September 27th 2008

The book that I am reading, "Lord I Believe; Helph Thou My Unbelief" is trying to help me recover from my husband's pornography addiction, and it encourages me to write a journal about my emotions. At this point I think I could already practically write a book about my emotions. It has been so insane & turbulent I can't even describe.

On July 17th, 2008, my husband didn't come to bed with me - as usual. I was very mad at him on this particular night. I can't even remember why. BUT, when he came to bed around 3am, I was so mad. I couldn't go back to sleep and it made me mad how comfortably he sleeps even when I'm upset. So, I got up. I was racking my brain with frstration and decided that I wanted to know what he cared about so much more than me - and that's when I went downstairs to check out his computer. I tried to open up the internet history, and when it was blank - that's when my stomach sank. I quickly found a software that claimed it could recover deleted history, and set it all up. By around 4:00 I was just nauseated. I could barely cry. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was all so disturbing - the words that he had searched for may never leave my mind - even certain girls by name. I was so disgusted. If he knows them by name then obviously this is nothing new. I was mad too - it took only seconds for me to feel so ugly and disappointed with my own body and sexuality - I felt worse about it than I ever had in my whole life. Why would he want anything to do with me if that is what he is attracted to. The other emotion that hit right from the beginning was "duh" - no wonder all these years I have been trying to encourage him, trying to increase our spirituality, trying to help him establish habits of gospel study & prayer. I had tried so many things in the last 6 years, and felt like a total failure. No wonder. I also specifically remembered a few years ago when I had been wondering a whole bunch if he was possibly doing something like that. I would lay on the floor of the family room, looking through the air vent at him in the basement and just wishing I coudl figure out a way to rig up a mirror or soemthing so that I could see his computer screen. At that time he was also going down there pretty much every single night. The saddest part about that wasn't that I didn't catch him then so this could all stop sooner. The sad part was that I got so mad at myself for being so judgemental towards him. I was really hard on myself about it and wished that I could be a more loving, more Christlike person.

How coudl he think I was so worthless? Why didn't I see the warning signs when we were dating and run away? If Heavenly Father had a do-over button, I would push it. My kids still have spirits and they woudl have parents who Heavenly Father could set up their lives with the way they need. Maybe then they wouldn't have to have the repercussions of this horrible evil. Maybe I could've had the life that I have sacrificed for, worked for, and dreamed of for a very long time.

So, my husband is addicted to pornography. He started at age 14 and tried to conquer it on his own a few times. He thought he had before his mission, but even then he struggled. When we got engaged he tried again to overcome it again, and thought he had. He thought he would be okay after marriage ((((editorial comment: most mormons, especially those who marry in the temple, abstain from sexual relations until they are married)))). We were married in the temple - but the whole thing feels so fraudulent now.

I feel like I was very wise and mature in our first conversation about it. I did wake him up during the middle of the night and make him come downstairs to talk - but after initially being upset, I quickly calmed totally down when I saw how upset he was. He cried hysterically. It was so good to see him have sincere emotion - but was it really sincere? Isn't he emotionally dead by now? . . . Anyways, I felt the spirit guiding me as I told him, "I don't hate you" after he said, "you don't know how much I hate myself". I felt like after all these years of trying so hard, I had finally found out why nothing I tried had ever made a difference - how could it when he is practically spiritually dead from the pornography addiction. I felt like now there was a problem we could solve and then get on with the happy spiritual and productive life I had always wanted. I felt a lot of hope at first. Dan emailed the Bishop the next morning (a few hours after our conversation) and met with him that evening. Unfortunately I didn't even get to see the Bishop and talk to him about it until a whole month later.

I feel like I did a really good job for the first few weeks. Unfortunately, the more that I read and researched (lds.net support group for wives of PA, ldsr blog & ldsr email group plus as many Ensign articles as I could find on it) the more that I learned that, just like alcoholism, people don't really recover from this - they are addicts for life, and a few of them make it to 'addicts in recovery'. The more I learned and read, the more my hopes were crushed. I haven't found anyone online that was actually sharing a success story to help people like me have hope. I have always wanted to be like the Xxxxx's, the Xxxxx's, the Xxx's, (((((names of couples I look up to))))), my Grandparents, the Xxxx's - and I have always (in my adult life) looked to people like this and tried over and over in a million different ways - tried to see if I coudl emulate something about how they live their lives. I try to do things the way they do, because I want to be someone who builds up others and the gospel in my own home, in my ward, and in the community the way that they do.I have tried and tried, but what good can it do when now for the rest of my life I get to be worried about just helpming my husband stay out of pornography - it's a battle for life that will very much interfere with how I wanted to be. My husband doesn't want to be like Xx Xxxxxx, or Xxx Xxxxx. He has repeatedly told me that how I wanted him to be (aka not materialistic) is like a monk. Anyways, I wanted to be someone wh ocould raise a great family and then do other great things, but I feel like it isn't even possible - especially considering the effort (or lack thereof) that he is willing to invest.

