This post is a follow-up of an earlier post titled Lonely Memories. A few more memories have come up since then, and I wanted to talk about them here. Recently, while looking at old photos with my family, I looked at a few photos of myself, and I was transported back to the emotional pain I was in at the same moments those photos were taken. I can literally see the pain I was in, hiding behind all those smiles. I couldn’t see that before. So today I thought I’d treat you to some extremely rare photos of myself, and let you see some snapshots of the mask I was wearing. (And to hopefully prove to you that I am a real person and not a stick figure doodle on lined paper.)
Before the Relationship
I look back at my childhood photos and other photos that were taken long before my marriage began, and I’m struck by how much I miss that version of myself. My unbroken, carefree, all-too-trusting self, who did not know betrayal of any kind. This version of me is gone, and I will never get it back. It was killed by betrayal, and killed by the painful reality of how rampant porn use is in our world. To this day I still grieve the loss of this version of myself, one that did not carry the heavy burden of being betrayed. There’s no way of getting this Old Me back. And I miss this old me. A lot.
Photos taken close to the D-days
It’s hard to see in these photos, but I see the raw pain hiding behind the smiles. I have no idea how I hid it, but obviously I did. The first two here are “before-and-after” shots of me before and after the first D-day, which was around April 2017. Not a super obvious difference between these photos, which is a further testament to how invisible this pain is. It doesn’t look like I’m in a whole lot of pain, but I was. And I was hiding it all behind a smile, because I didn’t really know what else to do.
My wedding
My wedding photos are especially difficult for me to look at. I still have mixed feelings about this day in my life. It was truly a happy day in my life, but betrayal has since tainted my view of these photographs. They remind me of the day that I decided to marry someone still struggling with porn, instead of escaping. They’re photos of the illusion that we have conquered it, it’s now behind us, and we can now move on to marital bliss. I look at these photos and experience regret that I ignored the red flags, didn’t ask the hard questions, and believed the lie that the worst was behind us.
After the Second D-day
And here’s two photos taken shortly after the second D-day. It’s hard to believe that I managed to put on a smile for these photos while reeling from the discovery that the worst was not in fact behind us, and my husband was still committing virtual infidelity just as much as before we married. I’m embarrassed to admit that I broke an $800 iPad the same time these photos were taken.
As I mentioned before, I was just looking over some of these photos with my family, and the memories suddenly came flowing back. The trigger was unexpected. What I saw before as beautiful smiles for the camera are now just a mask for my pain. They brought back vivid memories of the devastating pain I was in. But Seeing these photos made me realize that I see myself, these photos, and my life entirely differently than I used to. I see my whole life split into sections by mostly the D-days: Pre-relationship, pre-D-day 1, post-D-day 1, pre-D-day 2, post D-day 2. My life has been broken into these fragments, and I’m still trying to figure out how to put them back together.
It’s difficult for me to put a somewhat positive ending to this post. But I guess one thing I could leave you with is this: don’t be afraid of the triggers. Don’t be afraid of the grief. Recognize them. Sit with them. Grieve with them. Grieving is an important part of recovery. For me, grieving was the only way I could move on to a better place in my recovery. Grieving for me looked like picking through my old photos and missing the older versions of me, and not missing the “me” that was in the worst of the betrayal. In this case, grieving isn’t merely recognizing the trigger and running away from it. It was sitting with this trigger, processing it, wondering why these photos made me feel that way, and then sharing them with you. Your grieving doesn’t have to look like my grieving, but I ask you to consider grieving in your own way and time. Whether that’s looking at old photos or not.