dear sugar

not sure if you're reading sugar, but i highly recommend it - this post about healing from sexual abuse and sex in marriage is so good - want to make sure if anyone hits my blog looking for any help they find it:

Of course you’re right that the sexual abuse your wife experienced as a child may be the reason for her aversion to sex, but it may not be. The good and bad things that happen to our bodies at the hands of others plays out in unpredictable ways over time. It’s folly to draw a straight line between two things when one of those things is sex. Perhaps your wife has made that line so straight and bright that it’s become precisely her problem: she cannot break the thread that runs in her psyche between the abuse and you.

Healing is about breaking threads and making new ones. It’s about redrawing the line between our powerlessness and our power. I don’t agree with you that those who’ve suffered sexual abuse can’t ever heal completely. I think we’re altered by what hurts us, but with love and consciousness, with intention and forgiveness, we’re capable of being whole again. Completely.

I believe myself to be healed. I know a lot of sexual abuse survivors who are. We’re here. We’re waving to you from the other side. We’re taking it all off. We’re getting down and some of us are even getting dirty. We hope your wife will join us.

read the whole column here: Dear Sugar, Sugar on the Rumpus: The Three Year Dry Hump

Mark Scandrette - Love-Making as a Spiritual Practice

great article and thoughts:

Mark Scandrette - Love-Making as a Spiritual Practice

clarity

ah the return of serenity is such a beautiful thing. why do i ever give it away?

i don't have a ton of time to tell you everything that has been happening since my last post - but purging that all out here was what i really needed. i was able to step back and look at it again and find the areas that were true, and the areas that i was truly being graceless about.

grace is such a beautiful thing.

stepping out of the shame and away from the addictive behaviour was also life giving. funny thing is that much of what was going on had little to do with the relationship - but so much to do with my compulsion to avoid what i needed to be working on. i was so enmeshed (thanks pen) in other peoples stories because i wanted to avoid my own.

i am working on fear in my step 4 and have class assignments dealing with grief and suffering - i was trying to avoid them like the plague - and once i realized it, admitted my powerlessness and started working my program again god met me in such an incredible way. i may blog about it, but it was one of the high points of my walk with god.

funny thing is that the rush addiction that i was getting from this was so similar to any of my other compulsive behaviors - once i saw it and asked for help the clarity that came after was so priceless that i realized that it had little to do w/ the cgf and far more to do with the walls i had placed around myself out of fear that god would not be trustworthy enough to meet my needs.

i have to go - wish i could pour it all out here - i just wanted to thank you for praying, encouraging, pushing and caring about me and my journey. have a lovely sunday!

denial works until it doesn't

p.s.f.d.*

i am reaping the whirlwind today. i have been walking in new territory this past year and i am finding myself ill prepared for it. this past year i have found myself. i have become comfortable in my own skin and i have navigated many new things. community and friendship have become so important to me. living inside myself has been very new for me and it has opened up a lot of different doors in my life. some good. some not so good. i don't know where they go, but there are definitely a lot of new doors.

writing about this is torture, but i have no place else to navigate this. i want to crawl in a hole and weep. i feel cracked open wide because when denial stops working it leaves a big pile of shit in the room that i feel so unbelievably stupid for not noticing before - and it was right there all along. p.s.f.d.

i am surrounded by really incredible people in this community. i have made some amazing f2f friends. one of those friendships was a cross-gender friendship (cgf). i have been reading dan's faith dance blog for quite some time now and am inspired by the thought that men & women aren't dangerous to each other and can truly develop friendships. so much of my broken comes from ugly male behavior, and so safe men in my life are important and healing.

i had crossed a line emotionally with this man. the husband of one of my best friends. on a scale of other peoples issues this one probably ranks really low, but because i closely monitor my serenity i can feel when it goes off the rails, and i lost it and found that it was because this relationship had become an addiction for me. this is mostly about me. i'm not sure how much this has to do with him per sey, but his dysfunction and my great need do play a role here - but most of it has to do with the rush. that heroin that shoots through my veins with the fresh, new, long ago familiar feelings that i haven't felt in 20 years. p.s.f.d.

all along this friendship i was telling 3 dear friends about all of it and talking to liam the whole time. i know i am only as sick as my secrets and deeply want to live in the light. but i have found that when those secrets are buried deep in denial no light can expose them until the denial goes away.

in an attempt to bring things into the light i had a conversation with this man that actually turned things more intimate than stopped them. i feel like a fool. i told a confidence about a mutual friends marriage struggles as a guise for trying to keep us and another pair of dear friends from falling into the same ditch. i really thought i was doing the right thing - but have to admit that i hid behind that to share something that would bind us together somehow. i exposed one of my best friends deepest shame for my own purposes. these are the ugliest parts of my self. i hate to see them, let alone expose them to others. but i believe that they cannot be redeemed unless i do.

so i had to confess my broken confidence to one of my besties - the woman who had fallen off the rails. i immediately called her to tell her - i had kept her secret for months - why now? why ever? i so longed to be trustworthy. i was so angry at myself for breaking faith. it was one of the hardest conversations i have ever had.

next i told liam. he was forgiving. (but too forgiving. a bell went off in my head. this should be bothering him more. he's not getting this. it's not registering. why isn't this registering? why isn't he angry?).

