The thing is, I know logically that my husband's addiction and related behaviors are not about me. My head can understand that. But the nature of this addiction makes it feel so inescapably personal sometimes.
Self-esteem is a complicated thing. It doesn't just involve how you feel about yourself, and I am realizing that perhaps for the first time. For the past many years, I have felt like I have pretty high self-esteem. I suffered from clinical depression for about 7 years as a teenager, and through medical intervention and therapy, I came to a much healthier view of myself, which I have maintained pretty well since then.
However, one area in which I have suffered-- and I never understood this as being self-esteem before-- is in how I believe others view me. I have been in this mental place for a long time of believing that nobody else in the world likes to be around me. That my mere presence is a burden to other people. That anyone who befriends me is doing so out of charity. That people are generally better off when I am not around. And I just feel bad for people who have to associate with me, and that has included my husband.
It has only been through this process that I have begun to understand the serious toll this belief has taken on my mental and emotional health, not to mention on my interpersonal relationships. It has also only been through this process that I have identified how my husband's emotionally abusive behaviors, which follow a pattern of how my father (among others) has treated me, have seriously exacerbated this issue to a dangerous level.
It is painful to realize these truths, and yet, realizing them is essential to my recovery.
When it comes to negative self-talk, I hear a lot of people are tempted to believe, "If I were better, or if I were prettier, my husband wouldn't have fallen into this addiction."
My negative self-talk is a little different. I believe that I am a beautiful person, inside and out. However, I do not believe that my husband thinks so. I have such a hard time believing him when he says that I am perfect, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, that he is happy and satisfied with our marriage, and that he loves me.
It is so hard for me to believe that he loves me, because how can you do this to someone you love? It is impossible for me to believe that he is satisfied with me, because if he was, why would he seek out hundreds of thousands of other women, preferring masturbating to them above having sex with me? If he were satisfied with me, why would he commit the emotional infidelities he has committed and even contemplate leaving me to be with a woman he doesn't even know?
The problem is, my husband's actions have given me a lot of evidence to support these beliefs that I dwell on a lot:
- My husband doesn't love me
- My husband isn't attracted to me
- My husband isn't happy with our marriage
- My husband regrets his decision to marry me
- My husband wishes I was different in x number of ways
- My husband doesn't really even like who I am as a person
- My husband is only trying to convince himself that he likes (and loves) me and is happy with me
As for the solution for this negative self-talk? I'm not sure yet. I want this blog to be positive and helpful to others, but I also realize that I don't always have the answers. As a matter of fact, I usually don't. I am struggling with this a lot right now. Whenever my husband tells me how much he loves me, I feel like he is lying to himself as well as to me.
All I know is that if I continue in these negative thought patterns, it will destroy me and it will destroy any chance our marriage has at succeeding.
I am welcome to any and all suggestions, and I plan to bring this up with my therapist this week. I'll write if I find any brilliant answers.
I hear you. I deal with all of those same negative beliefs about what I think my husband thinks of me, too. There are also some specific experiences and circumstances, especially from early in our marriage, around the time he picked up his addiction again, that feed these negative beliefs I hold. But it was interesting to me that in an individual session I had with our couples therapist this week, when I told him about some of these issues that make me feel like if only were [fill in the blank]-er, he wouldn't have turned to porn and other women, he was surprised by this logical jump. He said he felt the circumstances showed the opposite---that my husband's choices really were about his deep, personal issues and not about me. I'm still trying to make the connections in that way, but from the way he said it, I trust that my therapist wasn't manipulating the conversation---that he was really surprised I didn't see it the way he did. So hopefully you talking to your therapist and me talking to mine can help us both make progress on how we think about these things. It's hard for me to switch perspective from looking at how I could be at fault to "blaming" my husband because I am so used to trying to take responsibility for my part in relationships. But here is where I should remember that every time my husband engaged in his addiction, he was removing himself from our relationship----so really anything I could or would be doing to interact with him is irrelevant right? But it's still tricky not to believe it wasn't something I did that made him want to pull away. But for those who are truly addicts, maybe he didn't always want to pull himself away, but the addiction pulled him anyway. Sorry I don't have more to offer---I'm obviously working through this still myself!
ReplyDelete"There are also some specific experiences and circumstances, especially from early in our marriage, around the time he picked up his addiction again, that feed these negative beliefs I hold. "
DeleteYes, me too. Absolutely. Especially when we were dating, my husband told me specifically some physical things he did not like about me (like saying he likes super skinny girls and that I am "average" size -- when I was a size 0 -- this is one of several comments he has made about me physically). He has also told me about thoughts he has had comparing my personality to other people's and wishing I could be more like them.
He says that these thoughts and comments were a result of the addiction. It seems impossible to believe him now that he does not still feel this way.