Contents
Introduction 1
Acknowledgements 3
Chapter 1 D-Day 4
Chapter 2 The Enemy Encamped Round About Me 16
Chapter 3 She’s Come Undone 28
Chapter 4 Does That Make Me Crazy? 37
Chapter 5 My Heart Is Drenched In Wine 46
Chapter 6 Love Is A Verb 53
Chapter 7 Thousand Mile Journey 63
Chapter 8 The Good, The Bad, And Why Is She So Ugly? 75
Chapter 9 Strong In The Broken Places 84
Chapter 10 Here’s Your Sign 91
Chapter 11 The Time Of Testing 100
Chapter 12 Starve A Fever 111
Appendix 122
Bibliography 123
Why Can’t I Be Enough For You?
When Sexual Addiction Hits Home
Introduction
“I love sharing my story. It's endlessly healing.” Ben Vereen
The year 2010 for me was a year of many changes, many losses, and much heartache. After the loss of my job and my dream home, I was falsely convinced that since I had withstood those things with grace, the enemy was surely defeated. I was certain that the worst was behind me and it was time for new adventurous beginnings. Then the thing I feared the worst came upon me. My husband, who I had built my world around, had broken our marriage covenant, not once, but many times. My heart was beyond broken: it was ground to a fine powder.
On January 3, 2004, I married the love of my life. I was certain this man was my reward for the sufferings I had been through where marriage was concerned. I adored him. I catered to his every whim and pampered him shamefully. I served him breakfast in bed every morning for six years. I placed him on a pedestal before the entire world. He, in turn, was so attentive and even-tempered that I was certain I had married an angel. I never spoke an unkind word to him or about him. I was convinced he was perfect.
So he had a history of being a cheater. But he swore that would never happen, not this time. He was emailing, calling or texting me constantly. We did everything together. He was faithful in church. How would he ever have time to cheat? After all, I knew his whereabouts every minute of every day.
Or so I thought. As time went by I began to notice he had been changing over the last few years. He seemed more distant, less connected in some ways, but after all, as he said, he was getting older. He kept reminding me of that when I complained that our physical closeness had diminished and become very impersonal. I bought his protests that he was no longer as young as he once had been. Still, that nagging feeling in my gut -- perhaps the prompting of the Holy Spirit -- kept nudging me to look closer. So on November 5, 2010 I did. I sat down at the computer and found emails to another woman. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. There was a tidal
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wave of shock and pain to come. Like Job, the thing I feared the worst had come unto me to try to destroy me. The one thing the enemy was sure I couldn’t take was staring back at me from the computer screen.
And that was only the beginning. A long, miserable tale of a lost dreams and broken promises was about to unfold. Inability to control the constant need for new lovers and more deviant sex had robbed my husband of not one, but two careers, three previous marriages and worst of all, the right to raise his own son. He had lived a life in constant fear and shame that had without his permission come to a merciful screeching halt. He had lived out his entire adult life in the grip of sexual addiction that had stolen everything he counted precious. And as for me, I didn’t just have a case of caught-up-in-the-moment lust that occurred once. I was facing the nightmare of ever-unfolding horror stories and the possibility that I could never trust the person I had entrusted with my life.
The story of what unfolded over the next year as we fought our simultaneous, interwoven, yet separate battles is contained in these pages. I make no claim to being an expert on sexual addiction, but I do know what I have lived through and how I came out on the other side. It is my prayer that my struggle will help pull others out of the same nightmare I lived through. There is hope, life and health in Jesus. The joy of the Lord truly is your strength if you allow it to be. It is my sincere hope that you will be able to draw the strength to move forward in the pages of this book as I lay out the traumatic, painful story of my struggle, so you can be successful in your own. The words on these pages, born of blood, sweat and tears, contain the answer to the question “Why can’t I be enough for you?” Read on and be blessed.
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Why Can’t I Be Enough For You?
When Sexual Addiction Hits Home
The
first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I
stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good
Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this
man, what will happen to him?"
--
Martin
Luther King, Jr.
I would like to thank my Pastor, Bishop Ron Webb, for being strong enough in the Lord to deal in the real. His bold, truth-based teaching with no holds barred prepared me to live through the tsunami of pain that overtook me when I discovered my husband’s infidelity and sexual addiction. His wise counsel and his example of living a life of mercy kept me from going off the deep end. He prayed over each of us and our marriage and helped me to keep my eyes fastened on the Lord, the source of my help.
I would also like to thank my husband, who has bravely faced the demon of addiction. He is able to admit his faults and count the cost. He is learning how to live all over again almost from the foundation up. That kind of undertaking requires a lot of courage and a lot of faith in God. I have no trouble admitting that I went from being a doting, adoring wife to being a suspicious, angry, demanding shrew. Yet he withstood even that and persevered in his recovery. He is living proof that there is hope and there is deliverance!
But most of all I would like to thank my God! My Healer, My Deliverer, the God Who Is Mighty in Battle! He has been so good and so faithful to carry me through the darkest hours and heal me from the inside out that I must tell of His goodness! In every moment He was there, holding my tears in His mighty hand and binding my wounds. He has sent angels to minister to me along the way. He has replaced my mourning with the oil of gladness.
