternoon I listened in to Dr. Kevin Skinner's online webinar on Intimacy and Porn Addiction. It was a great presentation, but listening to it was not a great emotional experience for me because it triggered some anger in me toward my husband. You see, about half way through the presentation, Dr. Skinner asked the spouses of addicts to consider if we were modeling healthy intimacy: were we giving love and receiving love with others in our lives? Or had the betrayal trauma we experienced caused us to isolate ourselves and not trust others?

I surprised myself by immediately muttering under my breath, in response:

"The f-er."

In reference to my husband, of course. And I said it a few more times. Rather calmly, pretty matter of fact. Seemingly without effort or choice, this sentiment just bubbled out of my lips.

I've never been one to swear much, until about 3 months ago when it became clear to me that my husband's continued inability to offer empathy, show appropriate remorse, and accept the consequences of his behavior was making couples therapy more hurtful than helpful to our marriage. I actually decided to stop participating in couples therapy (about a month ago) because of it. So until 3 months ago, I can count on just my two hands how many times I've sworn out loud (just don't ask me to count how many times I've sworn in my head). But I'm making up for lost time, and sometimes I even scream swear words. That's what I call "roaring."

Anyway, the point is, the webinar ended and I was pissed. (Ok, there's another word that hasn't been in my vocabulary for over 10 years. This wopa lifestyle is really affecting me, can't you tell?) Why was I pissed? Because I knew that I was capable of intimacy, but my marriage was failing because my husband isn't. He has refused my gifts of love and loyalty for most of our marriage. I knew I needed to pray, but I wanted a moment of distraction first. I checked one of my favorite blogs, and watched the video included in this post by Glennon Melton of momastary.com:

http://momastery.com/blog/2014/02/06/put-stone/

And then I knelt and prayed, with stone still in hand. There are still many aspects of my prayers that could use improvement (like the frequency of them, at least ones where I take the time to kneel), but honesty in my prayers when I'm feeling emotional is something I've gotten good at. I'm so thankful that God welcomes these prayers. Oh, it's such a relief to be able to be honest with God about my anger and my pain. As I explained my feelings to Him, I felt that yes, I need to work to resolve my anger toward my husband---that I need to work to not judge my husband (as in, condemn him), but to focus my efforts simply on making "reasoned choices about how to proceed" (this is how a religious marriage therapist named Blaine Fowers explains the role of judgement in our relationships). God was telling me to put down my stone. But I also felt that He knows how scared I am and why it is I picked one up in the first place. So I felt that He would be patient with me in the process of feeling safe enough to put that stone down.

That evening, I got to attend a group yoga class at a local studio. I've had some very emotionally healing experiences doing yoga in the past few months, and it's been over a month since I last did yoga, so I was anxious to do it again. The session was challenging physically since my body is so out of shape and so needy, but it still felt good. And then the end came, and as I transitioned into the corpse pose (shavasana) and started to focus on a powerful personal visualization, my entire soul was flooded and I felt this truth with my entire being:

I offer so much love. So much. To so many. I have offered so much love to my husband throughout our entire marriage, and continue to do so. My offering has been more than sufficient, despite my weaknesses and mistakes that have sometimes interfered with my relationships. The distance in my marriage relationship has nothing to do with me---I offer more than enough love to create a healthy, happy marriage.

Except of course, I didn't actually formulate all those words. But I did very strongly feel the concepts of "offering" and "love" with the implicit notion of "being enough" and sensing the circle of supportive, loving friends and family I have that are a testament of these truths about myself.

As I have reflected on this experience since Thursday night, I have been able to deepen my internalization of these truths. It is such a relief. Of course I am not fully healed of many of the emotional effects of my husband's betrayal and the distance in our marriage, but my anger toward my husband has been softening (although my enforcement of boundaries has not slackened). My fears have been shrinking to the shadows. My feelings of peace, contentment, and happiness with my life are becoming more prominent. I feel so secure. I feel so confident. It is wonderful.

Of course, there is some sadness in this. The anger toward my husband is softening because I can see how sad, how downright tragic it is, that his addiction has made him incapable/unwilling to partake fully of what I have to offer to our marriage; he will not have access to much of what I can offer unless/until he figures out how to be capable of making (or becomes willing to make) similar offers of love and loyalty. But my sadness for him is not impinging on my own feelings of happiness for myself. I think I'm experiencing a new level of "detaching with love." And it's so much preferable to the versions of it I've experienced before.

I'm so grateful for this blessing that was administered amidst my cursing.