I'm going to try and choose my words carefully, but if I don't, just realize this is a sensitive subject for me and then relish in practicing forgiveness. OK?
My first trigger is smugness from married women who do not believe their husbands could ever cheat. Now, I'm not saying that their husbands could/would ever cheat! I have a very faithful man for a father, and I certainly do not believe that all men cheat. But there is a certain smugness, from a minority of women, that implies it was somehow my fault that my husband did. In other words, they know how to keep their men (and clearly, I did not).
For a long time into our recovery, whenever we would have to leave the house, I would end up on the floor in a panic over how I looked. Papa Bear would reassure and comfort me, but my tantrum would always culminate with my screaming, "I do not want to look like a woman that a man would cheat on!" I'm pretty sure I've never admitted the depths of insecurity (that I struggled with during that time) before.
The truth is, Papa Bear developed a sex addiction when he was twelve years old. It never had anything to do with me. From my research I've gathered that roughly fifty to seventy-five percent of your husbands developed a similar addiction before they were twenty years old (which is why I post these things as openly as I do). Whether that addiction has confined itself to pornography or culminated in a affair, it has nothing to do with you. There are reasons, marital problems, that send husbands and wives searching for greener pastures (not that any of those reasons justify adultery), but that is not what sex addiction is about. If you are interested in learning more, here's where we got our start.
Why am I telling you all of this? Well, that brings me to my second and third triggers. My second trigger is the phrase "A marriage is based on trust," (which, as far as I can tell, is not based on Scripture). And my third and most steam-inducing is the unforgiving and heretical, "Once a cheater, always a cheater."
I trust my husband with my life. But, under certain conditions, I would not trust him. I know that sounds contradictory, and I am going to try my best to explain myself. But first, I would like to ask you all a question.
Where do you take your stress? Is your quick fix really an addiction?
When the kids are acting up and the bills are a little too high, I should drop to my knees in prayer and worship. A Snickers bar will not fix my problems. Actually, it will add to my problems at the end of the day. But if you were to give me the knowledge that there was chocolate in the house, and then manufacturer stress until I broke, it would not be long before I was climbing on the kitchen counter rummaging for my fix. I often take my stress to food. It's a problem. And although Papa Bear is not throwing himself on the floor and begging me to quit, it would still be hard, even if he did.
I do trust my husband (I wouldn't have stayed in a marriage where there was no reason to trust). But more specifically, I trust the Spirit of Christ that dwells in my husband and makes him new every day. Papa Bear and I have the same enemy, and we both know just how cunning that enemy can be. If we do not guard our marriage from his attacks, if we do not position ourselves to fight back, he will eventually drive us to the counter tops...rummaging for whatever he has told us we need more than we need God. It doesn't hurt Papa Bear that I believe this. He believes it too. And his acknowledgement of weakness (humanity's weakness) is not the set up for a cop out, it's the reason he lives on guard...free of pride and trust in self.
Someone recently asked me about trust, and though I know this post is absolutely all over the place, I am attempting to answer her here.
About three years ago, I wrote this:
"I hear so much about trust, and how you can't have a relationship without it. Well, if this is true, I should get a divorce...NOW. While I "trust" that Hubby has every intention of remaining faithful to me for the rest of our lives, I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. He's not very active in his recovery work, and I know that perpetuates my distrust; but, I really don't think there is enough recovery in the world (for me or for him) to stupefy me into handing back over my trust.
I'm sad. Maybe sad isn't the right word. It's almost right. To be more specific, I feel like someone dumped a warm bucket of sad over my head, and it's running down my face and body. All I want to do is cry."
From rereading this I can point out that I did not trust Papa Bear at all at the time it was written. It would have been fantastically dumb and destructive to do so. I didn't trust him because he was not seeking God (and a few other things that I refer to as recovery work). He was not positioning himself for success; therefore, he was setting himself up for failure. This is no longer true, and though I've seen the debased depths of what his flesh can be reduced to, he is giving me much reason to trust him now (in word and especially in deed). It's not because of that though, but because of the strengthening of my relationship with my Savior, that I can shout from the rooftops that I am no longer wading in sad but am happily skipping rocks across it.
When rebuilding trust that has been damaged or obliterated (specifically due to addiction), I believe there are a few important things to remember. First, trust God more. Learn the voice of God and seek it with all of your might. God has your best interest at heart, and He can reveal things to you even when your spouse resorts to lies. Your focus should never be on sin but on the Savior.
Second, allow for change. Don't be the voice of the enemy in his life by speaking curses and planting suggestions of sin*.
*This is a big one for everyone, not just women in restored marriages.
Third, watch for a change in behavior. Sit down and communicate (don't do the talking) about the things that should be limited or removed from his* life, and then trust the Spirit of Christ in your spouse as you watch him flee temptation.
*No matter what your struggles (big or seemingly small), having this conversation about yourself would be a good idea as well. I have one with Papa Bear often.
I am asked frequently about my old blog, the one where I wrote things like the post I quoted above. As I reread it I realize that I will never be willing to share (as in link to this blog) many of the things that I purged there.
I would love to make a living through my writing. I cherish your laughter and your tears. But my purpose in this blog is to edify...bottom line. I truly hope I am not failing in that, and Lord knows that a tremendous amount of prayer goes into what I write here.
With that in mind, I am going to spend the next few weeks transferring appropriate (and probably edited) posts from my private blog to this blog. They'll be placed under the date they were written, so they will not show up as new posts (though they'll be tagged as "recovery"). But you can now specifically search my marriage posts (and share them) via this pretty new button.
And I hope that you will.
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