i also IM'd with martha and she called me on the carpet. let me know that i was kidding myself. i truly thought before that that bringing things into the light would keep things from going south. i really did.

after our IM i realized i wasn't being honest. that it wasn't just this ONE conversation, but that i had become emotionally attached to this man. p.s.f.d. it had become an addiction. the rush of the attention. feeling noticed. talking about big ideas and deep theology. p.s.f.d. every one of my hooks was sunk deep into this rotting fish (the addiction, not him - although he is not innocent in this either).

i have tried to do everything in the light and be as accountable as possible. but my dear friend martha told it to me straight yesterday. just because it's accountable doesn't mean it should continue. p.s.f.d.

so today, just for today i am grieving the loss of a really important friendship. a friendship that really did heal some deep places in me. it taught me that i was trustworthy. that the hay/fire didn't have to explode into deep passionate sin. for most of this it wasn't taudry or innappropriate. but i have crossed a line emotionally.

i had a conversation with liam this morning challenging his well constructed front. i pushed and it crumbled. he told me that he's been uncomfortable all along, but hasn't told me. how can this be so broken? i have talked to him about this from the beginning hoping that if i did it would strengthen our marriage and keep the cgf healthy. i was wrong. his denial sat right next to mine. p.s.f.d.

so where do we go from here? i have no idea. i am just doing the next right thing. just for today i can face this. i can try to sit with the level of emotion i have and this great big steaming pile of denial and begin to detox and find healthier ways to feed this starving part of my soul. liam is doing good work. i know at some point we will find a way in and through this, but for now my hope is hanging by a very thin thread.

*abbreviation for four cuss words to express the deep level of frustration and disgust i am having over this situation.

hope deferred

this verse is running through my head this morning:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12

i am heartsick. liam's reassurances the other day truly caused hope to blossom in my life. he told me that W (how i'm going to refer to the therapist, i think his presence will play a big role in my blogging over the next few months, and i can't keep calling him "the therapist"...) had assigned him some remedial connection time with me. fool that i am i believed that he might actually be serious in following through with it. it was just a connection time each night (well, i thought it was supposed to be each night, he said he never said that - it was only supposed to be a couple of times, but it doesn't matter anyway because it never happened once), hold my hands, look into my eyes and do something simple together like the daily examen or something like that.

that was like an oasis in the distance to my dry, parched soul. i am so angry at myself for really believing he would do it, try it, attempt it, at least once.

every night after dinner i waited, anxious, hopeful, passive. i knew it wasn't my work to do, so most nights i retreated to our room to work on my own step work (resentments.. ironic how this is pairing with this phase in his recovery, it's bringing such pain and anger to the surface for me) so that i am not tempted to work his program, but do my own. i ended up crushed, wounded and defeated. i tried to be patient, wait and interact like a grown up. i even expressed my feelings on a walk to our kids christmas party the other night, hoping that might engage him in the process again. i figured that his own shame in having to face W today would at least motivate him to give it a try. last night he didn't even attempt it. plopped himself down in front of that damn television while i read in our room. alone. again. naturally.

last night was my meeting night. i knew that two of the faithfuls had a work christmas party, but hoped that others might show up. we had six last week. nope. last night i was alone. again. naturally.

i set up everything. everything. i laid out the literature, even though i knew no one would show. i surrounded the table with chairs i knew would sit empty. i read aloud to an empty room because i was there. i showed up. i needed that meeting last night like i needed the air in my lungs right now. i read step 12 out of the oa 12&12 - it was beautiful. it reminded me again why each and every one of those steps i am working on are so important in my life. i managed to fill 30 minutes. i just couldn't sit alone there for 30 more. so i carefully put everything back, locked up the church and took a walk for 30 minutes in the freezing rain. i was warm enough and my hood kept the moisture off me. and i enjoyed all of the beauty of the christmas lights and the hideousness of those horrible inflate-a-mate lawn decorations. i must say they are as obscene to me as the idea of a blow up doll replacing a live human female. but last night even they were comforting in some strange, small town way.

but today i am heartsick. shaming myself for believing him. angry at myself for getting my hopes up. how i long for that tree of life. i will not fall for counterfeit fruit though. by working the steps i know that i'm willing to wait for the real thing.

blowin' in the wind

yesterday was rough. probably one of the most difficult days i have allowed myself to have in a very long time. i felt terror, empty, panic, pain, temptation, confusion, and a whole host of other emotions. mostly i felt alone. i IM'd w/ hope for some time yesterday, it was a godsend, but left me feeling desperate for someone in my life close by who had a shoulder i could cry on. liam has always been there for that and yesterday even he felt far away.

i know that much of what i felt was far bigger than this situation with liam. it was the 'carving out' of long ago pain and familiar emotion that i have protected myself from so many times with my addictions. yesterday i felt it all. most of the time with my head in my hands weeping, or curled into a ball, clutching a pillow in bed. i have been quite buttoned up as of late and the grief was very cathartic.