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Why Can’t I Be Enough For You?
When Sexual Addiction Hits Home
“For
the thing which I greatly feared is come on me, and that which I was
afraid of is come to me.”
Job 3:25 American
King James Version
D-Day
For the spouse of a sex addict D-Day is Discovery Day. That awful, earth-shattering day when you are confronted by the fact the person you have given your life to has betrayed you. There is no other pain to compare to what you are feeling. The world swirls around you and it feels as if the floor has moved out from under your feet. You want to scream; you want to run. Emotions are hitting you faster than you can identify them.
Your world has been turned on its axis by the forces of the enemy. Your mind, your heart and your soul are under a merciless onslaught from the pits of Hell. The pain, both mental and physical are almost too much to bear as the fiery darts of the enemy attack you in the most intimate, personal areas of your being.
You tell yourself that you are dreaming and surely you will wake up out of this nightmare any minute. But there is no waking up. This is no nightmare: it’s real and it’s the condition of your life. The only thing you are aware of at this moment is screaming, gut-wrenching pain that alternates with rage and despair. Shock, anger, jealousy, revulsion and fear all fight to be in command of your mind. You wish you could stop breathing, or better yet make him and the person or persons he is cheating with stop breathing. Your only awareness of the world around you is that it has suddenly become an unfriendly, frightening place where you can’t trust or believe anything or anyone. There seems to be nowhere to turn, no escape. You have now entered a place you never knew existed and you feel completely and utterly alone and helpless.
But you’re not. There are many others like you dwelling in the same secret torment. Yes, there are many of us. We are surviving, and you will too.
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The only thing that held me up through that awful day of discovery was knowing that God would never forsake me. That’s because, like Job, “the thing I greatly feared” had come upon me (Job 3:15). One day, just like Job, I had -- or at least thought I had -- everything I had ever wanted. I loved my husband so much that I had often referred to him as being “the only thing I ever wanted just for myself.” I spoiled him, pampered him and petted him. I provided for his every want and need to the best of my ability. I was convinced that we were the happiest couple on the face of the earth and that our life was as close to perfect as anyone could ever get.
Then in an instant, just as it was with Job, it was all gone. The person I had trusted with my life had been careless with it and gambled it on losing bets. The one I loved beyond measure had found my love trivial enough to risk it all for a few moments of lust. For all I knew he might have brought something home to me that would take my life. And all the while that he was telling others that he loved them I was serving him breakfast in bed. Yes, for six years, every day, he had looked at me lovingly, never indicating that he was anything but happy. I was blissfully ignorant.
But here, right in front of my eyes, were words of betrayal that held my heart in a death grip and squeezed the oxygen out of my chest. God was the only thing that kept me breathing, and I questioned Him as to why I had to continue when I knew I would never be able to reassemble all the pieces of my broken heart.
But it didn’t matter that I couldn’t put it back together. God could. And He has. And even somewhere in the tsunami of pain that I was drowning in, I knew it.
You need to know it, too. You need His strength right now above all. No one cares like He does. No one can help you like He can. Coming back from this is going to have to be an “inside job.” You need the Holy Spirit inside you to be your counselor and teacher, to stand by you, and sometimes stand for you. Please visit the Appendix of this book to find out how to know God and receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to be your comforter. He alone can give you advice that will heal rather than cause more pain.
D-Day is different for each of us. Perhaps for you there was an occasional hint that something wasn’t right, or maybe, as in my case, everything looked too perfect to be true. The, all of a sudden lightning strikes and you can see
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that your “Prince Charming” is really nothing but a smelly old toad that you wish would croak. You wonder if the toad has warts and is anxious to share them with you and anyone else that will hold still long enough. You probably want to smash that toad and enjoy listening to it squish.
Don’t do it. Be still and pray. Stay calm. The decisions you make right now will not only change the course of your life forever, they have the potential to change many others lives as well. Hold onto your head and give yourself time to process and think before you act. I know it would feel so good right now to bring about more destruction than any force of nature could, but the consequences would not be worth the temporary high. Ill-thought-out actions may relieve pain for a minute, but then when you count the cost and face the consequences they will only make things much worse. The last thing you need right now is an all-expense-paid vacation in the County Jail. It isn’t worth it. Sit yourself down, think and above all PRAY.
At this time in your life you need more help than can be found anywhere on this earth. You need wise counsel for the tough decisions you are about to have to make. Friends can offer all kinds of advice. Although well-meaning, most of it will be destructive. Don’t call them. They will feel the same outrage you are feeling and will most likely fuel the violent anger you are experiencing enough to cause you to get in more trouble than you are prepared to deal with. My pastor gave me some advice on that matter that at first I thought would kill me.
But it turned out to be the wisest, most helpful counsel anyone could have given. He said, “This stays in this office. Tell NO ONE.” Those words sound very isolating, and they are. They will drive you to your knees to seek God’s face, and THAT is where the real source of your help is found. So please, don’t spread your business all over Front Street. Take some time to think and pray. Should you try to save your marriage, not everyone is forgiving and, perhaps more importantly, not everyone has your best interest at heart. So keep your private life private for now. You will never regret who didn’t know what was happening, but you may very well regret who did. Resist the temptation to call your best friend, your sister, or a hit man.
