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It’s been several weeks since I last wrote, and probably a large part of that was because I received a snotty comment from a reader (male) that questioned why I was even bothering to write.  Obviously, he feels some need to tear other people down rather than support.  I’m writing this 1) as my own “therapy journal” to help put words to some of my feelings, and 2) as a help to someone else who might happen upon it and think “there are other people out there who are going through the same thing I am.”  Several weeks ago when I was desperately looking for something myself, I couldn’t seem to find others in the same boat.  If there are any readers who need a support community, I’d be happy to help.

Which brings me to a “maintenance” issue:  Comments are enabled, but I’ve decided that I will not be making them public.  Anything that is said to me about a post will remain private.

So, back to the typical writing….

It’s been an up-and-down several weeks.  One other reason that I didn’t write was that I wasn’t sure that whatever I felt like saying was something that I wanted my husband to read.  Yes, he reads my blog.  In some instances, it’s a helpful thing.  I’m more able to articulate my thoughts through the written word, and he gets a peek into my brain without having to wait through my long pauses, or emotional breakdowns.  There have been good days in the past weeks, and there have been bad days.  Typical life, right?  I’m not sure if I’ve become demanding of emotional closeness in the last several weeks, but I’ve more easily been able to ascertain when it disappears.  For about 1 1/2 weeks, we were simply existing in the same space without truly connecting.  A couple nights ago, I finally called my husband on it.  After much time denying (after all, he’s a guy, he can’t be wrong, right?), he finally admitted that the distance was probably because he has been struggling with temptation.  Because I had requested not to be his accountability partner, he assumed that meant that I didn’t want to know about the times that he was struggling.

I’m sure some of the struggle hasn’t been helped by the fact that we were on a trip last weekend and he had to miss his weekly meeting.  He’ll be back to it tonight, and hopefully that will help.  I just wish that I knew what it was that I could do personally to assist during the struggle times.  Knowing about it does help temper some of my responses, but what is there specifically that would help distract, or redirect?  All the books I’ve read don’t seem to deal with that particular issue.  They seem to be of the opinion that a man’s struggle is his own, and he needs to be responsible for it.  Okay, I get that to a certain point.  But I’ve promised, even if only in our wedding vows, to support my husband.  This is something that vitally affects our marriage, our relationship.  It’s imperative that I support him in his quest to be “clean”, but how do I actually go about doing that?  That’s my big question for the moment.

Something that I have learned through my readings the past couple weeks is an understanding of just how much I desperately need the emotional closeness before I’m able to entertain physical intimacy.  I’d never really sat down to think about that before.  So now I’m on a mission to make sure that we have the emotional intimacy I need before there’s the physical intimacy that he needs.  Otherwise, I end up feeling like (for lack of a better term) a prostitute.  Not a wonderful feeling, and one that I really don’t want to repeat.  So, I’m learning to stand up for my emotional needs.  Not always easy for a shrinking violet to do, but I’m learning and growing, and hopefully this will make me stronger.  What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right?