I had a break
through on my co-dependency issues reagrding how my co-dpendency had
negatively affected our marriage while I was going through the divorce
phase. I naturally wanted to to share this with my on-line support
group so I took the entry from my journal and posted it. The story is
written
in the present tense because I left it as I wrote it. Here is
what I shared with them and now with the readers of YouAreATarget.com.
Journal entry shared with my online group:
I still work in the same house that my SA (sex addict) lives in (we are
trying to
settle property issues before divorce). At first I didn’t want a
divorce but now
am so grateful I don’t have to live with the abusive symptoms of his
addiction any
longer (anger, blame, isolation, twisting facts, rewriting history, no
intimacy) that I could jump for joy! Unfortuantely,
I still find myself being co-dependent and continue coming
to this online support group to gain strength and be a free of my co
issues. Although I lived with his hostility for 4 years, I did not have
to
live with him for long knowing about his sex addiction (online porn and
exhibitionism) because
after I found the films of himself masturbating on our lawn I knew the
neighbors were telling the truth. It led to immediate demands of
divorce from him. But
co-dependency plagues me. Here are some of the coda
symptoms I’m progressing on: Minimize
his severity and question: I still try to minimize
and say
to myself, I was too harsh, he isn’t that bad, there's a lot of stress
on him…etc.
Last week I went to an old neighborhood where I learned that he was
flashing
people 5 years ago!!!! Strangely, with all his other lies, he did not
deny this
one when he found out I knew. You guys on the discussion board told me
whatever
I knew about, he’s done 10 to 100 times more and boy were you right. So
God
helped me see I didn’t overreact I
want to make him admit his lies: He
rewrites our history and I hate it!!! Two
months ago he demanded I move out NOW—threatened to throw my things in
the
woods, screamed at me for months, said I was trying to ruin him
financially
because I would not move my things out—so I removed all my belongings
except my
desk
(which I work from). Yesterday he asked me to bring the TV back, which
I did. He wanted to know why I took the TV. I explained I moved
it out because of his demands and he said in an
innocent tone, “I never meant you had to move everything out, must have
been a
miscommunication.” It sends me through the roof! He tells his therapy
group and
his lawyer things that are so bogus, like I threatened to divorce him
numerous
times and forced him to sign agreements when in fact we had to sign a
post
nuptial BECAUSE he kept threatening to divorce me. There are hundreds
of these
examples of him twisting the truth and lying—most of which I think he
believes. My sickness
comes in because I try to
“prove” that he is lying and force him to see the facts. This
is control on my part—I get obsessed with getting him
to admit the truth and he won’t because he believes his lies—the next
best
thing is to prove to others he is lying. I gather my allies,
so to speak which
is another coda symptom. I
drive myself nuts trying to understand WHY
Then
Karen in our support group, wrote that she drove herself nuts
trying to
understand WHY he couldn’t see/admit what he had done to the marriage.
Boy did
I identify with that. Finally she realized the only important WHY was
why she
allowed herself to be treated so badly for so long. Boy did I need to
hear
THAT. Part
of my problem is “tricking” my husband into reading what I
have to say—so I print out my on line posts knowing that he
snoops at my
desk and he will see them. This is one way I try controlling him,
tricking him
to see
the facts. He just gets angry—his normal MO--and shoots an email to me
telling
me to stay out of his recovery!!!! Mind you, he is snooping in my
recovery
<grin>. Then
HadEnough from our group, wrote:
Co-dependency plays
such a huge part into this sickness.. I let this go on in my life for
18 years,
and I feel that my co-dependency was my crutch if you will.. Until I
Was able
to stand UP for myself, and face him, and demand to be treated better,
this was
never going to go away.. As long as I let him continue to blame me, for
his
P/MB (porn/masturbating) .... he would...
He continues to
blame me for what he did
Well I need to hear this too. Bob continues to blame me for
things that HE did, claiming I tried to blackmail him,
threatened him with divorce, he denies what he has said and claims to
not
remember what I said—you know it all—not even so much twists
the facts but accuses me of the stuff
he actually did (projection)!!!!I
almost feel like I have to get him to admit his lies for me to feel
better— So
I decided last night (woke up at 2 am thinking about it),
that I would not answer any of his emails or point out why he got his
facts
screwed up, I will no longer leave copies of what I want him to read on
my
desk, I will no longer talk to him about any of it—it is useless and he
will
not “admit” his lies or understand what he did to our marriage—he will
continue
to blame me and part of my getting well is to STOP trying to control
what he
thinks about what happened and make him admit things. I
know what happened even if he doesn’t. I don’t need to
understand why he won’t/can’t admit the truth and I don’t have to
extract understanding
from him.WHEW….I may not be able to
control my feelings of anger, frustration, and desperation to get him
to admit
things, but I can control my behavior that is directed at trying to
control
what he thinks and how he sees things…Thanks Karen and HadEnough for
being here.
Not all abusers
are dysfunctional. Many of them are pillars of society.
Abusers come in all shapes and sizes: successful professionals, or
peripatetic con-artists, affluent or poor, young or old, well-educated
or dropouts. There is no profile of the "typical abuser".Open
Encyclopedia
We Mistakenly Believe
That he cares about us and our well-being, if only we were better able
to express and explain what we mean, he wouldn’t be so angry or
disgusted with us, if only we didn’t have some inexplicable problem in
perception, we wouldn’t take things the wrong way, if only we weren’t
so inadequate—we wouldn’t feel so much pain and hurt, that he is
sincere, that he is the same way with everyone and they don’t make him
mad, so there must be something wrong with us, like he was always
saying “this is what I’m talking about ..I just want to be happy — I
don’t see us being happy -you make me do this, you make me drink,
you’re going to make me drink, you, you, you are the problem”, Misogynon