Call out to Jesus instead.
The most important truth that you need to grab and hang on to right now is this; God says: “Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your
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God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” -- Isaiah 41:10 ( NKJV)
You are not alone! He is with you, He IS your help. He promises to give you strength and hold you up. With that kind of support you can only fail if you choose to.
God is faithful. He is faithful when NO ONE else is. He will give you strength and hold you up. He is there in the middle of the night. He is there when you wake up alone. He is there when you wake up and wish you were alone. He will help you and hold you up when you can’t stand on your own. Because He is holding you up with His righteous hand, you can be righteous. NOT self-righteousness, but the kind of righteousness that can give you the strength to “be angry and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26).
I can’t speak for you, but my anger wanted to sin. It wanted to break as many commandments as it could and throw in a few other violations, too. If God’s hand had not been on me I’m not sure where I would be, but I’m absolutely certain I would not be here advising you on how to survive. It’s a given that dead people don’t type, and prisoners on death row for committing murder are not very credible sources for how to keep from killing someone. I would be one of those places if not for the goodness of God. But just as He promised, He strengthened me, He held me up, and at times He held me back for my own good.
Take my advice. I have been where you are. I have come out of the fire, scorched and smoking, but not consumed. You can believe me when I tell you that right now, above all, you must stay calm. Do nothing right now. NOTHING. I literally had to sit on my hands to keep from doing anything. When I found the emails my husband had written to another woman my first instinct was to get in my vehicle, drive to where he worked, run right through the plate glass window into his office and smash him into a puddle. I was ready to back up and run over him as many times as necessary to accomplish that goal. I wanted a nice juicy puddle. There was murder in my heart, raging angry revenge that wanted to be exacted no matter what the cost would be.
I was like an animal caught in a trap wailing in pain and ready to chew my own leg off to escape. The pain was unbearable. It washed over me in fiery waves of torment that I was sure would never end as long as I was alive.
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And I didn’t want that to be long. For the first time ever in my life I truly wanted to die and take as many of the guilty parties as I could with me.
I know it was God’s hand that prevented me from moving. Instead of ruining my vehicle and going to jail I sat on my hands at my computer and prayed until I felt calmer. When the feeling came back in my fingers I dashed off an email to the object of his affection at the moment. I let her know that she was welcome to come and get him with my blessing and advised her that she was about to turn her life over to a man who would use her up and toss her aside like a dirty tissue. I clued her in to the fact that she would fall so in love with him that she would never be all right again.
For some odd reason she never answered me. I can’t imagine why. Hmm.
Then I gave him a call and told him that he would need her to pick him up after work instead of me. I made it plain that he was not to set foot in the door at home. As I was speaking I could hear him choking on the phone. My only regret was that it was not from my hands around his throat. I slammed the phone down, feeling vindicated for the moment.
Then the flood gates opened. I screamed, I cried, I accused God of abandoning me. I reminded Him of how I paid my tithe, served at the church, prayed every day and stayed out of trouble. I asked Him if He had forgotten how long I waited for my husband and how much I loved that man. I pointed out that we were such a loving couple that our pastor held us up as an example and called us “The Lovebirds.” Everybody at the church knew who we were and thought we were either nauseating or too cute for words because of our seeming devotion to each other. I reminded God that this was going to hurt all those people and make Him look bad for not preventing it from happening.
I asked God why He would let such a thing happen. I reminded Him that I had stood in the face of being wronged at my job and obeyed Him by not repaying evil for evil. And I told Him this time I was not going to pass that test if He didn’t hold me down. I pointed out that He saw what was going on and just let it happen. After all, He sees everything. So why didn’t He stop it?
God gently reminded me of Jesus’ suffering as He paid the ultimate price to redeem my soul. He was beaten beyond recognition, spat on, betrayed and
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hated by those who only a day before had adored Him. Yet, the Bible says in
1 Peter 2:23: “When he was reviled, [he] reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.” (KJV). It says that although He could have destroyed His accusers he was like “a lamb led to slaughter.” In that instant when God spoke to me of the sacrifice that was made for me I knew I had to decide who I would serve. My choice was to obey God no matter what the price. And I am so glad I made it. My prayer is that you will do the same.
You need the unconditional love that is Jesus. The enemy is not going to concede easily. He wants to destroy you. He is going to try to make you doubt your attractiveness, your self worth and your sanity. But he is a LIAR!
Now is the time to grab onto the promises of God and hang on for dear life. Not what the enemy wants to convince you that you are. He will steal your life if you allow it. He will try to direct you down the path of revenge. Don’t go there. There is nothing to be gained and so much to be lost!
That day, the day I discovered to my horror that my husband was unfaithful, marked the beginning of an agonizing, yet amazing journey that has led me closer to God and made me a stronger, better person. The initial discovery was only the tip of the iceberg that revealed my husband’s secret life of pain and shame. And it most likely is the tip of the iceberg for you as well.
