I have heard this sentiment expressed more times than I wish to admit. Some women come into support groups knowing their husbands have a problem and believe all issues will be solved when the husband gets sober. They don’t realize that getting “sober” for some can take a long time, including slips and relapses. Life is easier when our husbands or significant others aren’t binging on porn, socializing in the chatrooms, having affairs, acting out at the strip clubs, or having random hookups because that means you are working with someone who has some sobriety under their belt. After all, the marriage won’t get better if the husband is still in active addiction. However, your husband’s sobriety is just part of the healing equation; your need to heal is equally vital to the healing equation.
Sadly, for some, this level of sobriety can take a while. It didn’t take a day for these men to become addicts, and it won’t take a day for them to decide to be good boys. If sobriety was easy, support groups, therapists, books, retreats, podcasts, and other healing tools wouldn’t be needed. When I hear women say, “when will he start behaving so my life will get better,” I want to ask, Why are you giving a sick person so much power in your life? The need for him to get better so you can be happy is the need of a codependent person. I once heard someone describe it as letting the addict drive the car while you sit in the backseat holding your breath. It doesn’t have to be this way; it shouldn’t be this way.
Some women may want to control their husbands because they believe they can control the desired outcomes of the addict never acting out again, their life getting back to normal, or not having to face divorce. Yes, you can track his phone or internet viewing and keep tabs on the bank account, but if an addict wants to act out, he will find a way to do it. You can’t monitor his internet viewing at work, you can’t watch every physical interaction he has with others, you can’t follow him everywhere he goes, and why would you want to degrade yourself that way? And what will you do if you catch your husband in a lie or doing something he said he wouldn’t do? It amazes me how much effort partners go through to “catch” the addict only to rage and cuss at him like that will make any difference. Unless you have established boundaries that you are fully prepared to execute, your efforts to catch him are pointless because the only person you can control is yourself!
Once I realized my husband couldn’t help me with my PTSD symptoms from the trauma he caused, I couldn’t continue to be mad and rage at him because that wasn’t helping me heal. No one could do the healing work for me, especially my husband. I had to find healthy ways to heal, so I clung to my tools of attending support groups, seeing a therapist, prayer, meditation, working on the S-ANON steps, using healing workbooks, and allowing myself to have fun. This was a huge commitment, but I had no choice if I wanted to heal well and feel better.
I know it’s not fair; the husband’s actions cause pain, and it’s your job to heal from the pain. But the pain you weren’t looking for or caused.
It’s like someone dumped a ton of bricks on you representing all your husband’s betrayals, and now you get to crawl your way out of the pile brick by brick for survival. It’s not fair, but you must get out of that pile! The good news is you can use tools that help ease the process of getting out of the pile of bricks.
Some women say, “he is the one with the problem; why do I have to do work?” If we have been hurt, we need to heal; wagging our fingers and reminding our husbands of how they hurt us isn’t healing. If someone hit your car and you both ended up with broken arms, you wouldn’t say, “I wasn’t the one who drove recklessly and caused this accident; I am not going to get my arm fixed.” You would be in the ER room taking care of your arm because it’s broken and needs repair; You may be mad at the driver and give him dirty looks in the process.
We can yell, scream and shame our husbands, which may make us feel powerful for the moment, but it can’t sustain us. We do this work for ourselves, not for the addict. Whether in the marriage or not, we need to heal well. This doesn’t make us weak; it is the work of women who love themselves. You can focus on yourself and experience real healing with lasting benefits that will benefit you all your life and that aren’t dependent on the actions of another.
I started working on the issues that were my responsibility. For example, I had to work on being less reactionary because I was explosive initially. It didn’t take much for me to blow up and shame my husband. This negativity would spill over into dealing with my kids as an impatient and irritable mother. I blamed everything on my husband, and I wanted him to make everything better with a sense of urgency he couldn’t offer at the time because he was dealing with his trauma around the addiction.
I also learned how to checkin with my emotions. I had to learn how to identify and articulate my feelings healthily. This skill wouldn’t just benefit the marriage but all my interactions, whether it was a co-worker, children, or friends. I was responsible for expressing myself healthier versus keeping things inside until I was ready to explode or agreeing to requests only to feel resentment afterward.
Most importantly, I had to take care of the PTSD symptoms I was experiencing because they impeded my ability to function daily. I couldn’t put my need to heal on hold while managing my husband’s process. Healing from betrayal can be emotionally draining and requires a lot of energy. It had to be a priority in my life; I was in the betrayal trauma emergency room. I had a lot to work on while my husband was doing his recovery work.
I put the marriage on the back burner. My healing became priority number one. I figured if our marriage was destined to work out in the future, that would happen with a lot of work on both parts. However, I was in too much pain to even consider working on the marriage. I wasn’t sure I wanted to still be married. My immediate need for healing was more important than my concern about whether the marriage would make it or not. I knew, either way, I would have to live with myself, so I wanted to exist as the healthiest version of myself moving forward.
