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I got a kick out of today’s Doonesbury. I could totally relate to what the soldier on the phone with her sister is feeling. The sister is blabbering on about how silly, every day b.s while her sister-soldier is sitting forgotten in Afghanistan.
I know people are caught in their own lives and families. I get that. They really have no idea how awful this is. It’s my job to reach out if I need something or if I am lonely. But I do sometimes get lonely and wish people would reach out more to me.
I don’t mean to sound like I am wallowing in self-pity. I just get on the phone and call someone when I feel that feeling creeping in.
It does make me resolve to be better about being there for others in the future. My friends who do check in on me are ones who have had their own traumatic pasts, so I think you have to experience it to get it.
So I just have to laugh when I call someone and get an ear-full about how much homework Billy has. How nice to only have that to worry about!
http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2012/04/15
Forgot the link!
I understand what you are saying teri. This is a VERY lonely experience. That si why this site is a Godsend because finally there are people who understand how you feel. Just the same…it is nice to have other supports in place. It takes a VERY good friend to stand by you in this sort of thing. I think that finding out that people we think we know, have secrets lives, is VERY unsettling to many people? Then there is the whole sexual aspect which most don’t feel comfortable with. It is my experience that other people just do NOT understand and they are afraid or in denial themselves. If your house burnt down you would get more empathy. 🙁 Karen xx
bev right on. it is a death with the corpse walking around, needing ….sex? ewww- bad visual!
March said it best – “I miss the days when I worried about dust on the baseboards!”
Teri – are you kidding me?? WALLOW away! this fucking sucks!Karen I had a thought last night. I am so stuck in shame, and I did nothing. I am stuck in his shame!! Remember when I said the therapist told me that she thinks I do all the feeling for him, because he can’t feel himself? (ok giggle, that’s not what I meant)…anyways, I am hiding in his shame!!!! SO that is why he looks so pathetic when I am feeling strong….he has to take his own shame on!
I am reading the book “I thought it was just me” it is about women who beat themselves up with shame. It says one of the most damaging things a person can do to themselves is take on someone else’s shame. Really that is why we are puddles on the floor.
yes I had wine!
Zombie sex…you know, he was so emotionally absent during sex, it kinda was like zombie sex. Or a gynecologist visit gone wrong.
I am also feeling his shame while he walks around like he did nothing wrong. My daughter is feeling it, too.
I have shared with my circle of friends and people I thought needed to know- my son’s doctor, my gynecologist, the kids’ parents who were in the room when the porn came up, that kind of thing. Everyone is just stunned- some even cry. But every time I feel ashamed and humiliated.
My son’s therapist actually told me in co-parenting that I should keep this quiet for my son’s sake and not to tell anyone connected with my son. Well, that rules out all my friends and family. Sorry, it’s too late for that, and it wouldn’t happen anyway. I need my friends and family. And secrecy feeds addiction. I am not blabbing to the world, but I am not going to hide things to my own detriment. I was really upset that she said that.
I get to decide who I tell. It’s one of the few things in my control at this point. It is my story and my life. I might make a mistake and tell someone that maybe I shouldn’t have, but that is my right. I do not have to be perfect in how I handle this.
Of course I want to protect my son, but the cat is out of the bag due to DAH and his computer, so the last thing I want to teach him is you can’t tell anyone, even your close family and friends. Isn’t that what predators tell their victims? He needs to know that there are people you can trust and will help you and support you, no matter what.
I have a close friend who lost a daughter about the same time this happened. People were pulling out the stops helping her (as they should) setting up a benefit and a meal schedule. Plus she was able to share her grief on facebook. And I couldn’t help but compare that to my situation.
This group is a blessing.
Teri you can tell who ever you need to tell. It’s called survival. Both of our families know – he was with people from both sides the 10 years of golf(screw strangers) weekends. That leaves all of our holidays open now!
I told a few close friends, I had to, I was sinking fast. We have a group of friends that we do a lot with. They can feel that something is wrong and they are prodding. So many times, I almost told them. Spring break this year I went with just my youngest daughter. One of the dad’s said something to me insinuating that my h looks horrible and what did I do to him. He went so far as to accuse me of putting him thru hell. I smiled quietly as my insides exploded. All I said was he works too much and he will have to figure out when he has had enough.I then realized that they are temporary friends. Some people come into your life for a season, and some people come into your life for a reason. If they knew, they would gossip, this secret is too big. If we get divorced, we will be out of the “couples” group anyway.
Ultimately I look at my 5 kids, and I know they will have challenges in life, the last thing they will need is to have people compare them to their dad. And you know it will happen.Take a hard look at your kid(s), what does success look like to you? Hop on that road
funny thing is, my h is all smiley and acts perfectly normal around the people who know. Still no shame. isn’t that weird?
Mine is the same way- even goes up to my family members all smiling and hugs them, which totally creeps them out. But of course, he is also said that he doesn’t see anything different between now and a year ago (pre-discovery). He thinks everyone should treat him just the same now as then.
I am especially concerned about protecting my son because he has the same name as his dad. I am not about to run out and tell the world. But I am also not going to keep a secret from my good friends and family or people who need to know. My husband sure didn’t worry about protecting us. I doubt anything I do can match the danger he put us in. I still worry someone will mail us something, or post something on my son’s facebook, thinking it’s his dad. He basically told his f#$% buddies where we live, too, so I worry some crazed perv might show up at the house.
And he is telling lies about me in the community- to his friends and family and co-workers and employees. Actually, he has been doing that for years. His office manager called me one time to chew me out for what I was doing to him after a porn discovery. Not that getting back at him justifies my talking about it, but at least I am telling the truth in order to get help whereas he is telling lies to cover his guilt.
