Rested Home

 (via fastyling.blogspot.com)

So often, so very often I am met with two responses to this addiction.
First being: I don't know how you do it.  I'd never stay if my husband looked at porn.
Second being: What's the big deal?  It's *just* naked ladies.

Where did the middle ground go?  Did it slip through the cracks somewhere between my two realities?
First being: My husband is not his addiction, and ridding my life Danny to rid my life of addiction?  I have no words.
Second being: It's never just about the naked ladies.  Addiction has never been about the substance to me... it's always been about the behaviors.

Have you ever seen "Sleepless in Seattle"?  Who hasn't right?  Aside from being scripted by one THE most genius screenwriters of all time (rest in peace, my Nora), it is such a great story about a woman in a logical relationship that isn't right for her who leaves it to pursue a completely irrational relationship with someone who feels, as Tom Hanks so beautifully puts it, like Home.
"Only no home that I'd ever known before."

As a young, single LDS woman, I was so repulsed by the engagements dropping around me.  I couldn't believe the amount of couples jumping into marriage... and SO quickly.
I couldn't wrap my mind around it, and finally resigned myself to the only logical explanation I could reign in: They were horny.  All of them.  LDS and repressed and horny.
Poor things.
At that point, I was still technically a teenager and still technically knew everything, and I knew -KNEW -that marriage wasn't all pleasantries.  I figured it involved living with ONE person for a very long time.  It meant irritations, compromises, blending families, puking, finances... and while I was fairly certain that sex was nice and all... surely, SURELY it wasn't worth all THAT.
I judged.  Heaven help me, I JUDGED.
I was so condescending in my assumptions of their first years -which I knew would be just traumatically eye-opening.

And then.
I met.
Danny.

And just like that I went from being a whole and complete person to a half-being.  I found, when I was with Danny, a completeness, a rest.
A home.
It smelled like crocheted afghans, felt like bare feet on a cold kitchen floor, and sounded like children, family, and a crackling fire.  I rested when I was with him.

I had only known him a few weeks before I felt sure that I'd marry him, and then I proceeded to live in a fitful state of denial for a few months.
Surely, I couldn't marry a man I barely knew.  What about the puke?  and the finances?
And just as the thought entered my mind, I felt the sting in the core of my being.
Surely, I couldn't live a life without this man I barely knew.
Was there a raging amount of physical desire there?  Um, yes.  But there was something deeper, something more steeled and holy than I'd ever come up against and the thought of turning my back on it was too much.

Danny fit.
Danny always fit.
Danny is home.

And that is why Betrayal Trauma is REAL.  Because when your home turns on you, it's something fierce.  The only word that comes to mind is: grappling.
When you're grappling, you don't simply turn and walk away from home -never to return.
You also don't hang out and let your home beat your spirit to smithereens just because it's home and homes DO that.
 I mean, how would YOU feel if "Sleepless in Seattle" made a sequel about Tom Hanks cheating on Meg Ryan?  No, the thought makes reason stare!
You find yourself in a sort of hellish limbo filled with fine lines and psychology.


And the insanity!  The insanity that drove Meg Ryan and Deborah Kerr to the top of The Empire State Building drives me! 
I am NOT in the wrong relationship.  I simply am not.
I am in my Rested Home, gone wrong.

Do you find your Rested Home twice in life?  three times?  or is this a once in a lifetime experience I have no control over?
And just like we ALL KNOW Meg Ryan is acting totally irrationally, we are all cheering her on because WE KNOW, we just KNOW, that her pursuit is golden... Tom Hanks is her home, and until she secures it neither SHE or WE will rest.

I had my Rested Home once. 
The "just naked ladies" have stolen my home, wrecked it, sabotaged my Once in a Lifetime crochet-afghan, bare feet on homey hearth experience... and to simply let it roll off is to revel in cowardice.
I am not afraid anymore.

And so it is with insane hope that I dare to hold on to this marriage simply by not letting go.

Maybe my Earthly Rested Home will find me again.  I'm lucky to have lived it when I did.
Whether it does or not, I have found a new realm of rest.
Right now I can invest wholly and completely in my Rest Home Above, in my relationship with my Father.

Unlike Meg Ryan, my insanity lies not in the chase, but in the Stay.  Simply staying put.
Am I crazy?
My head says yes... my heart made it's way to my feet and won't let me leave.