Analogy of the Car Trip

This past week has been tough.  Five slips in eight days. I’ve worked through the angst with step work, prayer, reaching out to friends, and many candid, intimate conversations with G.  After slip one and two, I hardly felt the effect.  I felt disappointed for him, but his admissions didn’t wreck me. Slip three was much more intense because in addition to acting out, he let me wonder about his wear abouts until 11:30 one night. Not cool.  Slip four I managed reasonably well, but five knocked me down cold. As I’ve been processing my emotions, I thought back to an analogy I came up with a while back to explain to G how I feel when things go bad like this.

 

I give you the analogy of the road trip. Upon marriage, two people get in a “car” together. Riding together is nice because it gets you places you’d both like to go, it make travel easier, faster and because it's fun to have someone to ride with. When G looks at pornography, it's like we have an accident. There is pain for both of us. He is driving and caused the accident, but we both feel the jolt of impact. After such an experience I am shell shocked, but I get back in the car because I still trust his driving. After all, accidents do happen. They are not intentional.  The names says it all, accidents. And G certainly isn't intending to hurt me. But then he starts to wreck the car frequently. It takes time to mend the wounds inflicted and soon I want to take over the wheel. If I can't drive the car, I can yell at him to slow down or pay attention. In my desperation to not be involved in more accidents I can start yelling pretty loudly. Classic back seat driver syndrome. After awhile pretty soon I don't want to be in the car anymore. I am tired of the pain of the impact and it seems silly to stay in a car with a driver who has repeatedly had accidents. They don't feel like "accidents" anymore, they feel like reckless driving. And while reckless driving isn't intentionally hurting someone, it is definitely putting anyone in the car at a huge risk. At this point I feel like I am clamoring to get out of the car but the possibility of standing on the side of the road without any vehicle is scary and also really undesirable. How will I get where I want to go? Walking alone is hard. What about my kids? Can't we all ride together? Most of the time I like driving with G. He may be a bad driver, but he is good company and I'm hoping he'll stop wrecking the car someday. We have the same destination and we are making progress, but slowly due to these many stops to repair our car and mend our wounds. I can't drive the car from the passenger seat, so I can only hope he'll take the time to learn how to drive the car safely.

At this point in my life, I’ve changed the analogy a bit.  Getting out of the car isn’t leaving my marriage, it’s just detaching.  This morning I told G I need to “get out of the car” for awhile.  30 days to be exact.  Our usual system of communication is that he tells me anytime he acts out and at the first opportunity.  I believe that he is true to his word and disclosing helps him to be accountable and bring darkness out to the light.  I love the closeness we share, the openness that allows to us help, support and love each other in the good and bad times.  I feel like I could go on forever like this, but my stumbling block of late is severe insomnia.  Two nights this week I have laid in bed awake, my mind spinning with potentials and fears.  My rational brain doesn’t  function at 2am and  I lose hours of sleep.  As a mom of three small children, I have to change something.  I asked G to not disclose any slips for the next 30 days.  I don’t know if I am doing the right thing.  Losing that layer of honesty could (and probably will) cause more acting out,  but I need to look out for myself.  He has a sponsor, he friends from two 12-step groups, and he has the Savior.  I am not leaving him alone and helpless. I hope to be in a better place myself in 30 days and we can resume our conversation.

PS It’s tough to admit I’m floundering like this, especially on the day my guest post appears over at Scabs and it’s written like ‘I got this thing all figured out’.  But I know if there is a group of women who understand about good days and bad, it’s you all.  Thanks for loving me no matter what.