Peace

Sitting on a borrowed yoga mat, preparing to leave Camp Scabs, my eyes were closed as I listened to Yoga Amber.
She was telling us to think of a word.
"It could be love, it could be joy..." she prompted.

Because I am a devout lover of words, I quieted my mind and let the word find ME.

Peace.

Peace, I leave with you.  Peace I give unto you.
Prince of Peace.
Peace on Earth.

Since returning home, I've been on a journey to find peace.  My home is not a peaceful place.  Growing up, my home was never a peaceful place. 

I want to be delivered.  I want to escape. 
But I also want this marriage, this home, this Man. 

What if I'm the only one in my house concerned about peace?  How does that work?
I read 2 Peter Chapters 1 and 2 last night.  Chapter 1 was interesting.  Chapter 2 wanted to rip my heart out.  I physically ACHE for my husband.  When I look into his eyes and and see how heavy his soul is, when I listen to him talk, when I see tears form in the eyes of this wonderful Man, I ache. 
Reading Chapter 2, I cried.  I felt fear -I know this addiction could sever me from him for eternity, and I don't want that.  I love him.  I LOVE him.

I read verse 18:
 18 For when they ^aspeak great swelling words of ^bvanity, they ^callure through the ^dlusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean ^eescaped from them who live in error.
 
"Those that were clean ESCAPED from them who live in error."
What does that mean?  Divorce?
No.  It means "boundaries." 

Boundaries are My Great Escape.  They are my deliverance.
Boundaries keep me from being a fix, an object, and trapped.  They give me the self-respect to walk away when I am on the receiving end of bottled up negative emotions my husband doesn't know how to handle. 

The Lord delivered Noah, Lot and Moses.  He led up Lehi out of Jerusalem. We know the women were given the choice of deliverance as well.

Why not, then, for me?
The Lord will provide a means, a choice, an escaped marriage.
The Lord's way is peace.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

We went to the city last week for a couple of Dr. appointments and some grocery shopping.  The day was strenuous, and I longed for the days when going to the city was something I looked forward to.

Those were the days when I walked out of my front door with nothing but my wallet and a date and didn't end up saying things like "we don't eat the gum under the tables."

After a long day of allergy testing for my husband and shot getting for our baby, we were tired.  My make-up had melted off in the Arizona sun.  My husband and I had spent the week prior in complete emotion disconnect that had mounted into a mountain of yuckiness.  I wasn't looking forward to our day in the city one bit.
He felt rejected.
I felt hopeless.
The kids felt depraved of generosity because we wouldn't buy them everything they wanted.

We stopped on the way home at the Wal-Mart nearest to our home to grab a few things, and as I stood in the check out line and managed three kids on my own (a pox on whoever thought it would be a gas to put toys and candy right at the eye level of the childrens)... I was totally focused on the task at hand.
"No."
"Don't touch."
"Don't run."
"If you put your fingers on that, they will get smashed."
"That's not ours."
"Can you put this up there for Mommy?... watch out for the eggs!"
"Scoot over, please."

And things were going pretty well.  My voice never raised.  The Childrens minded for the most part.
And then.
The baby DROPPED her favorite toy: a soft book that makes crinkle noises when you hug it.  She immediately began fussing, and I started to reach around the cart (I was on the end side of the cart, the baby faced away from me)...
and the person in line behind me picked it up before I could even make any headway. 
I met their eyes to thank them and was surprised to realize it was one of my friends!  She'd been standing there all along!  I quickly thanked her and apologized for not SEEING her there sooner.
"It's okay," she laughed, "I could see you were in The Grocery Zone and I didn't want to mess that up.  It's not easy going shopping on your own, and you were doing so awesome I didn't want to throw a wrench in it."

What a sweet, forgiving friend.

And I wonder: will they all be so forgiving when I snap out of The Recovery Zone?  I plan to always work recovery for the rest of my life, but right now it's a life line.  I'm honed in.  I'm focused.  So much of my time and energy goes into THIS.  Watching educational videos, reading, praying, learning, texting, meetings...
I'm discovering and learning so much!!!  I'm learning about me and life and love and Heavenly Father.  I'm learning and changing and growing!I'm adopting a new mantra, "If you've got it all together, you're doing it wrong."

Through it all, I pray that my friends and family, who I value so very dearly, will still be behind me AND still be willing to pick up my baby's dropped toys.  or my dropped toys.

I hope they know my heart.