throughout most of it i knew that much of what i was feeling, while very real, was only one perspective on this situation. that nothing in my life had truly changed, but everything was going to be different. i told hope that for the first time in a long time i really wanted my mom. the real bobbie. i'm glad now that she wasn't around, her comfort always tied deeply into my addictions, and she was my number one enabler. i faced yesterday and felt the emotion without reaching for my familiar comforts. i found healthy ways to express my pain and soothe my soul. your prayers, candles and space being held for me was tangible - i could feel it like tent pegs and poles holding me up. but the hollow places were very real. hope wondered if i could make friends with hollow. i swore and told her that was exactly what i was wondering too. psfd.

instead of shaming myself yesterday for feeling the way i was feeling i decided to sit with those emotions and understand what i was feeling. i realized i couldn't change my perspective unless i felt what it was right now.

the image that came to my mind was of a kite loose from it's string. i truly felt alone in the world. set aloft. i pictured that kite i flew with friends this summer at the beach. i danced with the wind that day. it was one of my most joyful of the summer. if i close my eyes right now i can fel how it felt to dance again.

when liam got home he came to the bedroom where i was curled and he listened and held me as i wept. i voiced my frustration and my fear. my deep desire to be known. to be understood. to have that soul mate. i questioned him to try to understand what he means when he says 'i love you' - does he feel emotion with those words, or are they just learned behavior? he told me that everything he knows to be true about love he feels for me. he reassured me that this was his work to do, and that he had begun. that although we had realized something, we had realized it and now he could begin.

i had such a throbbing head ache. he rubbed my head and prayed for me. he asked that god give me a new metaphor that would help me through this. i remembered the kite and echoed his prayer.

this morning i awoke to a great sense of peace and serenity. it was beautiful to realize that i did not break my abstinence, i made it through and worked my program and as i came to the computer i read this and realized that this truly is what most of my fear was all about. the winds of change. i teared up as i realized that god was building beautifully into the metaphor that i already had and re-framing it in such a beautiful way:

Accepting Change

The winds of change blow through our life, sometimes gently, sometimes like a tropical storm. Yes, we have resting places - time to adjust to another level of living, time to get our balance, time to enjoy the rewards. We have time to catch our breath.

But change is inevitable, and desirable.

Sometimes, when the winds of change begin to rustle, we're not certain the change is for the better. We may call it stress or a temporary condition, certain we'll be restored to normal. Sometimes, we resist. We tuck our head down and buck the wind, hoping that things will quickly calm down, get back to the way things were. Is it possible we're being prepared for a new "normal"?

Change will sweep through our life, as needed, to take us where we're going. We can trust that our Higher Power has a plan in mind, even when we don't know where the changes are leading.

We can trust that the change-taking place is good. The wind will take us where we need to go.

Today, help me, God, to let go of my resistance to change. Help me be open to the process. Help me believe that the place I'll be dropped off will be better than the place where I was picked up. Help me surrender, trust, and accept, even if I don't understand.

You are reading from the book:

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

i am not crazy

two posts in one day - back to back - what is this world coming to?

i need to get this out, a lot has happened this weekend emotionally and relationally and i need to interact with it.

i know i've blogged a lot about liam and earlier this fall even about his depression. he has been seeing the same therapist i have seen and he's making some real progress. liam and i had a really deep, really intense conversation on a drive the other day and i think he has finally understood something i have been saying for years.

i don't think i've ever really blogged about it here, so i'll try to start at the beginning. i have known liam for 25 years. 21+ of those we have been married. for about 20 of those years i have always thought it was me. always thought it was my problem, always thought i was crazy. these past five years i still suspected that i was inventing this, because my husband is so kind, helpful and involved, but last week in his session his (our) therapist confirmed that liam really has an attachment disorder. this has manifested itself in a few different ways, but most of them have slowly eroded their way into my psyche. water dripping on rock, carving out places that were never meant to be gone. most of those places are deep in my soul. deep in those soft places that are so intimate and private.

many of these places were probably begun in my relationship with my father, and that's probably why we fit together so well in the first place. all i know is that i am grieving. i am so sad. there is some relief in the fact that i am not crazy, but it is little salve to my soul.

things do make so much more sense now, but the way forward seems so hard. i told him that this kind of thing is the reason why marriages of decades dissolve. the psychic energy this takes over the long haul is so exhausting that when it is finally realized the way forward just seems somehow too far.

trying to help him see the damage that has been done seems fruitless. it's part of the problem. how do you live with someone who has never apologized and meant it? how do you live with someone who doesn't feel any ability to connect with your words, feelings and emotions? how do you make love to someone who's only ability to connect with you is physically? i feel like a fool. like someone who has convinced themselves that something is true because they really, really, really wanted it to be be true.

i know that liam loves me in the fullest extent of his ability to do so - but what does that make the past 25 years? have i been making it all up? have i been fooling myself? have i be so gullible and naive that i filled in all of the blanks myself? shit. i didn't want to have to go here. i didn't want to have to make this winter hard. damn. i don't want this trauma and depth this season. i've done my work. i've worked my program. i've slogged through my emotions and pain and i don't want to get sucked back in. damn.

i don't know the way forward. i know that i have been through the worst of it. i have lived with a man in deep denial and been in deep denial myself. it won't be easy, but it will get better, but damn it seems like so much work and i feel like such a schmuck. most of all i am just tired. tired and so very, very sad.