Beyond it is a huge, frightening and potentially deadly mountain of cold unknown. My husband and I began to chip away at that iceberg a little at a time and some amazing information came out. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one suffering. My husband was, too. He was living in constant fear, trying his best to contain his own uncontrollable quest to fill an unnamed void. He was afraid, isolated and in pain. He couldn’t even understand his own behavior. He was confused and disgusted at himself. And I can almost guarantee that your husband is, too. The life he is leading is not making him happy. He isn’t having it all. He is in torment. And he thinks there is no way out.
But I am here to tell you: there is a way out. The door in the seemly impenetrable wall you have hit is Jesus. He can turn your life around and head it in the right direction if you will allow HIM to be in control. Until this moment you may not have even believed that sexual addiction was real. My husband didn’t and he is an addict. Anytime the subject is brought up people
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begin to snicker and crack jokes. You’ve probably heard and maybe even participated in some of these conversations. The running joke seems to be: “Sex addict? I want one of those!”
But it isn’t a joke, and it’s anything but funny. News stories like Tiger Woods’ downfall and Congressman Anthony Wiener are beginning to change public perception to a degree. But many people still see it, at best, as an extra bonus to the addict, and at worst as an excuse for bad behavior.
Men think how lucky those guys are to be getting all they want and more. They can’t see the inner torment and the collateral damage. They don’t know the hopelessness and the feeling of despair. All they see is, man, that guy has it all. In reality the sad fact is that, time after time, that guy ends up with nothing.
Sex for the addict isn’t even satisfying. It only makes the hole in his soul grow larger and cry out louder to be soothed. Somewhere along the line the addict has confused sex with love because the body erroneously interpreted a rush of adrenalin as a victory over fear, loneliness, abandonment, and inadequacy. The problem is that victory is only fleeting. It’s gone in a matter of minutes and the pursuit for it has to begin again. And each time the addict’s mind clears the sense of loss grows larger. The scenario that began the addiction is different for each person. One thing that all addicts seem to have in common is a history of emotional abandonment as a child.
For many there is a background of sexual molestation. Often the addict is repeating a traumatic event in his own life. He may feel driven to repeat the molestation or abuse he suffered in an unconscious attempt to make sense of it. The targets -- “qualifiers” -- the addict chooses will vary, but the approach and methodology of acting out will follow a similar pattern. For an addict who was molested by a man as a child there may be a large number of women “qualifiers” to assure himself that he is not homosexual.
Through the pages of this book you will begin to understand that and see into the circumstances and events that have created the place where you now find yourself. Things that didn’t make sense before will begin to fall into place. You will start to see the pitfalls and begin to avoid them. And most importantly, you will learn to listen for and to the still, small voice of God.
I heard that voice constantly. Did I always listen? I wish I could say that I
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had. Hopefully you will learn from my mistakes and do better than I did. I was usually not in listening mode. I was in talking mode. God was trying all the while to get my attention and show me what needed to be done.
I didn’t even want His advice at first. I wanted to use the same Bible that Madea was using in the Tyler Perry movie Madea Goes To Jail during her anger management session with Dr. Phil:
“The Bible said in second Deutoronomo, the book of Jericho that: ‘The eye for a tooth, a tooth for the people. If everybody got the eye, punch them in it.’" I could add to that if everybody got the hair, snatch it out of their head, too.
I had a whole list of folks I wanted to punch in BOTH eyes and snatch them bald to boot. Madea’s version of scripture was sounding good to me. Darnedest thing though: I couldn’t find it anywhere. No second Deutoronomo and no book of Jericho. It was downright disappointing.
But what I found instead was in the Book of Deuteronomy. And what it had to say was much more empowering; “And the LORD, He is the one who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.” -- Deuteronomy 31:8 (HCSB)
His abiding presence is so much better and more comforting than the temporary satisfaction of punching a ho in the eye. No, really: I promise it is. I’ll take His presence over the presence of a policeman – as in the Tyler Perry Madea movies -- any day. When He is going before me I don’t have to fight my own battles. And I don’t have to worry about the ho calling the po-po, as Madea is always suggesting.
Even though I keep referring to the women my husband cheated with as “hoes” as stress-relieving humor, they are in reality just victims. They are desperate, unhappy women looking for love and not knowing how to go about getting it the right way. Each time someone else uses them it adds to their sense of worthlessness, causing them to repeat the cycle over again because they are convinced it’s the only way they can ever get any attention. They are children of the same God that you and I are and He loves them the same way that He loves us. We need not to lose sight of the fact that we, too, have not lived perfect lives. As my pastor often says: “You ain’t so suchy muchy.” You might as well go ahead and admit it; you are a sinner, too. Maybe yours isn’t THIS sin, but you have some. Yet God gave us mercy.
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Now is the time to give some back. Be merciful. You won’t regret it. You will regret a criminal record. Don’t punch the ho. Show the same mercy you want to receive.
Mercy will not send you to jail or cause damage that you have to be accountable for. Mercy will free you. Anger and vengefulness will hold you in bondage. Being merciful won’t come easy, but if you take a minute to look back over your own life and see how many times God gave you mercy rather than what you deserved (and in most cases, earned) you will be motivated to give some mercy away. Forgiveness is often more of a gift to the giver than it is to the person who receives it. When you hold on to anger and bitterness the people you feel that way towards are actually controlling you. They are controlling your mood by making you miserable and tense even though they are not even anywhere near you. Because you are angry and tense, you are short-tempered and cranky in your interactions with others. In that way the people you are angry with are controlling your relationships with others.
