Chastity

Chastity.

What a lesson.  My dear friend who is a convert and who is really great about being REAL gave the lesson in Gospel Essentials today.  It was tender and raw and heartbreaking all stuffed into 1 hour!  I felt sad.  I felt like a victim.  I felt angry at Mr. Wonderful for breaking the covenants that would qualify not only him but our entire family for the blessings and gifts that come from our Heavenly Father when  all members of a family are living the Law of Chastity.

The promises are beautiful.

Did you know that the topic "Chastity" can be found in the Gospel Principles manual under the topic "family salvation"?  Neither did I.  Vanessa Moodie says, "A realization hit me like a burst of light!  This law was designed specifically to protect not just individuals but also the most basic and important unit of heaven and earth… the family.  I realized that this law will do more than any other commandment in protecting and strengthening the family.  What a blessing!  What a glorious blessing!" You can find the full talk "The Blessing of Chastity" here.

Yes, what a blessing.  However, what a sad realization when I know that Mr. Wonderful hasn't and isn't completely keeping the law of chastity.  So, does this mean that because he falls short on this very serious commandment my entire family suffers?  

I don't like this thought.  

I am confused.  If the only person I can control is me.  If the only person I can change is me.  If the only person I can save is me then why can someone else's action and choices take certain promises and blessings away from me and my children?  Am I still promised these blessings but without my husband on board, I'm just don't get the fulness of these blessings?  

I don't like this thought.

Please Mr. Wonderful… choose the right thing. For you. For me. For our beautiful family.

I hope your loved ones make the right choices, regardless, we can be happy and whole and feel complete even if they don't.  I am not speaking from experience, because I'm not there… not yet, but I do believe this is possible.

I like this thought.

Alice

Someone Else...

Can someone else please tell me what to do?  I will do anything ANYTHING you tell me to do if it will make this madness go away, this heavy fog lift, this spinning and swirling stop.  Whatever you tell me to do, I will do it. 

JUST. TELL. ME.

Alice in Wonderland

But, no matter how much I beg and cry and kick and scream, no one has my answers, no one can fix me, no one can fix my husband or my situation or my marriage.  No one can erase all the lies and deception and betrayal of the past and replace it with truth and happiness and fields of flowers for me to run through all day long.  I want someone to tell me if I should divorce or stay married.  I want someone to tell me if this is all for the better of me AND my children and if so, yeah, I'll stay.  I want someone to measure the damage that has been done and will be done to my children because their home doesn't feel safe.  I want someone to know and tell me if this damage is "fixable" or not.  I want someone to tell me HOW MUCH LONGER this will last so I can decide what to do.  "One more year you say?.. then I'll stay."  "Until I die you say?..then I'm gone."  But no one has told me this yet.  No one has given me the answers.  No one has looked into my future and said "Alice, you need to take the pill that says "small" and all will be fixed.  No one.  Not my bishop.  Not my parents.  Not my husband.  Not my WoPa friends.  Not my Stake President.  Not the people I trust.  No one.  

This is hard.  

I want someone to do all the hard work and find all the answers and then ship them to me express mail and way-lah!  "Oh, this isn't reality?  This will never happen?"  

This is hard.    

I attended "The Togetherness Project" this last weekend and the information I inhaled was so great.  It was so real and so relatable and so what I needed to hear.  But while I was there I realized something that I think I already knew… I realized, I am on my own journey.  I didn't like realizing that and I still don't like how it feels in my gut, it's scary.  I mean, I was surrounded by women that had been just as betrayed and hurt and discouraged and hopeless and confused and BROKEN as I am… and yet, my journey and my answers and my path will vary from theirs, and theirs will vary from each others.

This is hard.

I am realizing that I have to work.  I have to work hard and be strong and move.  I am realizing that although I am a victim to the choices that loved ones in my life have made, I don't get a "pass".  I have to fight.  I have to fight hard.  I know I am not alone but I am alone in my own journey.  I know I have support from loved ones and I have people cheering for me and I even know, at times, I will walk with others on their journey as our paths come together, but eventually, they will break apart and I will be on my own path again.

I am accepting that I have to work.  I am accepting that it's going to be hard.  What works for one may not work for me.  As my dear friend Scabs said at the Togetherness Project, I have to… HAVE to be BRAVE.

Alice is beautiful and strong.    

I am the only one that knows.
I am the only one that can make the really hard decisions.
I am the only one that can feel what to do.

This is hard.
I am Brave.
Trust yourself Alice.

How Do I Do This Again?

Okay, can someone help me out here?  I want to be a working partner in my marriage, meaning; I don't want to give up the fight, or give up the hope... I want to be IN this marriage.  However, I'm having a very hard time understanding how to do just this AND, at the same time, feel SAFE.