a light in the darkness

i can hardly begin to tell you now having no expectations this weekend led to one of the most enjoyable times liam and i have ever experienced together. on friday he saw the therapist - all on his own, scheduled without my involvement and he told me that afterward he began to understand and admit that there was more to what i was seeing than he wanted to acknowledge. he will go back in two weeks and shared much of the connections he is making.

i think that initiative allowed me to trust him again and be open to whatever this weekend had in store for us. and oh my what a weekend. it surpassed even what my imagination could have constructed. holding things with open hands and no expectations helped me so much to be present to what happened instead of comparing it to something in my head that wasn't happening like i imagined.

the spa was glorious (although it never crossed my mind that i might have a male masseuse - it definitely freaked me out for a couple of minutes and then i just finally relaxed and enjoyed it) the hotel is old world charm and our room was glorious. we walked in to a surprise gift basket filled with things only our closest friends might have known we loved (and none of the things they knew we wouldn't enjoy like chocolate or alcohol) the card was not signed, so our secret angels wanted their anonymity protected. all in all i just felt so much love, comfort and joy. i know that so many of you were praying and i continually felt buoyed up throughout the weekend.

so many times we just looked at each other and giggled that it could be so fun and care free at this stage of our lives. i am still amazed.

thank you again for your words, thoughts and prayers. it truly was a celebration.

feeling less desperate

i think that getting things off my chest helped a lot to lessen the panicky feelings i was having.

because i have struggled with depression myself far too many times in my 42 years i can feel it's pull. seeing that black hole in our home again gave me such a fright. hearing that sucking noise again removes rational thought from my mind and steals my serenity as it calls to me.

somehow i felt like meg trying to save charles wallace from danger i was more able to understand. it all seemed so very urgent. talking about it has returned perspective, helped me to grasp my place in the world. remove the drama and replace the reality. liam is not a five year old being stalked by a vortex of evil and no matter how much i wish it to be true, i am not meg murray.

b.r.e.a.t.h.e.

so this weekend i get to be poly and head to the ocean instead.

new life does come from compost

our wonder from down under, kel left this encouragement in my comments yesterday:

"new life does come from compost"

all of your phone calls, emails and comments mean so much - thank you.

one thing written by a friend stuck out dramatically to me - "may you have... the wisdom and sobriety to discern what is reality". that nailed it for me. i have been doubting myself and my own reality and what i know to be true for months now. it has affected my sanity and i have many times wondered if i was crazy.

liam isn't non-functioning - he is working, helpful and doing everything - doing, doing, doing... being on the other hand has evaporated. he told me this morning "i don't fit any of the classic symptoms so your diagnosis can't be true". i looked at him with tears in my eyes and reminded him that i knew where he once was and where he is now, and the two are so drastically different. he can "do" all he wants to to prove i'm wrong, but he can't seem to "be" who i knew him to be anymore.

the crux of this is that his addiction of workaholism looks so damn healthy. i said this morning that if it was booze or food or any other behavior he'd be able to see that "doing" more isn't really helping. the conversation ended with promises he's made for years now that have gone unfulfilled. i finally told him i didn't believe him any more. it wasn't going to go away because he felt bad, or even faked through an effort.

you see i wouldn't really care so much if we weren't going away to "celebrate" our anniversary this weekend. we were given a night in a world class hotel with a spa package by friends who are even watching our kids for us while we're gone. when i can't even muster up some excitement for that you know it's bad. i'm trying for all i'm worth, but the idea of false intimacy and sex with someone i feel so very far away from right now makes me feel hollow inside.

i will comb the beach, read a good book, enjoy my pedicure and massage and being apart from my kids for a night, but i let him know that there would be no intimacy unless it is real and emotional. physical intimacy without that leaves me feeling so desperately alone afterward. i'm so needy that i usually say yes, but i hate myself in the end.

i think that is what prompted me to finally talk about it. to write about it and to answer honestly when people asked me how things were going. i'm tired of living a lie.

i sat next to him at a wedding this weekend and for the first time in my life i did not connect emotionally with the vows. for the first time i thought "till death?" - what about life? where is the life? why aren't there any vows about living?

i'm placing the rest of kel's comment here so i can remind myself of their truth:

"how it impacts your life, as an individual, wife, mother, IS your story to tell, if you want or need to

there is nothing worse than having something affect your entire life, yet not being able to talk about it, to "protect" those who caused the situation in the first place"

thank you again for all of your support. it means the world to me.

out of respect for the depressed...

i thought of calling this post "out of respect for the dead", because depression sure feels like emotional deadness to me while i'm on the outside looking in. i think i figured out why i have been so silent here. i'm not very good at not talking about EVERYTHING - and you see this everything lately has little to do with me and my journey. it's shitty being married to a depressed spouse. shitty.

i have been silent because i thought it's not my story to tell, it seemed too private some how. but i've also realized that part of me is dying inside. i don't live closed up and shuttered. i never have. i can't work his program. i can't make him get help. i can't do anything but my own stuff, so i'm back. working my program. and part of that is processing my life. this is an anonymous blog. yes, most of you know me, and some of you know him - but i can't stop moving forward anymore. it's scary as hell, but i need to talk about this. i need to open the shutters and get some fresh air in here.