Right now you may be too angry to eat or sleep. If you are, the target of your anger is controlling your physical health and well-being. You may be feeling the need to punish your husband not only for his behavior, but for theirs as well. This relinquishes control of you marriage to the person you are angry with.
And the real kicker is that the person you are so angry at is winning by default. She is controlling your every move without lifting a finger. Most likely she has no idea that she is disrupting every area of your life and isn’t even thinking about you. Yet you lie awake and hate her. Your stomach churns, your head hurts, your shoulders are up under your ear lobes and she is probably out partying with someone else’s husband by now -- not thinking about you or your husband.
You want to get the people who have invaded your marriage out of your head, out of your bed, and out of your life? Forgive them. It will set you free and set God’s will in motion for you.
And for them.
In Romans 12:19-20 Paul quotes Proverbs 25:21-22 and expounds on it. He says “Therefore if your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink:
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for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head.” (AKJV)
That may sound like you are burning him up inside by doing good and that your good deed may be in itself a form of vengeance. But really, it isn’t. According to B.M Bowen in Strange Scriptures that Perplex the Western Mind, in the Bible lands almost everything was carried on the head. In many countries it is common even today to see people transporting things on their heads. In homes during Biblical times the only fire was kept in a brazier that was used for cooking and warmth. Each family always attempted to keep their fire burning, but occasionally it would go out. When that happened a family member would be sent to take the brazier to a neighbor’s house to borrow coals to restart the fire. Sometimes in those days, just like today, that neighbor may have reason to dislike the person whose fire had gone out. If the neighbor was a generous person, he or she would heap the brazier full of coals despite dislike of the borrower. The borrower would then place the brazier full of hot coals on their head and go home. To feed any enemy and give him drink was almost like heaping the empty brazier with live coals –which meant food, warmth, and almost life itself to the borrower. The giving of the coals to the enemy was the symbol of finest generosity.
I understand that you don’t feel like being generous to your enemy. You would probably be happy to see them go hungry and cold. I know I felt that way for a season. And now, just when you thought they were going to “get theirs” God is telling you to provide the very thing that sustains life. But consider this: we were all once the enemy of God, yet he provided us with oxygen to breathe, food to eat, water to drink. He didn’t have to be kind or provide for us when we were at war with everything He stands for. But He did, and we are to supposed to become more like Him every day.
Does that mean we are supposed to bake a cake for the women who cheated with our husbands or have flowers delivered to them at work?? Nope, not even a chocolate cake laced with Ex-Lax. No black roses, either. It simply means we can’t repay evil for evil. No cashing in on Madea’s “if everybody got the eye punch em in it.” You have to walk away and forgive. I understand how that makes you feel. But when things are calmer and you look back at this time, you will be glad you did. It always feels better to be the bigger person. Only sow the seeds you want to reap the harvest of.
The person who has wronged you is eventually going to pay the price of his
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or her actions without your help. Some people use the term “what goes around comes around;” others subscribe to the Buddhist (Godless) theory of karma. The fact is that God designed the earth to function in the system of seed time and harvest. Everything in the earth has to be replenished by some form of a seed that will produce a crop of its own kind in due season. If you plant an apple seed, you will get an apple tree. If you plant a wheat seed, you will grow wheat. If you plant a peach pit you will get a peach tree. Whatever seed you sow will produce the same kind of plant it sprang from. If I am going to sow something in the earth, with God’s help, it will be kindness and forgiveness and love. When my harvest comes that’s what I want it to be. If you don’t want to reap un-forgiveness, violence, anger then don’t sow them. It’s that simple. Do right when everyone else is doing wrong. God honors that.
Step out of the way and let Him take care of those who have wronged you. He is a righteous judge that can handle it much better than you can. Your enemies were busy sowing seeds, too. Let them deal with their harvest. God doesn’t need your help no matter how much you would like to give it. And I know you want to give it. I did. And I tried. But every time God pulled me up short and wouldn’t allow me to repay evil for evil. Many times I had to just lift my hands to the heavens and ask “God, what is this???” I mean really, when you call up a cheating ho to tell her what you are about to do to her so she can dread it before you get there and God changes your words and your mind you have to look around and think: “What’s the deal??”
The deal is mercy. And it’s for your good. Accept it and move on. Focus on healing you. You can’t fix anyone else, and trying to will only hurt you more. You have a life to live. Get about it. Everything you need is in front of you.
I had the privilege to hear one of the last messages of Dr. Zachery Tims, founder of New Destiny Christian Center in Orlando, Florida. He preached at my church only six days before he died. One of the things he said was that yesterday ended when you woke up this morning.