I am having the most trouble not saying anything about the Boy Scout campout. He was sending photos and arranging a hook up with a prostitute while supervising at a campout. I have strong issues about not letting leadership know. I have been told that I need to protect my son and not say anything. But DAH is showing up at meetings even without our son (who is refusing to go to scouts with Dad anymore) and with his iphone (with the porn and the sexting). I just pray no kid picks up his phone and starts playing with it. He loses things all the time. I have nightmares about this.
Damn him for putting me through this nightmare.
I just want to add, one of my revenge fantasies involves blowing up one of his nude pictures billboard-sized (maybe a group sex shot, too) and putting it up by his office.
talk about a “water cooler” conversation. Put it right above. Sweet.
You know, telling people about this problem is survival. We need some confidants, some people we trust to support us. Or, at least “know” about it. Teri, tell who you need to tell. they are going to throw us under the bus anyhow. so we might as well get the support we need.
An office manager (outsider) calling YOU to discuss YOUR personal marital issues? You could report her to HR for harassment or inappropriate behavior. That would put an end to phone calls like that. and maybe make your H think twice about who he is blabber mouthing to.
The Boy scouts thing is a hard one. But if your son is fragile right now, and really upset, further drama may not be best idea. hopefully your H has some kind of sense going forward. Right now the focus is your healing, and your son’s healing.
I agree on the keeping secrets thing. I CAN’T STAND IT. I am an honest person. living with deceit is a killer. Teri I am hoping that once divorce is well under way and we are living seperate lives, that the truth becomes more evident of why we are no longer a couple. i no longer can cover the shame of his addiction.
I have been keeping his secrets for a long time (well, not all of them, but the ones I knew) and I felt shame and humiliation. I had a hard time reaching out to people. I felt like a fraud. It was very isolating. I am reading this and realizing that I felt how he should have felt.
Not doing that any more. I am feeling what I should be feeling- angry and disgusted with him and needing and reaching out to my support.
Teri
Thanks for the post. It gave me some clarity on something I thought and felt but couldn’t quite understand until you summed it up. Thank you.
EllenI feel you have a duty to discreetly tell a leader your concerns about Boy Scouts. I mean my gosh what if another boy picked up his phone bc he accidentally left it somewhere?? If they do nothing about it after telling them then your conscience is clear. I don’t have any boys but I’m pretty sure porn isn’t part of their organization or it’s ethical, moral standing.
I think the concern I would have, Teri, is not that a child would see porn “accidentally” but that your SAH might escalate. Going from porn to group sex is escalation. Do you know his childhood trauma? If it’s incest or sexual abuse as a child, then he could escalate to that (as they tend to try and “relive” their childhood trauma). When I discovered that my SAH was a SA, I talked to a CSAT. Given that he was an incest survivor, she said that I should be concerned. Once we got in her office, then she told me that I should trust my “gut” on whether or not he was a danger to our children. Yeah – the “gut” that didn’t know my husband had a secret life for who knows how long? Oh vey.
Deb
That is a good point Deb. My h was sexually molested by a neighbor and possibly his mother-at least that is what came through with repressed memories. Maybe that explains the sexualizing/objectifying his sister and daughter.
One of Steve’s daughter’s is Gay. My CSAT told me it is not uncommon for a woman who is Gay to have been molested by a male as a child-possibly indicating my h. I remember on one of our 1st couple of dates, he told me someone accused him of molesting a child. Of course it has been so long ago, I don’t remember the details now-damn. Anyway, when I remembered it, I asked Steve and he told me I must have been thinking of someone else. NO-this was during a conversation when I was telling him the father of my boy’s was accused of molesting my granddaughter.
I’ll bet we would all be in total shock if we knew everything our SA’s have done.My experience in telling people is that, unfortunately they simply do NOT understand. Not AT ALL. I watch then squirm and visibly shut down if I bring it up. I know I am explaining it as gently as possible… And still….. People do not Even WANT to hear it. It’s so frustrating!!
Sometimes, when I tell another woman, I can see her mentally rewinding her own life, and she’ll get that look on her face that Meryl Streep’s character got while at the beauty shop in the movie Heartburn. Then she’ll start asking me questions, such as did I have any clues, or how did I find out, or what kind of software did I put on the computer…I’m telling you, this is a fucking epidemic, and it’s affecting women everywhere.
March,
I’ll have to check out that movie. I don’t recall it.
Yes, this is much more than a SHITUATION, as you so aptly coined it, it the PUBONIC PLAGUE!!!
There was a dirty movie theater in a little town 30 miles from a few bigger towns around here. It’s not open anymore but I remember driving by and thinking (and I probably was talking to my H) that all these skanky pervs would drive a distance to slink into a flithly movie house and watch this shit together. Can you imagine the germfest? The risk of being caught or having to go to those lengths to satisfy their curiosity was enough to dissuade most men from acting on it. But the privacy of the internet and the steady breakdown of decency in advertising and our culture has been the key to Pandora’s box. A lot of kids have come upon porn in an alley, etc., but they don’t make a lifetime practice of deviancy. So why don’t these grown men choose do do the right thing?
Teri,
I am quite concerned about the Boy Scout thing. Can you give me more details? Why does your son not want to go any more? How do you know he contacted a prostitute and looks at porn while at an outing?
This violates the Boy Scout youth protection policy and must be reported. I understand that you are overwhelmed by your situation and just don’t feel as if you can handle anything else, but, you have a moral and legal obligation to report this.
If any child is harmed emotionally or physically by your husband’s actions you could be legally liable because you knew it was happening and did not report it. And, of course, the guilt that would produce would be enormous.
Do not think that these guys have any standards, ethics or moral values that would stop them from endangering these children. That’s why they are what they are.
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