it has begun to affect my own mental health and recovery and that is just not an option. any prayers or words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

death and resurrection

liam is doing the vigil at the hospital, his father is dying. the cancer is closing off his esophagus and he can hardly swallow, let alone eat. it is so hard to be this far away while my beloved is hurting. during the retreat last weekend i shared with my women that i was holding onto a huge lot of resentment toward liam's dad. it was the major step 5 work i was doing. that night i really prayed that god would help me to understand this more clearly.

as i processed it with them i realized that most of what i carried wasn't mine (surprise, bad boundaries again...) - i was feeling slights for things liam never even acknowledged or was bothered by. he really upon looking back over things never really had done anything to me, other than neglect the people i love most in this world, my son and my kids, and blame them for lack of contact. i also realized that knowing he was sick i decided that disengagement would be the best line of defense so that it didn't hurt when he died.

upon my return from the retreat liam told me of the prayer his father asked him to pray over the phone, he kept asking god to forgive his sins. liam was able to reassure him that he was forgiven and went on to tell him of the thief on the cross who was at that moment being punished for his crimes, and jesus told him that he would be with him that day in paradise. he said that he could literally hear his father's shoulders drop and his breathing calm as he said 'thank you son'. at that moment i realized god had done for me what i was unable to do for myself. love that man. the resentment was lifted. i cried and felt such a compassion for this man.

i realized on friday night after liam flew away that my mom also died at easter time - it was in april that year, but i knew that if i didn't make some plans that i would be hurting myself. so i got home and started to find a place where we could go for celebration today. going to make some peach pies to bring to my pastor/therapist/professors house (yes, he wears many hats, so glad he is a kind gentle man otherwise it would be too much!) to celebrate with the other families that are joining together there today. so grateful for my community this weekend. liam and i have done time apart, but other than his trip to nepal a few years ago it's usually me who goes and he who stays (boy do i like that a whole lot better!) - i realized this weekend how much fun he brings to our lives. every day things are a whole lot more fun when he is around. boy do i miss him.

please continue to pray for he and his family (us included) - mostly for peace and clarity. liam is supposed to fly home tomorrow, but if there are only days left we'd really like to know. thank you for your prayers.

20 years!

liam and i celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary today. we're headed to a lovely island coastal town for the weekend and so looking forward to getting away together. happy, happy, happy!

i'm going whale watching tomorrow!

tomorrow liam and i get to fulfill a lifetime dream i've had - we're going whale watching! liam bought the tickets for me back in the spring at a silent auction for sick kids hospital. i've held on to them with trembling hands until the late season because now is the beginning of the best time to see them. we've spoken to the tour operators and they told us that they've spotted them all summer, but the babies and pods love the late season and if you can hang on until fall they're a bit more dramatic and the humpbacks return. we're also beginning the celebration of our 20 years of marriage that happens on the 28th and we'll be celebrating in bar harbor.

they've been spotting minkies, fin whales and even the rare humpback. i was disappointed to find out that the right whales are usually only visible in open water and not in the bay where we'll be tomorrow. so maybe next year we'll start off the island and head out into the deep.

many of you will remember this post of pigs, cows and whales and the older global girl meme where i stated that it was one of my top three things i wanted to do in my life.

i have been in love with whales since i was holding bake sales with my friends for greenpeace to "save the whales" - that was 1978. i never dreamed growing up in land-locked wisconsin that one day i'd live on the bay of fundy, the summer birthing area for all of these species. they are gentle and beautiful and are threatened by the development that is taking place out here. this is a dream come true.

if you are a praying type, please pray for a breaching humpback and lobtailing and slapping. i also really want to be warm enough. some of you know that i have a problem with debilitating chills. this would be a really bad time for that. i'm layering like crazy and praying that fundy fog stays far away!! will post any pictures we're able to get.

confession and forgiveness

i have a lot of thoughts brewing on this as liam and i are doing some deep work here. i think we've uncovered something that i haven't heard anyone write on or talk about before. i'm trying to see if it resonates "out in the real world" or if it's just between us...

becoming un-meshed has been part of working my program these past couple of months. i have lived vicariously through liam for our whole 23 years together. it started because of bad theology and coming from a family of addictive behavior - but it's not working for either of us and i have found that being intentional in this regard is helping so much.

becoming un-meshed has allowed for so much more clarity in our interactions and i have spotted some areas recently that have consistently tied us into knots for the whole of our married lives. one of those massive tangles comes in the area of confession and forgiveness.

i will try to write about this with respect to liam's story being his own - but so you know that the areas that do touch his story are added with his blessing.

as i've written before my dearest husband is one of the gentlest souls i know. he would never intentionally hurt me, or anyone else i think. he struggles with intention and has to work very hard to live in that space. it is his virtue and his vice. one of the ways in which this manifests is that because he never intentionally hurts me he assumes that he hasn't hurt me.

therein lies the rub. what we have untangled here is an area that goes to the root of one of the miscommunication areas we regularly find ourselves in. i am injured, he is confused, he is sad i am injured and apologies to me.

looks like it's working - but it's not. this is the knot we have had to unravel in the past few months and it finally twisted free the other day.

i was finally able to listen to the words he used and actually heard his apology. he said "i'm so sorry that i hurt your feelings" - i realized at that moment it sounded an awful lot like so many of his other apologies - "i'm sorry...you..." what i realized is that his apology wasn't dealing with his behavior - but my response to his behavior.