Now, I know some people disagree with this train of thought. I see women who are more desperate to save the marriage than to heal from betrayal trauma. These are usually the women who run to find a marriage therapist immediately and present their husbands with a bunch of rules to follow. These women desperately need their husbands to change their behavior to save the marriage and hurry up to get past this horrible chapter. Most couples I know who see a marriage therapist do so because the wife initiated it, which I find irritating. Shouldn’t the husband pursue the marriage therapist with the same energy he pursued his acting-out activities? I mean, if the husband’s actions put the marriage in chaos and the husband wants the marriage to heal, shouldn’t he be the one to initiate seeing a marriage therapist?
Some women argue that there is nothing wrong with initiating certain things in the recovery of the marriage because they want to save it. I will agree if the wounded wife isn’t the only one trying to heal the relationship. Some couples want to work on their healing and marriage healing simultaneously. I would say this is a decent option if the spouse has been sober for a long time. However, there is no point in working on the marriage if the husband is still in active addiction. Unless you seek to be in a marriage where acting out is acceptable behavior to you. My husband wanted us to see a marriage counselor years before I was ready to see one. I wanted to ensure we both were in a place with our individual healing where we could begin working on the marriage as a team of healthy adults.
Part of my work was to figure out what I wanted out of the marriage if I stayed. I had to examine things I did in the relationship that needed to end, such as not speaking my truth, keeping things to myself that I should have been expressing, asking for more help with the kids, and expressing my need for true intimacy (not just sex). It wasn’t enough for me to point my finger at my husband and say, you need to change; you need to be sober or else. Frankly, that was obvious by this point. I had to figure out who I would be in the marriage if I stayed and who I needed my husband to be. What if he couldn’t be who I needed him to be?
My first therapist consistently asked, “What can you do for yourself in the meantime while you figure out what will happen in the marriage?” This question was beneficial because I didn’t want to feel like I was putting my life on hold or running in place waiting on a sick person to get better. I could see that being codependent was sacrificing my time and energy as I waited for someone to get better. I knew I couldn’t do that, so I worked hard on my healing. Finally, I told myself I loved myself too much to put my life on hold; I needed to work on my healing regardless if the marriage worked out. It was the best decision I could have made.
I wanted my husband to get better, but I knew I couldn’t make it happen for him. Deep down, I believed he could recover because I could see him working his program with humility. I knew he wasn’t working for me; he was working the program so he could get well. We also had weekly check-ins so we would know where we were on our journeys, and it freed me up from nagging him about where he was on his recovery journey. He had a sponsor and a therapist he could be accountable to, and they both knew my boundaries. I only had enough energy for one healing process- my own.
I see women faithfully come to support groups when the marriage is rocky and then stop coming when things in the marriage seem better. Then return when the husband slips or relapses; I think, You don’t get it, girlfriend; you should be coming to groups for your healing; coming to groups based on your husband’s behavior is codependency! If you and your spouse were in the emergency room and you both needed emergency surgery, you wouldn’t tell a doctor, “No, I don’t want the surgery; I’m waiting to see if my husband heals from his illness first – maybe I won’t even need it if he does well in his surgery. Do you see how ridiculous that is?
I want to encourage you to work your healing journey for yourself, whether you and your husband are in the same place in your journeys or if he still has slips and relapses. You don’t have to feel like you are putting your happiness on hold while waiting for someone to change. Likewise, your husband’s recovery journey shouldn’t dictate your healing journey. You wouldn’t let a drunk person drive you, so don’t let the addict drive your healing process. I have laughed and cried with my healing brothers and sisters on my journey, people who accept me as I am. I filled my time with my interests and hobbies and socialized as I worked on my healing; it hasn’t been all doom and gloom.
I also realize some relationships end immediately after the reality of sex addiction is exposed. If that is the case, I want to encourage you to still seek healing for yourself. The relationship may be over, but you are alive and have a life ahead of you. I want you to proceed healthily. You don’t need a partner to do this. Heal for yourself; you deserve this time to care for and nurture yourself. It doesn’t matter who decided to end the relationship; what matters is what you are doing to do to prepare yourself to move forward.
If you are taking time to decide what to do about your marriage, consider also using this time for your healing instead of managing your husband’s program or controlling the outcome. You will be in a better position to make decisions about your relationship. You will experience life from a place of self-love, calm, and peace versus a victim. Realistically, no one
can know when the husband will start behaving permanently (no slips or relapses), but you get to decide how to make your life better. You will experience life from a place of self-love, calm, and peace versus a victim. Your life can and will be better!
#BetrayedNotBroken