He was right. Yesterday is gone. Today is a new day. The damage is done. You can’t undo it. All you can do is start over and salvage what’s left. Make the necessary repairs, but start with YOU. Not your husband; you can’t fix him. That’s his job. Turn loose and let him do it. He may fall a few times,
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but that’s how he will learn and grow. Remember taking the training wheels off your bike? He just lost his training wheels. He will have to have some bumps, bruises and skinned knees before he learns how to stay upright. Don’t be afraid of them. They will happen. Don’t you dare step in the way and try to prevent them or cushion the blow. He has to do it on his own.
And you have to do this on your own. You are wounded and hurting. You need to take some time to get your bearings in this new place you have found yourself in. You need to know what your goals, wants and needs are. Chances are you have never let them have a voice. Now is the time. Let them be heard. Ask God what his purpose is for you. When you walk in it you will be more at ease than you have ever been in your life.
As for me, I can honestly say that, yes, the thing I greatly feared did come upon me. My greatest fear was losing this man that I was pretty sure hung the moon. But guess what: he didn’t. The One who did is the One I should have been chasing. He is the One who I found out I can not live without. He, not my husband, is my provider. He is the giver of life. He is my healer, and He wants to be yours too. Give Him the pain.
I have faced my worst fear, and as my pastor says, the smoke has cleared, the dust has settled, and I am still standing with my handed lifted in victory and praise to God.
You can stand, too. Keep reading for the tools to help you through your journey.
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Why Can’t I Be Enough For You?
When Sexual Addiction Hits Home
The Enemy Encamped Round About Me
“There
is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between
right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every
human being has a part. “
Matthew
Simpson
Surrounded. At work, the grocery store, the filling station, your child’s ballgame, and yes, even church. No place is safe and no one is innocent. It’s enough to make you crazy. As if you weren’t already feeling that way.
“They” seem to be everywhere you look. People you never noticed before all of a sudden become suspect. Grandmothers, people in wheelchairs, feminine-looking men. Anyone who could be the type that your husband finds irresistible. The very people you once took for granted are now suspect because they are the type that your sexually addicted husband preys on. Make no mistake; his “qualifiers” are not going to be what mainstream society considers beautiful. Those people are too difficult to take advantage of. The sex addict is looking for a target that has low enough self-esteem that she will be flattered by the attention.
If a person who isn’t accustomed to getting a lot of attention is all of a sudden being pursued she will take the bait and become an excellent victim. She will do anything to maintain what she considers to be a “relationship.”
Such “qualifiers” will perform sex acts that humiliate them, lie to protect the addict, risk getting caught just to have what little bit of time they are allotted with the man they are sure must be their happily-ever-after. What elderly woman wouldn’t be flattered attention from a man 20 years her junior? A man that much younger approaching her for sex is bound to make her feel beautiful and young enough to keep her from seeing past the degradation and shame.
The transvestite or bisexual man who is calling attention to himself to attract
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partners can’t see that he is being used. He just knows he feels the need for attention. He is an easy victim, especially for men who were molested as children by a man. These men did not have a chance to understand their own sexuality and develop preferences. Someone else’s preference was forced on them and they are understandably confused. The first sexual experience that every person has is forever imprinted in their minds. If it was a positive experience the person develops a positive attitude. If it was an unwanted experience unwanted feelings accompany it. Let’s face it: orgasms are great. But what happens when you have the first one with a person that is not supposed to happen with under the wrong circumstances? Now the experience has become wonderful and terrible at the same time. What a mess of tangled thoughts and feelings to try to sort out.
The fact is that victims of abuse and molestation do experience orgasm. That does not mean that they enjoyed or invited the abuse. The body does what it does.
Prostitutes make their living from sex addicts. Have you ever really taken a good look at a prostitute? Not the glamorous image the media presents of one, but a real live one? They are downtrodden, broken people who are usually not attractive. They are doing what they have to survive and life has not been kind to them.
The people the sex addicts seek out faded into the background of everyday life, most likely for you. Now they scream silently at you from every direction. You now perceive them as a threat.
Until now you never thought twice about being spoken to by a stranger, but everything has changed and the whole world is a different, threatening place. Things like shopping trips that were once routine have now become hunting trips for the enemy, or worse yet, minefields to be navigated without getting blown up by someone who “knows” or may be “the one” who your husband is sure will provide that euphoric connection that will finally stop the incessant searching to fill an unnamed void. You don’t plan them to be hunting trips. You try to fight it, but despite your best efforts the battle is on.
Now it seems that there is no escape from the torment the enemy is heaping on you. Unbidden the thoughts come to your mind everywhere you go. Every person you pass is unconsciously sized up to assess her potential as a
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“qualifier.” You don’t stop at wondering if that person is your husband’s type. You wonder if she has actually had sex with your spouse. Maybe he sent her his picture on a dating site.
Many things used to seem innocent, like whatever music is playing in the store or particular products you see on the shelf that remind you of happier times before D-Day. They conjure up thoughts of future plans you had with your husband that hit you like a punch in the stomach and cause you to battle tears. Having to hold back tears makes you feel foolish and angry. You cry out to God asking why this happened. You waver between being terrified or sad and wanting to open a can of whup-ass on somebody. Anybody. But preferably the body you hold responsible at the moment (that changes frequently, too) for your pain. The theology that Tyler Perry’s character Madea teaches is sounding more and more appealing. This is what Madea had to say in the movie Madea Goes to Jail about Matthew 5:39: “Bible say, ‘Turn the other cheek.’ Somebody hit that cheek, turn the other. You have two cheeks. How many you gonna let them hit before you whup their ass?” Well … the Bible does indeed say to turn the other cheek, and you do only have two, but there is no permission granted to open a can when you run out of cheeks.