i asked if we could stop the current conversation and deal with the over-problem that i saw that was bringing this issue up so frequently lately. he agreed and i tried to explain what i saw.

instead of apologizing for the behavior that hurt me liam was apologizing for my feeling badly - so i had been actually forgiving him for me feeling badly. instead of apologizing for his own actions he was really obtusely saying "i'm sorry that you're fragile" or "i'm sorry that you aren't strong enough to weather this" - i truly believe that this is an area that leads back to him not really feeling like his 'unintentional' action warranted an apology. he believed in his heart that since he didn't "try to hurt me" he really didn't have anything to apologize for - but did so just to clear the road.

kind of "well, if this is what it takes to move the discussion forward -i'm sorry - there is that better?"

what i tried to help him understand is that confession really isn't for the person you are confessing to - but confession is for the self - the one - it is the tool that brings freedom from shame - i confess to god, to myself and another human being the exact nature of my wrongs FOR ME - not for them. god doesn't need me to confess my sin for him - he has given me confession as a tool because he knows that by saying it out loud i am owning it and then receiving the glory of forgiveness, and the healing that it brings.

if we are unable to confess from our own moral inventory - even the things we "didn't mean to do" we are then free from them and don't carry their shame any more. a true confession and apology should never have the words "i'm sorry you..." in them. confession is an "I" and "I" alone kind of tool.

does that make sense? i think he understood it and we both felt like the strands of that tangle came free. what do you think?

logjam

i have made two amends today by email - the people involved are too far away to do face to face. i have one more to make today and then a phone call to clear the decks with a friend locally.

i am using the anxiety i'm having about the phone call to spur me on to making the amends i have set aside for months (years for one) and it's working. instead of eating the anxiety i am pouring the energy it gives me into moving foward and working my program.

this past week has been full of massive ah-ha's, answers to prayers and revelation. the penny dropped yesterday on a stalled area between liam and i - and the revelation truly felt miraculous. the images and ah-ha's we had could only have come from god - answers to about a dozen questions we have had - it was like a curtain lifted and we were given insight into some really destructive behavior we both have that has been foiling intimacy, healing and recovery.

now the work begins - but at least we have a starting point.

it feels like the logjam has been freed for me - like a hinge has turned and opened a door that has long been stuck shut. i have answers to questions and prayers i didn't know i was even asking.

resurrection is happening in places that have long been dormant and dead. spring is arriving and life is being made new. it's terrifying, emotional and wonderful.

22 valentines days

22 years ago i was on a scavenger hunt through the college to find the ugliest 80's hot pink and teal paisley blouse i would ever own. it was a gift from liam. he thought the blouse was beautiful. i, on the other hand, with my BRIGHT RED HAIR knew that hot pink and i would never be friends, but i was so touched at his thoughtfulness. that he had spent his pennies at the mall, wandering the stores looking for that perfect gift that would encapsulate the most intense love and passion that we could must in the 20 years we had been on the earth.

i have no memory of what gift i got him. he probably doesn't either. maybe it was that ugly mug i painted with the big eyeball w/ lashes, the <3 and the sadly drawn sheep -eye heart ewe... (see, i really shouldn't be complaining about the ugly blouse, should i?). but neither of the gifts mattered. what mattered is that it was the first day meant to celebrate the passion we felt for each other.

22 valentines days. it hardly seems possible, and yet it also seems like it should be 77. just yesterday and forever. how can that paradox exist? we have officially been together longer than we've been apart. the most rocky, intense, passionate, quarrelsome, fun-filled, hilarious, crazy making ride of our lives. i don't think either of us would have it any other way.

i love you liam. happy valentines day!

god help me to love this man

this was a prayer i prayed a couple of weeks ago. desperate for connection through this place in our journey together. it is an intense place. a place of plowing, upturning and digging in. it is a place of intention. most marriages dissolve before they get to this place. there are not a lot of guides, signs or lights along this path. it is hard. doing nothing is tempting. i think that is what most marriages do. i don't say this from any self-congratulatory place, just an observation.

so i prayed this prayer 'god help me to love this man, help me to understand him, to care about him, not for him, and give me some insight that will bring us closer, not farther apart'. it was a skeptic's prayer, i really said it more as a challenge than a heartfelt plea. i really wanted this, an answer, a lifeline, but figured unanswered it could be an excuse to give up, ignore or place blame, either at liam's feet or god's. i really didn't care, i just wanted to be able to stop having to work so hard trying to find real intimacy and love.

i awoke this morning with a thought bubble over my head. i don't know if i can explain it. liam understood it when i talked to him about it over breakfast, but if it translates here only time will tell.

i awoke with an ah-ha feeling of something that seems quite obvious. it's obviousness made me ponder it all the more, and as i engaged with this thought i felt it sink deeper and deeper into my consciousness. it felt like water reaching the deep places in the earth after a drought. i understood for what might be the first time how ungrateful i have been for how hard liam works.

i explained to him that because his addiction is workaholism the line gets really blurry between what i love and what i hate. if he was a crack addict hating the crack would be obvious, right? hating alcohol would be just as easy. but hating work gets blurry, fuzzy even. my loathing of those things about work that take him away from me, shut down his world and closed him off to the rest of us was right and good, but the ungrateful place in me that never seemed to be able to honor his provision, his determination and diligence was so unhealthy and wrong.