Anyways, back to learning about his problem. So, I find out, and a week later we go to Xxxx, then we come back and do Youth Conference, then I get released from my calling (YW President), then his parents come visit, then I go to Xxxxx to see my parents - and somehow I knew he would relaps. He said he didn't look at porn on his phone because it was too slow, but now that the computer had a blocker, of course he would. Who was he trying to fool? So, while I'm on my trip I try to keep an eye on his activity over the internet and I figure out (I finally ran a credit check) that he has a credit card I don't even know about, and he has been very busy with it on Paypal. I called him and told him that he needed to get straight with me, and that I wanted complete honesty and nothing but. So, he proceeded to try to figure out what I had discovered that would make me so upset with him. He just went on and on about "is it related to the sexual stuff? I'm sure it couldn't be anything sexual because I've told you everything" He said 'it' coudln't be anything sexual like 8 times and then I finally got him talking. I had to grab a pen to keep track of all the things I got him to tell me. I just kept saying - "that's not what I found - there's something more than that". He knew I knew something, so he slowly told me things, one by one - I practically had to drag them out of him: - lots of purchases I didn't know about - lots of ebay stuff - he cashed the check from auto insurance for his 'back injury' - he still hasn't told me how much that was. But he did let me know that by chance he had already spent it all - of course - down to $60 cash left (do I believe that?) - when we refinanced they messed up and sent a bunch of checks to us afterwards (thousands of dollars) and he spent that too - he had a private credit card that I didn't know about - guns (2 I didn't know about, plus the one I did know he had actually cost $950 instead of the $500 he told me when he bought it) - ammo (I have no idea how much, but he doesn't tend to exercise restraint with stuff like that . . . or anything else for that matter) - ((((for purposes of anonymity, I'll leave out the rest of the details I wrote about his purchases, but let me just say it was a TON of crap - and the money was spent in ways that I couldn't even aspire to if I tried. I'm a very frugal spender and have never bought myself anything major that was actually just for me since we've been married)))) - then all of the sudden he tells me that he has been using his cell phone to look at porn - BUT WAIT - he assured me so many times that there was nothing sexual - such a lovely honest man. And next - you know that $2500 TV that I hate with a passion and never wanted to buy, well, I can hate it even more now because it picks up porn that the neighbor watches and Dan's been watching that too somehow - oh ya - and he goes to see nasty movies at lunch all the time, and when he goes into bookstores he looks at some kind of sex books - I don't even know what that would be, but don't worry, it couldn't possibly be anything else sexual, because he has told me everything already. How am I supposed to believe anything he says? And yet my whole future (and my children's entire future too) rests in his dirty hands. This is the first time that my life has depended so much upon the choices of someone else - before it was always up to me if I am happy and living with job - but now he gets to choose. Yes, I know that I can choose to be happy, but I can't choose to have a healthy marriage, a patriarch in my home, a good example for my kids, or even a secure future - and what' the point of being 'happy' if my kids don't even get to have a strong spiritual foundation for their own lives?

Later on that night he also told me that ((((I'm editing these parts out for identity purposes. He could loose the possibility of ever working again if I elaborate too much on the ways he misued the trusts of his employment position - but not in a way that hurt anyone else, just that he had access to resources that he shouldn't have used, but he did. He even used them in a way that potentially put me at risk - and definitely in a way that was very very illegal)))) And, after I questioned him about it a week or so later, he also admitted to ((((okay, there's more)))). He says he only did that once, but I believe that about as much as I believe anything else he's ever told me in our entire marriage. Oh ya, and he drinks coffee - way to go, mormon husband.

After learning all that, I felt like I didn't even know who I was married to. He has a whole other life that is totally secret. No wonder he wasn't interested in me and all I am is a nuisance to him. I drive him crazy with my loneliness because he has another world that I dont' even know about. Why does he even have a family? It doesn't really seem like he wants us.

So now here I am and he is almost trying to do a few things. He is willing to fall asleep in praying position on some nights. He HAS been making sure that we have couples prayer pretty consistently, but he gets mad at me for praying too long - he always has. He says that he reads his scriptures in the car, but he hasn't once talked to me about anything he has read. Every night he gets settled to waste the night away with TV & internet until I request that we do something productive and then he wanst to know what I want to do. His initiative is so minimal. I read a list today in my book of how to know if he is serious about changing or not, and he didn't do very well. I wish he could see what I see. I need to know that things will be okay for the kids. I can't let them have a porn addict for a Dad. I know how it is to have a dud of a Dad, and how it can affect how a child turns out. My kids need better opportunity than that. Do I need to get them out? Or is he serious about fixing his whole life. He doesn't want to make sacrifices, he just wants to modify how he doest stuff (and not do porn of course). He still wants all this crap in his life, and he can't see how anything else in the world could make him happy like his hobbies - *GAG* - he is so materialistic. Ladies in my online support group (lds.net) call this porn fog - it nauseates me. His reality is so distorted.

Well, that's probably enough for a first entry. But, to answer the question of what good choices or small things have I done for my own healing? (as asked in the book) - Today I have read a whole bunch in Lord I Believe . . . , and done a lot of writing activities in the workbook sections. I also started this journal ((((not the blog, but a typed journal at home)))). In about an hour I will read scriptures for 20 minutes or so. I have knealt in prayer, specifically asking for inspiration to recognize things the Lord would have me know to help with all of this in the messages at the Relief Society Broadcast that I'm going to tonight. I will pray again before going to bed. I have also read encouraging words on my different web communities.