So what to do? You can’t get by with assaulting anyone. Anger constantly battles with fear to control your mind. Your teeth stay clenched so much that they hurt when you try to eat -- if you can eat. Your shoulders are so drawn up that people wonder if you have whiplash or just a really short neck. You get tension headaches on a daily basis from the tightness in your face, neck and shoulders. Even when you lie down to try to rest your shoulders refuse to budge from their newly established perch under your ears. You hate yourself for feeling the way you do, but you don’t seem to be able to stop it.
You are suffering from trauma. What you are experiencing are the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is merely a normal person’s reaction to an abnormal situation. You have been thrown into a highly abnormal situation that your mind is unable to deal with. What you have been through is more than enough to push anyone over the edge. Your place of safety has been compromised and your trust has been violated.
When your world has been shattered it’s expected that you are going to feel crazy, frightened, and disconnected, along with a host of other emotions.
After suffering any traumatic event the body and mind go into shock as a defense mechanism from the pain. Some traumatic events are dealt with and
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leave no lasting ill effects. Others are not so easy to put to rest and the mind stays in shock. That’s when PTSD occurs. You can’t connect the memory of what happened with how you feel about it. One reason for that is you probably don’t know yet how you feel about. Trying to pin your emotions down at this point is pretty much like trying to nail jelly to a tree. What you feel one minute may be dramatically opposed to what you feel the next.
Loss is a given in any marriage. Unless something catastrophic like an automobile accident or natural disaster takes place one of you will outlive the other. The grief of losing a spouse to death can be worked through by focusing on the positive points and the happy times in the relationship. At least there is that much comfort to sustain you.
Infidelity is different. There is no natural end to the grief. Even the positive, happy times are tainted by the betrayal. Every pleasant memory you try to call up seems phony and unreal. You wonder at each of them if he was thinking about someone else or if someone else was being told about everything you did. An unseen presence hovers over every event in your life. The anguish never seems to end. You can’t seem to stop loving your husband and you hate yourself for it. You wish he wouldn’t come home and then you are afraid that he won’t. You crave his attention and hate yourself for wanting him. You wish he would hold you, but you want to kill him if he tries to. You are a bundle of conflicting painful, raw emotion.
All of the emotions assaulting you seem to collide head on when you are faced with things like being in a crowd of people. At times for me shopping alone was so overwhelming I just had to leave my shopping cart and go home without purchasing what I went after. But that wasn’t the worst. It was the trips he accompanied me on that were the real challenge.
When he is present you are just angry. Too angry to concentrate. Wondering who he is looking at and what he is thinking about. Wondering if he knows the person you just passed who looked a little longer than was comfortable for you. Anything longer than two seconds is way past your comfort zone. You notice everything everyone that passes you is wearing. Clothing styles that used to be a non-issue now scream obscenities in your face. You want to cover his face, or better yet slap the leer off of it. That is, if he is even able to leer. He is probably too afraid of you to take his eyes off the floor. Then you start to feel guilty because he is afraid of you. That feeling is quickly displaced by anger at yourself for feeling sorry for him. Both of you go
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through the motions, locked in a battle of wills in the midst of perceived enemy forces all around. You are determined to prove that he is unredeemable and he is determined to prove you wrong. You have no idea what you will gain by proving he is not worth the dirt under your feet, but you just know somehow when you do you will feel better. You don’t want to be right, but you HAVE to be right or die trying. No one wins this battle. No one can.
So, here you are, surrounded by women, fools though they may be, who have no idea their flesh on display is a problem for anyone. While they strut around, convinced they are looking good, the two of you are locked in a vicious battle against each other and both of you secretly wanting to throw a blanket over them. My personal favorite example of wantonness on display in public is the style designed to accentuate the “body art” at the base of the spine just above the butt crack commonly referred to as the “tramp stamp.”
This style necessitates wearing a shirt that is too short and pants that ride down on the hips or are rolled down to expose whatever particular piece of artwork the individual felt they needed to permanently decorate their posterior with. It knows no season. It is in style whether the temperature is 103 in the shade or 3 below zero.
I understand that those who have become the canvas to such art must be proud of it if for no other reason than that they withstood the pain and held their water long enough to endure getting it. Good for them. But as one of my Twelve Step facilitators says, “If I had wanted to see that I would have taken you to dinner.”
Seriously, cover that up.
For right now just show it to your significant other or take a picture and show that to your friends. The rest of us can enjoy it in about thirty years when it has made its way down around your ankles.