i never thought that when i prayed that prayer this would be the first way that was answered. i was given insight, understanding and sympathy into the struggle he must face daily. as a compulsive over eater i can respect that. with alcoholism or drug abuse, alcohol and drugs can be avoided in life and life can function normally. food cannot. i have to eat. liam has to work. these are both complicated addictions that don't have easy answers and solutions. there is no clear abstinence that is easily defined. the door cannot be slammed shut never to be opened again. work and food are necessities of life. finding the balance in them is the tricky line we must walk in recovery.

i hope that this ah-ha moment might help others who are struggling with this in their marriages to understand their spouse a bit better from the light i was given today. i know it built a bridge between liam and i we didn't have before.

it also nurtured me deeply to know that god stepped into our marriage today in a way that i hadn't suspected before. i know this thought bubble came from god. it wasn't anything i could have conjured on my own. so i will keep praying this prayer. god cares about our marriage and somehow that makes it seem like there might be a reason for all of the struggle.

question and answers - part two

one of the bloggers who always makes me think outside the box, kristen noelle asked:

Have you had a chance to visit any soup kitchens? If so, what kinds of thoughts or feelings were evoked?

i remember visiting the famous "Pacific Garden Mission" in downtown chicago as a teenager. it was a very "us and them" situation to me at that time. the smell was overwhelming and all i could think of was how long before we got to leave.

facing my own addictions and living under crushing debt and in a situation where we had no options but the food back during our first time in ministry i realized there is no "us and them" in my life. we were one bad debt away from loosing everything. we probably wouldn't have been homeless as liam's family would have taken us in, but i know that the church we were killing ourselves for wouldn't have stood by us at all. they promised us when they hired him "part time" that we wouldn't starve. i think they invited us to their homes about 6 times in 30 months and like i said we were eating out of the foodbank. we starved in more ways than one.

this was where the seed was planted for this ministry dream. we had sold our house at a loss, moved away from family, had 2 kids under 4 and all we wanted to do was 'serve jesus'... in no time we were in a deep financial hole. as we slowly climbed out of it i remember being at the grocery store and seeing the donation boxes for the foodbank. a penny dropped and i began to ponder a better way.

at the same time i had begun reading henri nouwen. he wrote in one of his books (i think it might have been reaching out, but i can't be sure) about the idea that our western world is so full of people talking about doing things and never really getting things done. i knew i was one of those westerners. i hated that about myself. so i decided to take his advice. he called it 'furnacing' - allowing our ideas to be ours and god's and to spend time thinking about them instead of talking about them, and pouring the steam created by the excitement back into to project and allowing that to propel us farther on in the doing.

it was then that i decided to begin to furnace the idea of the foodbank. i worked on it in secrecy for 5 years. it became a wonderful dream, i designed logos, brainstormed contacts and prepared it all to the point of not having anything left to do except hand it away.

i told god that it was ready and i was willing to give it to anyone to do - (this is a HUGE project, not just a single foodbank, but a total revamp for feeding people with dignity and creativity). i told god i would wait until he told me who to hand it to.

it wasn't a month later that he did. he told me to give it to tony campolo. i laughed out loud. i knew i had misunderstood. i keep waiting and nothing else ever came. tony is one of my heroes. i literally would have followed him around the country with a little notepad writing down everything he said. i had never heard anyone speak so clearly about the heart of god, helping those in need and actually putting feet to the gospel.

i knew he would be at the national youth workers convention in pittsburgh that year, so i told god "fine, you won't give me any other names, then you have to work this out - you have to introduce me."

i went to every one of tony's seminars. after each session he is so kind and he stays to speak to anyone who will wait. i would stand to the side and so many pushy, male (sorry guys) youth workers just had to tell him something or other. i just couldn't get a word in edgewise. after the second seminar i looked at the front row and sitting there was peggy, tony's wife. she is a dear, sweet, spunky woman and i decided to make her acquaintance.

after introducing myself i asked if she could tell me how to get his attention. she told me that one page typed, no more, sent to his office at the school with an overview of what i wanted him to know would be the best way. i thanked her and left him to the swarms of pushy youth workers.

that same week tony's son bart's ministry, mission year had a booth in the exhibit hall. one of the goals of exhibitors is to get addresses for their mailing list. to do this a lot of the booths give away free ipods, laptops, gamecubes, etc. well mission year was having a 'free lunch with tony campolo'. i saw that and thought 'okay god, i'm calling your bluff, if this is real (and trust me i doubted it with nearly ever fiber of my being) i need to win that lunch.

you had to be on site during the draw to win. i found out when i got there there would be four winners. they picked the names and the final entry wasn't present. i was so disappointed. i really wanted it to be real. the girl reached into the bowl and pulled my name out.

i got to have lunch with tony and peggy, and three other very pushy youthworkers (i know you all aren't, but how could someone sit at lunch with tony campolo and decide that what they had to say was more important than what he or peggy had to say?? they commandeered the whole conversation) but i didn't care. i knew the lunch wasn't the time to get his attention, i just wanted confirmation. and i got it. i knew that when i said "i am the red haired woman you had lunch with in pittsburgh" he would know who i was.