It seems that in order to feel safe in my marriage I have to detatch from Mr. Wonderful because, at this point, I am still hurt by his lustful desires to be with other woman.  It hurts me so much even though, I can tell, he is discouraged by his lustful desires.  Mr. Wonderful would snap his fingers, if he could, and make ALL of this MESS go away, but he can't.  And, although I realize that he is not proud of his sex addiction and all the pain, confusion, hurt, heartache and more, it causes, it still HURTS me.

Why?

Why does it still hurt me so much?

Does it ever get easier?  I mean, I have been at this (knowingly) with Mr. Wonderful for almost 6 years.  When does the pain subside?  When do I get my feet planted firmly enough on the ground that I just shrug and FEEL (not just say) this is your problem, not mine?

So, back to my question, if I want to be a "working" member of my marriage, but I also want to feel safe... HOW DO I DO IT?  Is it even possible?  Or, do I have to choose?

Choice #1:  Work on trusting Mr. Wonderful, work on loving him, work on being in the marriage, work on forgiving him but, as a result of your efforts and your desires, you will always be vulnerable to heartache and pain from the choices he makes.

Choice #2:  Detach.  Become your own self.  Become someone that doesn't care what he lusts after or what he "wishes he had".  Remove yourself from him giving him NO POWER to hurt you by his lame-ness (yes, that is the word that came to me here).  Stay in the marriage, raise your 3 beautiful children together, but become cold toward the marriage in order to save yourself from heartache and pain.

Wow... 2 wonderful choices... it's so hard to decide with options like these!  Sometimes I feel like I really am Alice, with all the choices to make but for no specific reason.  Do I grow here or shrink?  Do I have a tea party or follow the white rabbit?  Do I love my husband fiercely or carefully?  Do I love him at all?  Do I work on shutting off and becoming the Ice Queen so I can't be hurt?  What am I doing here anyway?

Life... why can't you slow down?

On a seperate note, I really need to work on my relationship with God.  I seem to have stopped trusting him and his plan when my world came tumbling down on DD1 and ever since then, all the other DD's following, I have just become less trusting of everyone and anyone, including Heavenly Father.

Alice

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

My Two Lives

Quote from Alice in Wonderland

Who decides what is socially acceptable? I am no expert but from my view, I'm not a fan of what I see (keep in mind, that "my view" changes day by day so tomorrow I may feel differently). Okay, so from my view and given the experiences that I have gone through, as well as learning from my "two lives" in which I am calling my "Utah life" and my "Arizona life", this is how I see it.

In Utah I was perfect... or at least that was the identity I clung to or more accurately, the facade I clung to. I simply did everything by the book... you know what book I'm talking about, it's the big fat book called "People Pleasing" or "Conforming to What is Socially Right" or "People's Expectations: Meet Them at All Costs" also known as "Selling Your Soul to the Devil"... okay that last one may be a bit dramatic! Anyway, while living in my Utah life I didn't get to know myself, I didn't have enough courage to get to know myself. It was a lot easier for me to assess the situation and then perform. I was a great kid, my mom said I was the easiest baby and as a toddler I walked early, I talked early, and did everything I was asked. My mom shares with me stories about when I young, around 18 months, and I would be playing quietly with other kids during a play-date when she would call me over to where all the other mothers were sitting and ask "Alice, will you sing a song for us?" and politely I would sing a song... and get praise for it, I'm sure. As a teenager I was fun and energetic and talented. I wasn't a 4.0 student, I got 3.7's. I was always home by curfew, I wasn't boy crazy (my dads favorite thing), I was honest, happy, engaged, social... you know, perfect. I would diligently look for cues from my peers, my coaches, my parents, my sisters, my teammates, my teachers, and so many others (even the opinions of mere acquaintances matters you know!). I would be hard on myself when I failed and I would cautiously celebrate when I succeeded. I didn't know myself at all... not even what my favorite ice cream flavor was. But the rewards, oh the rewards of being perfect... I had friends, and lots of them. I was invited to everything: girls night out, date nights, the gym, play-dates with my kids, vacations, showers, luncheons, birthday parties, weddings, activities, and so much more. Oh and the trust that people gave me, it was exciting and flattering and fulfilling... a kind of fulfillment that would last, well, about 15 minutes. I was always the team captain or the president of my church class or leader or confidante. People sought my advice and listened as if I were a professional of some sort. It was wonderful and instantly rewarding and undoubtedly out weighed the idea or thought to step away and risk losing it all to find ME, and actually, to be honest, I thought that's who I was.