Summer is particularly bad for sex addicts and anyone who is involved with them. Everything is on display, even stuff that looks bad. No one has any shame. Boobs that look like they have retired and moved to Florida from their former residence in New York and hail damaged thighs parade around on display as if they were actually worth looking at. Shorts that were made for someone three inches shorter than the wearer are the norm. If they were
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long pants we could them “high waters,” but since they are shorts we can call them band aids for the behind. Then there are the work-out enthusiasts who wear sports bras with a t-shirt over it that has the sides cut out. Yeah. Like we really can’t see your bra like that, sister. Way to cover it up!
I have even seen women come into church with necklines almost to their belly buttons, hem lines almost to their waists and heels so high that it a strong wind comes along they are going to topple over.
(Some of them might require a piece of heavy equipment to get them back upright, too, but we won’t go there.)
A shortage of clothing material combined with lack of self-respect and of decency is EVERYWHERE. Naked flesh is in your face constantly: sex sells. Just turn on the TV, drive past a billboard, pick up a magazine and try to avoid looking at the ads … if you can.
For a sex addict all this flesh on display is like putting a child in front of a newly stocked, clear glass cookie jar AND leaving the lid off. Not only is it temptation that is unavoidable, it is so plentiful and widely accepted as the norm that it can’t hurt anything. Right?
Wrong. It can ruin any hope you and your addicted husband have of living a life free of dread, pain and guilt.
When you go into a candy store the candy is plentiful, attractive and available. It smells wonderful and you know it is going to taste really good. There is no law that says you can’t purchase every bit and eat it. And if you don’t have any self-control or personal boundaries in place you might just do that. But since you do have self-control and boundaries, you don’t want the weight gain, the sick stomach from too much sugar and the credit card bills, you gather your senses and move on.
The whole world is like that candy store for a sex addict, but addicts have no boundaries. Most of them were never allowed to develop any. They have no “no.” Nothing holds them in check. There is no line to cross over. They see no consequences, so they indulge with no thought for tomorrow. Then, when tomorrow gets here and they are slapped with the consequences they go back to get more for the temporary sugar high that will make yesterday’s overindulgence only a blur.
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Somebody needs to lock up the candy store.
Here’s some advice for the materially challenged when it comes to clothing. Put a wrapper on your Tootsie Roll. Cover up your Sugar Babies. By the time you want to use them they will be dried out and stale. Nobody wants dried out Tootsie Rolls. They are already pretty tasteless on display like that. The people who are looking at them only see THEM -- not YOU. If you only knew what sort of perverted images are going through the minds of those who are staring at you, you would be horrified, not flattered. You are a whole person; stop selling yourself short. When you go out half-dressed you are attracting the attention of every dirty old man, sex addict and pervert in the store. What they are doing to you in their heads would repel and disgust you. Put some clothes on so people will see your face, your mind, your heart, your wants and needs. Not your body parts. Okay: enough said?
So, now that we have ruled out shopping trips, movies, TV, magazines and shopping trips, how about a little music? Sure, try some music videos. Oops … even the country videos feature bimbos in Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots. And you don’t EVEN want to try MTV or VH1. You may go temporarily blind or experience a traumatic brain injury.
Okay, just flip on the radio, then. Hook-up songs. Cheating songs. On every station. Every genre. Just when you start unconsciously singing along, you realize it’s the words to “Part Time Lovers” or “Me and Mrs. Jones” and you want to rip your own tongue out.
How come you never noticed all this stuff before? Oh, it was there all right, but it just used to seem harmless.
Not anymore. You can’t even escape it by watching what passes for a light-hearted sitcom. There is not one to be found that doesn’t base its humor on promiscuity or sexual orientation. Our culture is saturated in it.
And don’t think you can escape it by watching the commercials. Gone are the days when little old grandmothers whispered the words “toilet paper.” Now we “get serious about what goes on in the bathroom” and everybody is squeezing everybody else’s Charmin.
Menstrual cycles in the form of gifts from “Mother Nature” abound. And they are cute and tame compared to the ads for condoms, dating sites and
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male enhancement commercials featuring “Smiling Bob.”
Even hair products are presented in such a way that you forget they are developed for hair. And Victoria’s Secret commercials … we don’t even need to go there.
There is no respite for the mind from the constant assault. No innocence. Soft-core porn is everywhere on your television and hard-core is just a click away even if you don’t have the premium channels. Just looking at the names of the upcoming programs on the preview channel can be shocking.
It’s no wonder you are constantly on high alert. No place is safe.
Perhaps on an innocent grocery shopping trip you have even been approached by one of your husband’s current or former partners who feel a need to “enlighten” you. Nothing is more heart-wrenching or scarring than to have a total stranger call your name in a public place and proceed to tell you all about your spouse’s behavior. Or the well-meaning “frienemy” that feels it’s her responsibility to tell you that your husband tried to contact her on a dating site because you “really should know.” That happened to me when a person visited my home. Not a public place: MY HOME. That one almost pushed me over the edge and into the land of no return. This person was actually a member of our Twelve Step group. I almost dropped out of the program because it no longer felt like a safe place for me. One of the program facilitators lovingly gave me a no-nonsense shove to get me back on my feet. I am forever grateful to her for that. I was too weak and damaged to see that it was only a lie of the Devil to try to isolate me and hijack my recovery. He wanted desperately to stop me from getting where I need to be to continue in my marriage and write this book.