“Why do I need to get help? He’s the one who made this mess!”
Fair question. I’ve heard it asked many times, by others and by me. It’s natural to wonder that, especially if you’re rightly being told it’s not your fault, you didn’t cause it, and you can’t fix it. It’s not fair to have to clean up a mess you didn’t make. It’s not fair to have to deal with the pain you didn’t ask for and was caused by someone else’s sin. I get it. And the answer to that question is:
You need to get help because you’ve been hurt.
If you broke a bone in a serious accident, you wouldn’t be asking “Why should I go to the hospital? My husband was the one who crashed the car!”, would you? No! You’d already know the answer to that question. You need to go to the hospital because you got seriously hurt!
The obvious truth is, our spouse’s destructive sexual behaviors hurt us. They may not cause broken bones, but they’ve left wounds that last far longer. And those wounds need attention. Even more attention than physical injuries, because they’re more invisible.
I learned early on in my recovery that I was seriously hurt. My boyfriend (now husband), who grew up in a Christian home and is a Christian himself, dropped a bomb on me by confessing his pornography use. And the explosion from that bomb seriously hurt me. The moment I realized I need support was when I realized that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with the injuries caused by that bomb. They were painful. They made me feel scared, bitter, resentful, hopeless, and incredibly lonely. I didn’t want to suffer like this. I needed help, and I wanted help. And I’m glad I chose help.
And I felt the same way on the second D-day. That D-day was the first one I actually discovered, not confessed to me, so on top of the other things I was dealing with at the time (like my dad’s death, moving to a new state, starting a new job, etc), I snapped and got so angry that I broke my husband’s iPad. If you haven’t read the post that I linked up there at the beginning of this paragraph, that’s a post about when I was the angriest I’ve ever been at anyone in my life. Never in my life have I been so angry that I wanted to break something expensive. I was so angry, I even scared myself. And I scared my husband too. He told me he was afraid I would hit him, or I would hurt myself. This was our rock bottom. For both of us. That was the day that I realized I desperately needed help. And he did too. So we both found ourselves back in recovery once again. I didn’t want to be back in recovery, doing this all over again. But like the first time around, I knew I needed recovery, and I’m glad I chose it.
So I chose healing for myself. And it was so freeing.
I experienced something amazing when I started going to my first group for betrayed spouses. I told my story in full, for the first time, to the first of many betrayed spouses I would encounter. They listened without judgement. They shared their stories with me too. They showed me compassion and understanding. They offered advice when I asked. We read material that told me to believe the addict’s actions, not their words. We listened to each other. We learned together. We cried together. We grieved together. We validated each other. We broke out of isolation and loneliness together. We healed together. And I’m so glad I took part in such an experience.
I regret the betrayals and how they have hurt me, but I do not regret pursuing healing. It has gotten me where I am today. It has helped me break out of isolation. I no longer feel a need to keep my husband’s secrets, or bear his shame and guilt. (That’s why I started this blog!) I learned to set boundaries, and it’s so empowering! And recovery has given me eyes and a heart for other betrayed spouses, and be part of the community that you and I need.
So I hope and pray that in spite of the unfairness you might feel after your betrayal, you will choose recovery anyway. Because you deserve it!
You deserve to be whole, healthy and happy. You deserve to be healed, and that’s the number one reason you should choose recovery! You should never have to experience betrayal alone, the way I did for a time. Please, let us walk together through recovery. Recovery is an experience you don’t want to miss!