Then I moved away, away from family, friends, and streets with numbers; away from mountains and snow and security. At first I was living my Utah life in Arizona, you see my "Utah life" doesn't only exist in Utah. I didn't need a fresh start and frankly I didn't want one. In fact, I was intimidated at the thought that no one knew anything about my past. I was proud of my past, my past was proof, maybe even a resume, of how strong and perfect I was. I continued on being the only person I knew how to be, the "Utah Girl". I threw myself into my knew life and, as pattern would show, I had friends and neighbors who were eager to meet me and I was invited to all the baby showers and birthday celebrations and holiday parties and luncheons and campout and vacations and girls nights out. I was strong and resilient and determined to keep going the way I did in my Utah life. But then tragedy struck, and I mean real traumatic tragedy, and things got REALLY HARD. I went through (and am still going through) the single hardest experience and trial that I have ever been so privileged (insert sarcasm here) to go through. So I had to search, I had to take all of my energy and search. I searched for truth and guidance. I searched for help and security. Most of the time I didn't like what I found because it was raw, it was hard, and no matter how much I searched through that big fat book, the answer wasn't there. There were no cues or explanations. I didn't have it in me anymore to be perfect. All my time and thoughts and energy were dedicated to my wellbeing and my family. I became less social at first, and then practically anti-social. My trial wasn't appropriate to share with others so I had very few people to rely on for help. I forgot how to laugh and share and "hang out". My awkwardness was apparent so I stopped getting invited. In defense of my new social group, they didn't know or understand that I was going through something that was so much bigger than I was capable of handling. They didn't understand why I was so awkward and sad... and they had only known me for about 6 months so my roots weren't deep enough... but isn't that the reason we all aspire to have friends? So we have people we not only can have fun with, but also trust, or at least know that they trust us enough that if things are "off" or awkward it's okay? Does everyone deserve an explanation to why things have changed a little, or a lot? Is it my job to keep people comfortable when I am going through so much turmoil? I believe the word I'm looking for is "U.N.C.O.N.D.I.T.I.O.N.A.L" it is a very overly used word in my church, yet it is not understood by most. In all actuality, I don't know if the outcome of my social transition really had anything to do with my physical location or who I was surrounded by.

I guess trials, regardless of nature verses nurture, inevitably change us. I believe that sometimes little characteristics change in us and other times the very core inside of us changes. For someone that wasn't even sure what her very core consisted of to begin with... well lets just say, I changed... a lot. I'm not even sure if I have changed for the better but I know I'm far from perfect, well I was always far from perfect so I should say that… I'm far from pretending that I'm perfect. I am not very social anymore and I don't try to be. Most people tend to bug me. So many people around me seem shallow and selfish and... well perfect, like the old me. I feel judged by many neighbors and friends and, ironically enough, I feel judged and frowned upon by those of my same faith and even ward. Most likely, if I'm looking at things in a healthy way, it is the awkwardness and fear I feel or maybe it's the temptation I have to simply conform again. I know I could rebound and be back in the "social circle" again but I also know I don't want to do what, in my opinion, it would take for me to get there. And for what... social status? Recognition? Titles? Regardless, I have a new view, a different angel or perspective. I don't know which view I prefer, which view is more warming and welcoming and stunning, it's just a different view. Unfortunately, as I'm writing this entry I feel hurt and lonely, maybe even a little bit rejected. There was a "girls luncheon" today and I wasn't on the "texting invite list", you know, that list that has the top 60 women in your neighborhood on it! There was also a luncheon last month that I got wind of afterwards that I wasn't invited to. And then there was that party at a house down the street hosted by some friends of mine... that I see... almost everyday and Mr. Wonderful and I weren't invited to it. Maybe I should recognize these "non-invites" as a trophy of my "non-conformance". Maybe I should see it as a milestone in my life... and actually, I think I do, most of the time... but not today, today I feel sad and scared and vulnerable... I wish I didn't care, or I wish I was angry but nope, I'm sad.

So what is the lesson to all this rambling of mine? Maybe the lesson is a terrible lesson... maybe the lesson is: If you don't conform and change who you are by assessing and reacting and putting forth the effort to stay on top of all the latest news and pregnancies and birthdays and gossip, if you don't do ALL of that, then you simply get what you deserve, a seat on the outside looking in, the ultimate loneliness. Or maybe I haven't seen the full cycle of this lesson yet, maybe the lesson is: Be true to yourself and you will, EVENTUALLY, attract those people towards you that knew you in the pre-mortal existence. Maybe you will attract people that matter and that can help you and teach you and relate to you. Maybe, just maybe, things will be okay, because they will. They will.

Now I'm going to go snack on my favorite ice cream (and by the way, it's Haagen-Dazs chocolate peanut butter!).

Alice