I Relate

For so many years I would say, "I trust you" to my husband, but I didn't really.  I WANTED to trust him, and I felt like if I said it enough times it might actually appear.  Like Beetlejuice!

What I didn't realize was that I was just putting my head in the Lion's mouth.

Today, I'm proud to own my distrust.

I'm no longer a player in the circus.
I'm no longer performing.
The Porn Carnival must and will go on without my head in the lion's  mouth.

Running With Empty

I've had a lot of empty sex.

It's the worst. 
It takes on so many forms and tries to fool you into thinking vapid things matter.  But they don't.  And when all is said and done, the unholy emptiness of it all consumes you.
It's the worst.  Did I already say that?  Well it is.

As a kid, I was fascinated with media sex.  It was so hard to fast forward through the *bad* parts.  I was so curious and eager to know more.  There was mystery to it all.

Today?  I can't stand sex scenes, sultry scenes, or scenes that imply sultriness or sexiness.  And it isn't because my husband is addicted to porn.  It's because of Empty Sex.  Media sex IS empty sex.  Porn is empty sex.  Empty Sex reminds me that I've had so much of it, even the smallest dose is lethal to my sanity.

Empty Sex.
It's all black and empty and there's something sickening about the way it cannibalizes on itself.
It makes me feel worthless and hungry. 

My appetite for true love has been pushed past starvation.  It's blinking back at me with a bloated belly and sad eyes and saying, "For only three cents a day, you can save this poor starved inner child."
Somewhere between my childlike curiosity and my husband's addiction, I fed the wrong appetite.  I fed the lust and starved the love and in the end all I got was Empty.

"More sex," the books say, "If your marriage is feeling off, have more sex."
"It's your duty as the wife."
"LDS people are just too frigid.  More sex is the answer!"

More sex!
More sex!
More!
More!

Sex isn't the answer to anything.  At. All.

It isn't a need.  It isn't a cure.  It isn't the be-all-end-all.

And I'm angry because I don't even know what sex actually, really is.  To me, it's always been the answer to his bad day.  It's always been my way of desperately seeking connection.  It's always been an answer to something.
It was never the right answer, as I can tell you from bitter experience.  Instead of learning the hard way the first time, I thought somehow -someway -I could change the results by adding more.
More sex.

All I have to show is years and years of Empty. God forsaken. Sex.


I have the right to discover what it means to be truly loved for who -and not what -I am or am able to do or offer.
I have the right to uncover the truth about intimacy, about sex and lust and how trust somehow fits into it all so seamlessly.

I have the right to walk out of the Hell that fear and shame have created for me.


I have the right to leave Emptiness in Hell.

 

Overnighter

 

My husband just got home from an overnight work thing-y.

I enjoyed him being gone... not in the "good, he's GONE" kind of way, but in the "yay! less dishes!" kind of way.

I visited with my sisters-in-law and listened as they expounded on their inability to sleep if their husbands are gone, and then I went home at 10:15 pm and slept soundly... alone in my bed.

Years ago, it was a different story entirely.  When my husband worked graveyards, I was a mess.  I would call him constantly.

"Would you drive by and spotlight the house?"

"I think I heard something..."

"Where are you?"

I tried not to hassle him, so I would spend a lot of time tossing and turning with a pit of fear in my stomach.

All that time alone, at night, alone, with his smart phone...

Toss, turn, toss, turn.

Now I enjoy being alone, having the kids to myself, eating easy stuff for dinner, leaving messes out for longer, and watching whatever I want without having to compromise. 

Progress, right?  It felt like progress right up until the point when he came home and I felt like I was just waiting for the bomb to drop.
"I had a hard time."
"It was a rough night."

Nothing.  He said nothing about it.  I couldn't shake it.
Was he going to confess?  Was it in my future?  Was he too scared?  Should I just ask?
"No," my gut said, "Let it the heck go."
All day I shook it off, and we fell asleep next to each other in a half-stupor (kids make us tired).

This morning I finally said, "This is weird.  Okay?  This is just weird.  I feel like I'm waiting for you to come and disclose something after having stayed overnight somewhere."
"I've stayed places without problems before," he said.
"I know that... it's just... this is like a weird adjustment for me."
"Nothing happened," he chuckled.

Nothing happened.
It's true.  He's not lying.  And instead of me patting him on the back and giving him thumbs up, I'm standing off to the side and scratching my head.

