Anxiety

Sometimes I just feel anxious. It's an unnerving feeling. It's an uncomfortable feeling. It's itchy and squirmy and ugh... it's annoying. It always seems worse when I am unable to figure out WHY I am feeling the anxiety that I am. What is the root or the cause of this anxiety? Oh how easy and convincible I can be when I am telling myself... it's not you, it's Mr. Wonderful. It's his choices and actions that have put you in a place to even recognize anxiety. It's the years of his dishonesty, the years of him sneaking around, the years of the facade of a WONDERFUL marriage that he let you believe with all your soul... and so, when you are simply sitting or driving or eating or visiting or running around and you feel anxiety, it's obviously his fault.

But, I'm afraid this isn't the truth... or not the entire truth I suppose. I have been dealing with the ups and downs of my husbands "sex addiction" since he openly told me all about it in July of 2007. It hasn't been easy. Scratch that... it has been the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. There has been hope followed by despair and pain. There has been laughters and tears. Fear and love and hate all rolled into the same hour or day or a week or a month. We have taken many steps forward and then even more back and then more forward and then less backwards... and so on.

I have a very valid excuse for the way I feel or the things I say out of fear or frustration or the ways I act when I am living a day to day life with a liar and a addict... and most people would probably say, "Mrs. Wonderful, don't be too hard on yourself, you have been through a lot and you are still fighting, so give yourself a break." However, I am realizing that I may be hiding behind this very valid excuse. I may be blaming my husband or taking things out on him that he has nothing to really do with. I find that I will be angry and I will easily hide behind something he HAS done or something that HAS happened time and time again, but I think I'm tricking myself into believing that these reasons are really WHY I'm doing and feeling and acting the way I am when in reality, it has a lot more to do with me. But that is a lot harder to take in because it means it's time for me to push myself harder. And, to be honest, I'm sure that some percentage of what I'm going through is absolutely Mr. Wonderful's fault. I mean, my entire life has taken on a heavier feel and everything I do, EVERYTHING is harder and heavier... but where do I draw the line and accept that some of all of this is simply by being a victim to the choices made by the love of my life but some of it... and probable most of it, is mine.

Oh the difficulties of life. Life is hard. Life is hurtful. Life is confusing and messy and... hard. And I am trying which, ironically enough, makes it harder. But I am trying which also means, there is hope.

Alice