i got home, typed up my one page, put it in a big, official envelope and mailed it away. i dusted off my hands and thought "good, now that is DONE". about 10 days later i had a letter from tony telling me that he loved my idea, i was to put together my board and enroll at eastern for their module masters degree in microbusiness where we would make this the project for the year and get it off the ground.

i shook, i cried, i called those who were in my tribe. i was dumbfounded. now i had to talk to my husband. in his defense (which by the way, he has repented of all of this, but at the time it was dastardly indeed) we had just moved to a new, huge church and had two pre-school aged children. he nay-sayed and bemoaned the possibilities that this could be real, that this could be god and that this could be for me. with my background i had two HUGE hurdles to overcome, patriarchy and the silent god. if the 'head of the household said no it meant no' and who was i to think that god really spoke to me?

i folded. i had no idea how to tell him i wasn't who he thought i was. it must have all been a mistake. the door slammed shut and i never even wrote him back to at least say thank you. it is the biggest regret of my life.

but i know that god is the god of second chances, and this idea really has legs. i don't know if it is for now, and looking back it probably wasn't for 'then' either - but it is really good and god did speak to me, and one of my heroes spoke truth into my life in a way i will never forget.

so while it might not ever look like i dreamed, the seed to feed the hungry has been placed deep within my soul and i know that it is a call on my life. thank you kristen for your question and encouragement. i need it. it's a lonely call and not immediately gratifying. you can see from above that i get easily discouraged. i need stamina and steam and a tribe. if you are the praying type please pray for me. i truly long to fulfill this and put it into the hands of those who can take this dream and make it a reality.

my monolith

okay, i think i have figured out what the blog silence is caused by. the things i am working through right now are so personal (like anything could be more personal than blogging about your sexual addiction??) that i feel silenced by them. it's really because this stuff is "one flesh" stuff with liam and i, and not just my stuff. i have had, and do have, his permission to blog about/talk about all of this for months - but it is so intimate and deeply tied into the "us" of the one flesh that i struggle to put it into words and fear that i am not just telling my story, but his.

i am just so desperate to untangle all of it, that i've decided silence isn't working for me right now, so maybe blogging will. or i might just write it all out here and hit delete, i don't know.

the cartoon below this post is a good representation of how i've been feeling. AA talks about the big pink elephant in the room that the family pretends isn't there. i can imagine if you're read here long enough you know that living with me is hardly silent or that i allow things to go untalked about. so there is no elephant that we avoid, but there is this monolith that seems immovable and i have grown weary and disheartened pushing against it, bashing my head against it and stubbing my toes on it.

i have admitted before that i am codependent and co-addicted. both liam and i have admitted we are both addicts and our lives are unmanageable. he has also admitted that he is depressed. he hasn't done anything about either of those things, but they say admitting it is the first step. the problem is that i have not realized before the level and depth of how enmeshed i have been into his life and non-existent in my own.

the psychic surgery required for this kind of amputation is brutal and i am not navigating it well. i remember jeff writing of his recovery in alanon that he wanted to learn to care about deb, and not for her. me too. i just have no idea how.

it would be easier to hate him, to be apart from him, to sever everything and have distance. years ago i became very enmeshed in my sister's life. i stepped into the role of 'mom' after our mother passed and our relationship became very unhealthy. she married and i was able to disengage myself from the codependency by totally removing myself from the relationship. i can't do that here. i don't want to do that here.

but i don't know how to make better, healthier, consistent choices that are lasting. i have moments of strength, decisions made and steps taken to remove myself from his gravitational pull, but then i get weak, he gets needy or i am just plain old lonely and i get sucked back in. it's like there isn't time for the wound to heal before we re-attach and have be to surgically removed again - the pain is excruciating.

and it's now come to the point where it is affecting my own addictions and abstinence. food has become a comfort again and i am so afraid. the frustrating part of 'dysfunction' is that it 'functions'. it is sometimes attractive and seems necessary to keep the rest of life moving forward. it's like settling for the lesser of evils just to keep the others at bay. does that make sense?

i can see here how and why couples divorce to solve the enmeshed issues. i know it isn't any less painful, and probably more, but it seems like the distance would make getting healthy a bit easier.

the familiar signs and red flags of liam's addiction have been waving in the past month and i am in panic mode. i am like an acrobat waving my arms back and forth, trying to figure out what it is that i can do to restore the lovely balance we had found. i am always the compensator. the one who levels off the teeter-totter trying to make sure i don't get dropped on my butt or end up hanging in the air all alone.

gosh i'm tired. and confused. and lost. and sad. and so very, very sick of it all.

the good thing is we are still talking about it. it's not happening unknowingly. it's not going to sneak up and bite me in the ass next month, but it doesn't seem to be making it any easier.

the other good news is that i have found support. well, actually support found me. one of the women at our church heard my sermon on cd and knew the 'lingo' i used probably meant i had once done OA. she screwed up the courage to email me and we met last week to talk. we meet again tonight to talk and pray. and next week we begin a support group to talk about our food addiction. ironically she lives in the apartment downstairs. god's sense of humor still astounds me sometimes.

so all is not lost, but dang i'm tired. writing has helped. i know we'll find our way through this, it just seems so dark sometimes.