This is weird.
What do I do with this reality?

 

Tangles

  

via retronaut.com

I don't know if you know this about me.
But.

I'm married to a porn addict.
AND
I have self-worth issues like maaaaad.  Put those two together and what do you have?  A tangled mess of a rat's nest. That's what.

Did you know I don't place much value on myself?  Please don't misinterpret this as a subtle plea for compliments or validation... I promise that's not my aim here, so keep reading with that in mind.

I just.
I don't understand my true worth.

It's bringing me to my Savior and to my knees, but I still don't understand it.  I'm working on understanding it.  I REALLY am. 

While growing up, I thought I had to meet certain physical standards to be loveable.  I didn't understand that I was lovable AS IS, with all of my quirks and talkativeness and thick glasses (yes) and bad haircuts and hand-me-downs.

My self-worth issues came to a gigantic head in High School (because High School is awesome like that) and I went through a crazy bout of depression in the which I consumed my body weight in Raisinettes.  I emerged from my chocolate cocoon completely transformed. 
I.
Quit.
Caring.

I would literally (and I'm using literally the way it's supposed to be used here) roll out of bed, throw on some clothes, grab my back pack and then walk to school.  No make-up.  No hair styled so-so.  No worries or cares if my legs were shaved or whatever.  During that time, I raked in friends like crazy.  I wasn't trying to or meaning to, but I was so comfortable with ME that other people were comfortable with me as well.
I don't know how to dress well at all, and I embraced that in High School.  I quit spending all of my money on one shirt at the mall, and started using my money to buy 5 shirts, 4 pants, a few skirts, and a pair of suspenders at the thrift store.  The shirts didn't go with the pants.  And nothing I bought matched my red bowling-type shoes or my pepto-pink back pack. Or my orange scarf.

The walls of my bedroom became an infinite collage of pictures, magazine articles, anything I ripped out of anything that made me feel positive emotion: it was My Beauty.
I sat on my shag orange rug with my guitar and wrote song about x boyfriends.  I wrote poetry.  I busted open my change jar and went to a rock concert four hours away on a school night and STILL made it to school the next day.  Ever paid for a concert ticket with quarters?  Classic.
I let go of my old way of thinking: that make up and clothes were where my beauty lied.  And as a 16 year old, I embraced ME. 
I moved out of my parent's home when I was 17. 
After I turned 18, I met my husband.  He was drawn to my confidence in myself.

But my low self worth wasn't gone.  Turns out, it was simply lying dormant under layers of my confidence.  When I married a porn addict, it broke through the surface of my confidence.
Everything I'd been and loved about myself?  Gone.  Swept away.  Forever.
For.
Eh.
Verrrrr.

At least, it felt that way. 
I worried so much about my hair, my face, my clothes.  My layers of confidence were sipped up at an alarming rate, but I couldn't see it, couldn't sense it... to me everything happening was simply all TRUTH.  My husband would let me know when I didn't match.  He took me and bought me an entire new wardrobe as a gift. 
I got so many compliments on it, and I felt GOOD. 

I slowly got rid of my thrift store collection. 

My definition of beauty and self-worth shifted back, back, back... back to the days of The Deep Depression.

I'm going through so many old emotions.  SO MANY.
When will I roll out of bed and be okay with that?  With simply BEING? 
When will I stop fussing over my clothes and feel utter confidence strutting out in my thrift store finds?  When will I find a spot of wall to call mine and cover it in absolutely ANYTHING that tells of My Idea of Beauty.
My Beauty.

I don't know. 
I'm a tangled mess right now.  And yes, Raisinettes are involved, so I know I'm on the right track. 
I don't know how to change.  But I know who DOES.  The Master of Change is the Master of Me and I lovingly call him Master.

My three older brothers used to pride themselves and their Boy Scout knot abilities when it came to untangling my necklace chains.
"It takes a true Boy Scout," they'd say, "To untangle Girl Scout tangles."

(har, har, guys.)

Do you think my Master is a true Boy Scout?  Can he untangle this mess? 

I'm scared to be my true self, afraid I will be rejected, afraid I will never completely stop apologizing for talking too much, afraid I will never see BEAUTY in ME.

Master,
Where is Thy Beauty that I may see mine?
THIS article has changed my life for the better.  Whether or not you are a mother, please read it.  It WILL change the way you talk to the women in your life, no matter their size or age.

Chunk and Step 5

Because it sorta feels that way.